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| Front side of the dam |
This marina is in a fantastic location. It feels a bit like the middle of no where but there is a rental car place only 1/2 mile walk away, a grocery store, ice cream, a couple restaurants, and more. Best of all the price was quite reasonable. We made some phone calls booked a tour of West Point, rented a car, and unfortunately found out that the Culinary Institute was not open yet as the students had not returned to campus yet. Guess we have to save something to see next time we come by here :).
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| West Point Catholic Church |
We booked the first tour of the morning. The drive over to the pick up location was about 25 minutes away. The pick up location is the West Point Visitor center and military museum. Both are very much worth visiting and free. I'll even say they were better and more interesting than the actual tour. As West Point is an active military base the only way to get on campus for most of us is via a private tour company. They load you on a bus for about 2.5hrs. Let you out about 4 times then drop you back off where they picked you up. I'll say I'm glad I did it once but I would not do it again. The campus is neat to see, the guide gives some of the history of the original fort, talks about a few of the statues and various monuments around campus, takes the group to the Catholic Church, then takes the group to the wall that overlooks the river and a couple other stops. After which everyone is packed back on the bus and driven back to the visitors center. I'll say that we both enjoyed the tour of the Navel Academy much more. We spent 2-3 hours in the visitors center and museum then found a really good Chinese place for lunch and headed out for our next stop.
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| Back side of the dam |
The Croton Dam was amazing. I had only seen pictures of it from some of our friends that stopped by here on their loop. Unfortunately pictures don't do this place justice. To me it felt like a place they should be filming a James Bond movie or big action movie at. The dam was completed in the early 1900's and is supposedly the second largest man made stone structure next to the pyramids. At one time this was once of the major spots that NYC got its water from. The backside of the dam is a bit like a pyramid in that it has a large number of stone steps that is probably 2-300ft high that allows water to run over into the river below. Along side those steps is essentially a man made river that is also moving right along a huge granite cliff. The amount of water flowing through here is incredible and is not been something that I could visualize at a dam before. The entire area is hilly and very upstate New Your feeling.
The front side is pretty impressive as well. At one point there was a road across it but it seems that has been shutdown for a while now. Fortunately the dam is located in a park and there are several hiking trails that let you make the trek to the top. I easily spent an hour and a half just marveling at this thing as we walked around the various trails. I'm not sure Amy was a bit less excited than me but this stop was really a highlight for me. I could not tell you why but it was just neat. It probably also helped that it has been raining the last two days allowing for a fair amount of water to be flowing when we were there.
After our two stops we headed to the grocery store then back to the marina where we lounged in the pool for a bit, had dinner and turned in for another early night to bed.
 | | Dam wall |
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| Partial view of the marina, our boat is in the very back |
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