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New York State (4 - 8 July 2013)

Despite moving to New York City more than a year ago now, I knew very little about the rest of New York State outside of the city. New York is only the 27th largest of the 50 US states, but at more then 50,000 square miles (140,000 square kilometres) it's still pretty damn large. So with that, Kristina and I planned out a five-day road trip covering the bulk of the state in a big loop following the route below in an anti-clockwise direction.

Not a bad way to celebrate Independence Day! As per most of my road trips, we generally avoided interstates and highways and instead stuck to the back roads. Not only are they more fun to drive, you get a much better feel for a place and discover a lot more randomness along the way (and this trip was no exception). So, let the random fun commence!

Our route took us north out of New York City and along the gorgeous Hudson Valley, following the Hudson River for most of the first day. It's hard to imagine sometimes when you deal with the concrete jungle that is New York City every day that scenes like this actually exist outside of it.		This was our little beast for the trip - a Hyundai Elantra. Absolutely no balls whatsoever but bloody good on the gas mileage. They're hit and miss these rental cars. I get the same category of car every time (the crap category) but will occasionally get one with something decent under the hood that actually has some snot. Not on this occasion however.

Our first pit stop of the trip was the village of Nyack, an old Dutch farming community settled around 1680 along the Hudson River. Really nice little spot, and at only 20 miles from Manhattan, again it's hard to imagine these places exist so close to the big smoke.				Look up :)

We found a little farmers market going on (one of many we subsequently found around the state) with these two having a massive verbal on the sidewalk outside and a small crowd watching on hahaha! I wasn't there for the start of it, but like everyone else gathered round I sure enjoyed the rest of it. One of these guys owns a stall in the farmers market, and I'm not sure what happened but things somehow got heated and ended up with one of them calling the other one's wife a "pregnant bitch" hehe. I'm not sure whether she was pregnant or just fat - it's always hard to tell in this country ;)				After all that excitement we continued north through the valley.

The next stop was the town of New Paltz, which appeared to have little of interest apart from this: Huguenot Street Historic District, a small area containing seven stone houses and several accompanying structures built in the early 18th century by Huguenot settlers fleeing discrimination and religious persecution in France and Belgium.
Recent archaeological finds indicate that the immediate area settled by the Huguenots was occupied by Native Americans prior to European contact. The site is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the United States.

Not far up the road and back on the Hudson is the river port of Kingston, home to 25,000 and settled by the Dutch 1652. The city was designated New York's first state capital in 1777, and later that same year was burned by the British on October 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga. The bastards!

We headed straight to the waterfront district which was getting all geared up for Independence Day night, especially the dude on the right. On ya mate!

Kingston may have been the state capital at one point in time, but today New York's capital is here - the city of Albany. I was warned by several people while researching for this trip that Albany is weird, and not in a good way. We immediately saw what they were talking about. Much of the city was camped out here in Empire State Plaza for the usual Independence Day fireworks that take place all over the country, and my God they were the weirdest bunch of misfits I've ever seen in one location. Some people had their butts hanging out of their pants, others had their fat rolls hanging out of their shirts, teenage parents had kids hanging off every limb, and some people appeared to have mental retardation that I'm sure didn't really - it was just their face.

This dude in the light-blue shirt had tits and was wearing a bra! And I assume the older guy in the blue wife-beater was his boyfriend. Cute couple! These shots were taken with my camera down by my side pointing up so as not to make it obvious hehe. Unreal.				Thousands of dollars worth of fireworks ready to go. Our final destination for the night was another hour away, and Kristina being American had to see a Fourth of July fireworks show somewhere, but no way was I hanging around this crowd! So we got back in the car and raced to our next stop in time to see their fireworks instead. On our way out we passed through what we figured was the ghetto part of the city, or for all we know the whole city might be ghetto. Albany: don't bother!

This is Saratoga Springs (or simply Saratoga), also home to 25,000 and also getting hyped up for the fireworks. It's a proud day for all Americans, likened I guess to our Waitangi Day in New Zealand.				And up they went - happy Independence Day y'all!

Saratoga is perhaps best known for the Saratoga Race Course which opened 150 years ago this year.				Around this time of year we get pounded with a lot of storms. The whole week leading up to this trip was extremely stormy. We'd been lucky so far but the skies were constantly threatening.

We had a quick wander around Saratoga the next morning before getting back on the road.		You too can look this good.

As with our other stops yesterday (apart from Albany, which I'd prefer to forget), Saratoga has a lot of cool old buildings and houses. Kristina is obsessed with owning a house with a large front porch hehe - she had plenty to choose from here.

And here's that racetrack. Nothing going on today but I still had to sweet talk my way in just to get a photo (the Americans love this mysterious accent of mine ;) The thoroughbred track here is the oldest continuously-operating sporting event of any kind in the United States. The track holds a summer meet lasting six weeks from late July that attracts the top horses, jockeys, and trainers in America.
Back on the road, and headed for the mountains!		This is the "hamlet" of Bolton Landing. If anyone cares, a hamlet is "a community within a town that is not incorporated as a village but is identified by a name" - got it. Bolton Landing was the first of many stops (both planned and unplanned) in the Adirondack Mountains - a large dome of mountains in the northeast of the state.

Bolton Landing is spread along the shore of Lake George and is apparently famous for its maple syrup (no idea why), so it was pancakes drenched in the stuff for lunch!				Meanwhile Kristina found another house she wants.

On a sugar high from all the maple syrup, we ventured deeper into the Adirondacks. Lakes, rivers, waterfalls, all right along the roadside - stunning! There was many a U-turn and borderline illegal parking required to get some of these photos ;)

Our final destination for day two was Saranac Lake, buried deep in the Adirondacks. Very cute, very quiet, not a lot going on, but a gorgeous little spot to call it a day!

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