It is pretty late at night and we are in White Plains NY staying with our friends Rosie and Simon, so this might be shorter than the others.

We just finished dinner at the Moghul Palace in Valhalla, NY. All good, amd I learned a new word, Mangolorean. This is cuisine from the coastal city of Mangalore, not the central city of Bangalore. I had Mangalorean Salmon Curry, with ginger and coconut.

We left Troy this morning, not, like Odysseus heading for Ithaca, but for White Plains. We made a few stops on the way, including Kinderhook, the home of Martin Van Buren (who was not in residence today). We had toured the house, built in the 1840s, several years ago, so today was just a pass-by.

We saw also the 1819 John Vanderpohl House (now a museum), and the house where Benedict Arnold recuperated after being injured in the Battle of Bemis Heights in 1777 (now a house).

Most things in Kinderhook are rather ritzy, by the way, but not this.

And the countryside is very nice.

On to Catskill, where we visited the 1815 house and studio of artist Thomas Cole, who is credited for creating the Hudson River School of Painting.

And yes, we visited the 1815 privy as well. The privy was another pass-by.

Then, on to Saugerties, where they like dogs

And where you can buy a very nice building.

We skipped Kingston and Poughkeepsie, but stopped at Newburgh, a very troubled city, but home of the first building ever bought by a U.S. governmental body for historic preservation purposes – George Washington’s headquarters in 1782 and 1783.

This is the Orange County Courthouse in Newburgh, almost 200 years old.

All was not good there.

Because of time constraints, we skipped Bear Mountain and West Point. But we stopped when we crossed the Hudson at Bear Mountain to enjoy the view.

And quite a view it was.

Tomorrow, the plan is rain, Manhattan to see other friends, rain and home.