We left the Holiday Inn Express in Utica on Saturday morning July 8, 2017 at 7:45am under overcast skies and a threat of rain. Since our first stop was nearly 100 miles to the southeast, we had hoped to drive out from beneath the cloud cover and avoid any rainfall. It was at that moment when I heard my photographer jinx the entire day when he said: “Oh don’t worry, I’ve never had the weather ruin any of my visits to Presidential sites. Even though we had a tornado hit Fremont that first year, it still didn’t stop us from seeing the site. I’m sure the sun will come out when we get close to Albany.”
We entered Albany Rural Cemetery near Menands, New York at 9:20am and we immediately searched for the final resting place of 21st President Chester A. Arthur. Menands was located along the Hudson River just north of Albany and when we drove through the gates, there was a feeling that it would rain at any second. That meant time was of the essence and luckily for us the directions to the President’s grave were easy to follow in the huge 400-acre burial ground.
Chester A. Arthur died on November 18, 1886 at the age of 57 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage the day before. He was laid to rest on a corner plot in the huge cemetery, near other deceased members of his family. Three years after his death, an ornate black granite tombstone was placed on Arthur’s grave and a bronze sculpture titled ‘Angel of Sorrow’ was affixed to the marker. I was carried to the tombstone where I was placed on several areas of the tomb for the photos. At one point, as I stood on the angel’s green palm frond for an up-close image, I chuckled to myself when I thought the angel appeared to be using a Swiffer Duster to knock the cobwebs off Arthur’s tomb.
Towards the end of our 20-minute visit at the grave of President Arthur, it began to rain. At first, I felt a few sprinkles while I stood on the Angel of Sorrow’s “Swiffer Duster”; then the rain grew more intense as I was placed in my protective case when the photoshoot concluded. I was extremely happy for two reasons: Chester Arthur’s grave was the 20th Presidential gravesite I had visited and I also managed to stay a lot drier than my photographer. As he carried the camera case, with me in it, back to the parked Avenger where Vicki waited, the skies opened up in a full-fledged downpour. In my mind, I thought it seemed as though the “Presidential Spirits” were looking out for me and held the rain off long enough to complete our mission.
As we left the cemetery, we were only five miles from the State Capitol Building and the Governor’s Mansion in Albany; two sites that my photographer had wanted to visit with me. But as the severe thunderstorm wreaked havoc on the area, a decision was made to bypass Albany. We headed due south towards Kinderhook, New York, which was a small village nearly 25 miles from Albany. My photographer and I had hoped the “Presidential Spirits” would clear the skies for our visit with the 8th President Martin Van Buren.
The sun was shining through the partly cloudy sky as we rolled into the Martin Van Buren Historic Site; located about two miles south of Kinderhook, New York. Since it was 10:30am and our tour wasn’t scheduled to begin until 11:00, my photographer carried me to Van Buren’s home, Lindenwald, where he was able to capture the outdoor images of the three-story structure without other tourists in the way. The 8th President named his estate ‘Lindenwald’ which is German for “linden forest”. Van Buren loved the American Linden trees that lined the Albany-to-New York Post Road – a historic road that still runs past the front of the estate today.
Martin Van Buren bought the Lindenwald estate and its property in 1839 while he was President, but he did not move into the house until 1841 after he was defeated by William Henry Harrison in the 1840 election. Van Buren retired to his 36-room mansion and lived there until his death in 1862. I posed for a handful of photos in front of the elegant mansion, including one next to the original copper alloy knocker on the front door that was engraved with the date ‘1797’ – the year the home was built. When we went behind the large home, I got a great look at the tower that rose up from the northwest side of the building.
At precisely 11:00am, NPS Ranger Andrew Astley led us into Lindenwald for our interior tour of Van Buren’s beloved home. I posed for photos in the parlor, sitting room, the library, and in the President’s bedroom where Martin Van Buren died. Perhaps the highlight for me was when I was placed on the President’s toilet where I posed for a photo. As I stood on the wooden seat, I imagined “Old Kinderhook” sitting there as he “dropped a deuce” while he read a newspaper. I was nauseated when it dawned on me that Van Buren had very bushy mutton chops, perhaps the most wild and hairy sideburns in Presidential history. It was sickening to me at the mere thought that his hair traits may have transcended down to his other cheeks as well – right where I stood.
When we exited Lindenwald, Ranger Andrew mentioned that a severe storm loomed nearby and that he wanted everyone to be on the alert in case there was a need to take cover. My photographer wanted to beat the potential rain and figured it was a good time to head for the cemetery where Van Buren was buried. The Kinderhook Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery was located northwest of town and it was about three miles from the President’s estate; unfortunately, our route north took us towards the impending storm. Just as Vicki parked the Avenger alongside the road in front of the cemetery’s entrance, it began to rain; and it rained hard for about five minutes. From my camera case, I could see the obelisk that marked Van Buren’s grave in the distance, but I couldn’t blame my photographer for not wanting to get his camera equipment soaked. We had little choice but to wait for the storm to pass.
When the rain lightened up to a sprinkle, the three of us walked along the wet, grass-covered path into the small cemetery. Halfway to the President’s grave, however, it began to rain hard once again, which forced us under a tree as we huddled beneath Vicki’s umbrella to keep dry. As I patiently waited in the camera case for the rain to stop, I couldn’t help but think of my photographer’s braggard statement earlier in the day when he said that weather never has played a factor in his Presidential sightseeing. But just as that thought was going through my resin-filled mind, the sun came out and I was on the way to my 21st Presidential grave site. Perhaps that fat bastard was right!
Martin Van Buren, who was slightly robust in his own right, died at the age of 79 on July 24, 1862 from bronchial asthma and heart failure. As I was placed on the 12-foot-tall blue granite obelisk that marked his grave, I thought about the fact that Van Buren was the only President to not speak English as his first language. It turned out that Dutch was his primary language, and Martin spoke it at home throughout his life. As I stood on the granite grave marker, I found it was slippery from the rain that was still pooled in spots on the smooth surface.
When we were finished at the cemetery, it was time to head through downtown Kinderhook to photograph the historical marker located at the site of Martin Van Buren’s birth. On December 5, 1782, the future 8th President was born in a house that was attached to his parent’s tavern. Unfortunately, that house and tavern fell into disrepair in the 1940s and both were torn down. Van Buren was the first President born after the American Revolution, thus making him the first to not be a British subject. We found the marker on Hudson Street less than a mile from the village center. Vicki parked the Avenger alongside the road while my photographer carried me to the sign where he photographed me. One picture that he took was of me being held next to the sign; while the second photo was of me standing on the property’s sacred ground where our 8th President was born. Since the land where Van Buren’s birthplace was once located was private property, my photographer had to sneak through the dense foliage to capture the second image. I had vowed that on my next trip to Kinderhook I would go further onto the site to pose for a picture.
It was 1:00pm and my photographer and his wife decided to venture into town to find some lunch. Vicki saw a place called the Broad Street Bagel Company; which my photographer thought had to be good because there was a statue of Van Buren situated near the eatery. After Tom captured an image of me with the bronze President, I was carried into the bagel place where my companions ordered lunch. With their sack of sandwiches in hand, Tom and Vicki headed back to Lindenwald where they found a picnic table near Van Buren’s house. Although I stayed in the camera case while they ate lunch, I thought it was cool that the two of them had a picnic at the home of a President.
When lunch was finished, the three of us headed to the Avenger and we began our 56-mile trek to the final site of the day – The Walkway Over the Hudson State Park; one side of which was located on the north side of Poughkeepsie, New York. At 3:00pm we arrived at the park’s parking lot that was close to the entrance to the elevated walkway. At first my photographer tried to find a safer-looking location to park the Avenger, but when those efforts failed, he had to settle for the designated lot. Since a lot of our belongings were situated in the backseat and in full view, I knew that Tom had concerns of leaving the car unattended for any length of time. But his desire to walk over the Hudson had outweighed the concern of vandalism; and away we went.
The steel cantilever bridge was built in 1889 as a double-track railroad bridge until fire closed it down in May 1974. On October 3, 2009, the bridge re-opened to pedestrians. At 6,768 feet in length, the Walkway over the Hudson is the second longest pedestrian footbridge in the world. The walkway was high as well, stretching the tape measure to 212 feet from the pedestrian walkway to the Hudson River below. I tagged along in the camera case as my photographer and his wife began their nearly two-and-a-half-mile round-trip hike from the Poughkeepsie side of the river over to the Highland side on the western shore. When we were about a quarter of the way across, I heard my photographer say that it had begun to sprinkle and that he could see a major storm moving in from the southwest. At about the halfway point of our journey, I poked my head out of the case and I saw a flash of lightning in the distance. That was soon followed by a voice over a bullhorn: “Everyone needs to get off the bridge immediately.” Sure enough, two rangers who were riding in a Gator drove up behind our group and informed us that we had to exit the bridge. As my photographer and his wife attempted to turn around and head east towards their starting point, the head ranger exclaimed: “You have to exit the bridge on the west side since you have already passed the halfway point.” “But our car is parked on the east side. How in the hell are we supposed to get back to our car?” His answer was: “I guess you will have to take a taxi back to the other side or wait for the storm to pass and then walk back over.”
I could tell that Tom was infuriated, which wasn’t very difficult since he doesn’t care for authority figures anyway. For the last 2,500 feet of the hike, my photographer slowed his walking pace down to a crawl – just to protest the ranger’s authority. I thought to myself; “Dang, if he walks any slower, he’ll be going backwards.” At one point I heard Vicki say to my cameraman: “They are going to get mad at you for walking so slow.” Tom shot back – loud enough so that the rangers riding in the Gator could hear him: “This is as fast as I’m going to walk the rest of the way. If they don’t like it, they can give me a ride to the other side.” My photographer didn’t get a ride, and he was the last person off the bridge. During the last thousand feet or so of that walk, I could easily tell that Tom was experiencing a full-fledged COBS flareup of epic proportion.
It seemed to take forever for the storm to pass and for the bridge to re-open. The walkway was actually closed for only 32 minutes and when the bridge’s gates opened back up, Tom seemed to magically find the giddy-up in his step that had been missing. Even though the view of the river and nearby towns were spectacular from the span, my photographer was happy when we arrived at the Avenger at 5:10pm. Although we had left our car unsupervised in a less-than-stellar area for about two hours, everything seemed intact when we returned.
Before we headed towards Connecticut and to our home-away-from-home for the night in Danbury, my photographer spent a few minutes finding a location where he could capture an image of the bridge from water level. Once that goal was accomplished, Vicki had the Avenger’s pedal pushed to the metal in an effort to get us to our Danbury motel at a decent time. It was 6:20pm when we pulled into the parking lot of the La Quinta Inn & Suites – a motel that put us just nine miles from Sunday’s destination: The Elephant’s Trunk Flea Market in New Milford, Connecticut.
Once we were situated in our room, my photographer and his wife craved Papa John’s pizza. After I was set next to the television, Vicki placed a call to the nearest Papa John’s and requested delivery to our room. The person on the other end of the line, who had an extreme foreign accent, told her they didn’t deliver that far away. That’s when Tom, who was still feeling the effects of his COBS from the bridge fiasco, got on the phone and said: “What do you mean you don’t deliver that far away? We are at the LaQuinta and that’s only one-and-a-half miles from you. Are you telling me that you can’t deliver a pizza that’s a little over a mile away?” The person on the other end said something, but my photographer couldn’t understand a word he uttered into the phone. “Alright, we’ll be there in 20 minutes to pick up our pizza.”
Even though I stayed back at the motel while my two companions went to get the pizza, I heard them talk about their experience when they returned. Vicki mentioned that the pizza place was next to what appeared to be a half-way house, although it was dark outside, and it was difficult to see exactly what was going on. She said it did appear that we had driven into an area where we may have been the only Caucasians, and her comfort level was at a minimum, especially at night. After a brief thought of returning back to the motel without the pizza, she pulled into the parking lot and Tom hesitantly went inside; not knowing what to expect. Not only did Papa John’s have their pizza cooked perfectly, but they also had a cure for Tom’s COBS. “The people working in that pizza place were so nice, they made me feel welcome and at home. The guy that we talked with on the phone also explained that they were shorthanded, which was why they couldn’t deliver to our motel. It was funny, but I had no problem with his accent either; especially when he apologized and offered a discount for us having to drive there.”
For the most part, the entire large pizza had disappeared by the time the lights were turned out at 8:30pm. The alarm clock was set for 5:00am as my photographer and his wife needed to be at the flea market when it opened at 7:00am. As I stood guard over the room throughout the night, my focus was not on Martin Van Buren. Instead, I thought of one person and one person only – Lara Spencer from the HGTV show ‘Flea Market Flip’. Would we see Lara at Elephant’s Trunk? I could only hope!
