We didn’t even try to make coffee today; we headed straight for a diner we drove by last night on the way to pizza. We wanted to compare diners. The Hauppauge Palace has the classic chrome and neon look, and it was good, but not as good as the previous day’s Ft. Dix Diner. This time the Eggs Benedict were only two eggs and it was a dollar more expensive. Maybe that’s the difference between Ft. Dix and Hauppauge.
After breakfast we headed back to the trailer to break camp and attack the Long Island highway system by skirting past the outskirts of New York City. By eating at the diner and taking our time, we were mostly able to avoid the crush of rush hour traffic heading into the City.
We were headed to White Plains to see if we could find the apartment building I lived in when my dad did his American internship in 1958. White Plains, part of Westchester County, has some fancy estate homes and is a world apart from the vertical jungle to its south. Early in the 20th century, White Plains' downtown area developed into a dominant suburban shopping district and featured branch stores of many famous New York-based department and specialty stores. Some of these retail locations were the first large scale suburban stores built in the United States. Today it is still a huge retail destination in the area with Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Macy's, Sears, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Crate & Barrel, H&M, Burlington Coat Factory, and over 1000 other small and mid-size stores in four malls.
During the late 1960s, the city of White Plains developed an extensive urban renewal plan for residential, commercial and mixed-use redevelopment that effectively called for the demolition of its entire central business district. My apartment building was demolished to make room for the expansion of White Plains Hospital.
Driving through these city streets wasn’t that easy with my truck and trailer, but I decided to try to find Post Avenue School, my old grade school. It too was gone, replaced by a modern new school. My history was erased from the physical White Plains but not from my memories.
Marianne had never been to Connecticut so we made a small detour toward Danbury, stopping at the state’s visitor center along the Interstate, just as a large, dark ominous cloud was menacingly approaching from the northwest. We stopped to walk the dogs and have lunch inside the trailer, and within minutes we were in a rain deluge.
After 20 minutes it was all over.
That night on the TV news we heard that the storm had uprooted trees in Connecticut, and dropped 1” diameter hail on the Trogs Neck Bridge we had just crossed an hour earlier! And the wind was also extremely powerful on Long Island with tornado-like force near where we were camping. We were worried about the three girls that had set up a tent just across from our campsite in Blydenburgh County Park. They needed some help setting up their tent properly and were going to spend the night in the park after their prom. They were probably gone getting ready for their prom when the storm hit, but I wonder if there was anything left at their campsite when they got back.
We continued north to Plattekill, home to the KOA which claims as being the “New York City North KOA”. They even offer guided tours to all of New York’s tourist attractions, but I was guessing it would take at least couple of hours to get there and another couple hours to get back. It’s like my home town of Oceanside claiming to be the “South Los Angeles KOA” since it also takes two hours of travel time to get there.
This KOA could claim itself as the “Newburgh North KOA” since it’s only a few miles away from the home of Orange County Choppers, the Discovery Channel’s popular show about the dysfunctional family which built custom motorcycles. Their “World Headquarters” didn’t make in onto my current bucket list. Maybe in another life.
The Plattekill KOA is pretty much in the middle of nowhere down some two lane country roads on the west side of the Hudson River Valley. The area was settled in 1678 by the Huguenots, just 20 years after the failed English Lost Colony on Roanoke Island. Their homes in the small town of New Paltz, just a few miles north of the KOA, are some of the best examples of early stone houses built by Europeans in North America. It is also home to the State University of New York at New Paltz.
We also found a cute and very modern supermarket where we once again loaded up on supplies.
We did our Internet thing for a while and then got ready to climb into bed. The latest thing is that the dogs like to sleep on our bed just before we do, hoping against hope that their cuteness will allow them to stay. But I have developed a better method for getting the dogs off our bed, I just go to the jar where their treats are, open it, and they come bounding, sitting properly, begging for their treat. While they’re munching away, I sneak back into the bedroom, close the door and pass out.
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