From Kingston to Albany at 35 MPH

Our normal 9 hour trip from home to Montreal took us two days due to car trouble and fabulous autumn weather (that caused us to turn down every other byway to see something new). The car trouble turned out to be "just" a loose panel under the car but it sounded like the whole front end of the car would jetison into space every time we exceeded 35 mph. And we discovered that life is slower paced in the Hudson River Valley as the nearest open car rental agency on a Saturday afternoon was in Albany (about 47 miles away from where we limped to in Kingston). and there were no cadillac dealerships with open service centers in the state. So we drove at 35 mph on state route 9 from Kingston to Albany, where we "night-dropped" the Cadillac for service on Monday and rented a car at the Albany airport. And then collapsed in a local Hampton Inn for the night.

Our drive prior to car troubles was much less eventful and more bucolic. We picked a route that took us through the Poconos and along the Delaware Water Gap (the northern portion of the Delaware River north of Stroudsburg up to Port Jervis, NY). The drive took us through rolling hills and river valleys full of red barns, fields of crows, signs saying "buy goats" and "antiques ahead". Passing by towns called Kunkeltown, Effort, Kregesville: evidence of the early German settlers that farmed the area. We drove through the Delaware Water Gap national Recreation Area where the Delaware River cuts through a portion of the Appalachian mountains. A quiet time of year: just a few hardy fishermen.