Days 4/5: Mills-Norrie and Dutchess County

Tuesday morning we left our cottage at Lake Taghkanic to ride south to our next destination: Mills-Norrie State Park in Dutchess county. From Taghkanic we headed west to pick up state route 9 in the town of Livingston.

New York route 9 is a designated bike route that follows the highway for the most part (diverging from it at certain points) all the way from the George Washington Bridge in NYC to the Canadian border to the north. On this day we were travelling about 30 miles down route 9 to get to our next destination, and it was an easy day on the road, even carrying all of our gear in our panniers. This section of the route is very flat and we were able to get into a nice rhythm on the bikes. I think the most interesting part of this route is the historic towns that one passes through along the Hudson, beginning with Livingston where we joined route 9.

I’ve been reading a book on the history of the Hudson, and Livingston Manor figures prominently in the early English history of the Hudson river valley, in the 17th century, after the Dutch rule had waned. The original land grant that formed Livingston Manor covered 160,000 acres in Columbia and Dutchess counties. Further down the road, route 9 passes through Clermont, another artifact of the original Livingston Manor. Clermont Manor had been established in 1728 by Robert Livingston, one of the descendants of the elder Livingston. It’s hard to keep track of all these Livingstons, since they’re all named Robert. Some of them are even named Robert Robert. Anyway, all kinds of interesting history in this area: apparently it was the farthest north the British got up the Hudson during the American Revolution. It’s also the home of the first steamboat (also associated with a Livingston).

South of Clermont we passed through a town called Red Hook. We had gotten so used to little tiny hamlets that it was a surprise to pass through a substantial town in this part of the country. In Red Hook we noticed an interesting roadside sign: 104 miles to New York.



After Red Hook we cruised through the town of Rhinebeck, which we would revisit a couple of times on our ride the next day. Rhinebeck is a very charming little upscale town with lots of shops and eateries. While in Rhinebeck we grabbed lunch and food stuffes for dinner before continuing another 8 miles or so down the road to Mills Norrie.

While Mills Norrie was theoretically right off of route 9, it proved a little challenging to locate the cabins. The state park region is actually really large and encompasses the historic Mills Mansion as well as the small village of Staatsburg, which was probably established to support the mansion. We finally found the entrance to the state park, then meandered around a bit until we arrived in the general vicinity of the cabins. Even at that point it wasn’t at all clear where our cabin was or if we were even in the correct park. Rachael called the posted number and they pointed us toward a *cardboard* sign tacked to a tree that led the way to our cabin. Rustic! In fact the cabin was quite charming, nestled in forest, and right on the cliff-side overlooking the Hudson River. For dinner we feasted on bread, cheese, salami, pasta, and wine that we had bought in Rhinebeck.

On Wednesday we did a nice 50 mile loop through Rhinebeck and the surrounding countryside, passing through some small towns and climbing up one or two grades. This ride is #5 in Backroad Bicycling near New York City. It was a really nice ride, but it was so chilly that day that I was pre-occupied with thoughts of returning to the cabin and hanging out in the heated bathroom for several hours, just for warmth. On our return into Rhinebeck, we did stop at the CVS to pick up a duraflame log (I had been thwarted in my firemaking attempts the past two nights and was not going to fool around anymore). After Rhinebeck we did a quick cruise through Rhinecliff then headed back to the cabin at Mills-Norrie to warm up.


About 2 miles away from the cabin was this very small village, Staatsburg, that actually had one restaurant. This was the only night that we were really within range of a restaurant for dinner, so we cleaned up and took the bikes into town for a hot meal. The place is called Portofino, and it actually has decent reviews online from what I can tell. The main thing for us was that it was hot food and super cheap: my memory is a bit fuzzy but it seems like we had a 4 course meal with wine flight for $25. Granted the food was just so-so, but it still hit the spot. The 2 mile bike ride back to the cabin was cold. So cold. But thanks to the duraflame we got the fire going and were able to warm up a bit.

Also, Rachael had a giant, ugly, probably deadly venomous, spider in her room, which I captured and deposited outside. Good times.

Next: Bear Mountain and back to civilization