New York - Day 24 - Albany/Schenectady

Schodack Island State Park

Thursday, 24 May 2018

Eastern Towhee

On our early morning walk, we walked almost right up to an Eastern Towhee, previously known as a Rufous-sided Towhee – beautiful birds with lots of black and rusty-colored sides.

Yesterday, I managed to get an appointment for Dexter’s annual check-up at a Banfield in Schenectady, which I learned is only a few miles down the road from Albany.  The only time I could get was 3:45, so I decided to spend the day checking out the two towns to get a feel for them.

This tree, and others like it, were in the park I found.

New York State Capitol

As usual, I got lost in Albany and found a lovely park where I could park, get a wi-fi signal to get found again, and walk the dogs.  Getting there, I’d driven by an incredibly ornate building, which turned out to be the state capitol.  After I’d gotten found, I drove back (getting lost again) to try to get a photo it but, once I got there, I couldn’t find anything like a parking place, other than the state parking garage, and I didn’t want to pay to park when all I wanted was a quick photo.   So I’m cribbing this photo.  To me, it looks more light-hearted than most state capitols.  According to the New York Times, which I can get fairly easily around here, it’s not light-hearted at all but instead a place of corruption and other bad things.  Oh well.  I like the building.

I liked Albany, too.  I kept getting lost there but got found more and more easily.  It’s an old city, established before the Revolution, and there are still some old buildings, especially in the city center.

State Route 5, also known as Central Ave. in Albany and State St. in Schenectady, is a pleasant drive of about 20 miles or so, with several other small towns built along it between the 2 cities.  I smelled a skunk along there, which may give you an idea of how rural parts of it are.

We passed a fire station along the road and I finally figured out why it had sounded so odd at that firefighters museum when they kept talking about fire companies.  Around here they have fire companies, but back home I grew up with fire departments.  Semantics, but I’m glad to know why it had sounded off-kilter.

If I tell you that in 1892 Schenectady was the home of General Electric and a major manufacturing hub, and then fell on hard times as jobs were moved elsewhere, but is now trying to reestablish itself in other areas such as renewable energy, you’ll know what the town looks like.  It has some oddities: 25% of the population lives below poverty level; scenes from “The Way We Were” were filmed at Union College in the city center; it has a growing population from Guyana; it has some lovely old buildings and several neighborhoods on the National Historic Register.  If the town leaders can figure out how to pull in new industries and retrain the work force, Schenectady will be able to come back to life.  Right now, it looks like it’s on the brink and could go either way.

Back at the vet’s office, I’d gone in before 11:00 asking if they’d maybe had a cancellation and could fit us in earlier (no), but when I went back about 2:00, she said they could get me in instantly.  So Dexter got his shots and his annual check-up, and both dogs were pronounced free of ticks, and I agreed to some pills to give them once a month to deal with the ticks.  Expensive, but so is Lyme disease.

I’d asked for the earlier doctor visit to avoid being stuck in Albany’s rush hour traffic going back to the campground, but I got stuck anyway because I got lost again.  Well, not exactly lost but they don’t label their roads the way the look on the maps or on Google so I had to drive around for a while before I found a sign I recognized.  And after I got across the bridge onto the other side of the Hudson River, I made a wrong turn and got lost again in Rensselaer.  That time I got rescued by a man whose directions were absolutely perfect, unlike some I’ve gotten.  And from there the campground wasn’t far.

today's route