Vanderbilt Home - Hyde Park, New York

We had arrived in New York a day early and made a stop in Hyde Park. The Vanderbilt's had built one of their homes there and it is available to tour. The view as you drive into their former estate was beautiful.
One can walk the grounds for free, and they are vast. There is a gift shop and the office in one of the homes they had built for guests. This is the main house. We were able to tour it for a small fee, but no photos were allowed inside. It was something to see the beautiful woodworking, sculpted marble, painting on the ceilings....... They brought in skilled laborers from Europe and everything was done by hand.
They had a nice view of the river from the back of the house.


This was the back of the house.

It is something to see all of the detailed hand carving on the pillars and around the outside of the home.
They had several greenhouses at one time and vast gardens. Off to the left, there were terraces where they would have sat at on time.
In the back ground is the gardener's home. When the Vanderbilt's had lived here, there was a farm, as well. It's owned by a private individual and not part of the tour, but you can see the tunnel that went under the road and connected it to the main property. The farm workers would show the livestock at the Duchess County Fair.

At the back of the garden is a water feature that they had. The tour of the house is guided and it was informative. The rest of the grounds your are free to walk and look around.

NY Sheep and Wool Festival

This year I was able to make the trip to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, New York. I brought two of my daughters along and we made our trip via the train. It was a long trip out there and back, but well worth it.

There were barns and buildings full of different vendors with beautiful yarns, rovings, shawl pins, handmade drop spindles, hand woven and hand knit items............. It was almost overwhelming. The grounds were packed full of festival go'ers and it was just about impossible to maneuver through the buildings at times.
One of the buildings was dedicated to crafts and wine/food tasting. We came home with several cheeses and a bottle of wine from the Finger Lakes region of New York. Outside, there was a vendor selling various apples and pears from their orchard that was located a few miles up the road from Rhinebeck. They were delicious and we brought home some of those. There were a variety of sheep, lamas and several alpacas. We spent some time watching one of the shows.
We had arrived a day early, hoping to take some time to enjoy the area. We weren't disappointed. The fall colors were beautiful. The water in the background is the Hudson River.
We took a little time to visit the Vanderbuilt mansion in Hyde Park. It offered the chance to drive down to the rivers edge.
One of the last places we visited was the lighthouse in Saugerties.