77 miles via US 9, US 9W, Glasco Turnpike, Kings Highway, NY 212 and Blue Mountain Road. Cumulative tow miles: 1982. Truck miles: 181. Cumulative truck miles: 3072. The extra truck miles were due to a sightseeing trip to the Bronx (to see how difficult it would be to drive near Yankee Stadium) and a couple of short shopping/refueling trips.
The would have been 76 miles, but the staff at the destination refused to register me at 1:30pm, so I had to turn around (missing a pickup by about 2 inches on the turn) and find a place to park for 90 minutes. Annoying because they made NO effort to see if the site was available.
A faster route was available, but I knew I would be early and the faster route had tolls. Why pay to wait longer?
This was yet another problem-free hop (knock on wood). The weather, though cloudy and cool, was dry. The roads, though mostly 2-lane, were level and the traffic was light. So, all in all, a very pleasant drive. And I got to use another Hudson River Bridge that I have never seen before: the Mid-Hudson Bridge in Poughkeepsie.
My home in Croton-on-Hudson was the Croton Point Park. This Westchester County campground was not at all what I expected. I thought that, being one of the campgrounds closest to New York City, that it would be very oriented to serving transients – RVs staying for short periods. I also thought it likely that there would be a strict limit on how long an RV could stay, as is the case at other regional parks that I have seen. Maybe two weeks max. Well, about half of the RVs had clearly been there longer than two weeks. Or even two months. Maybe two years.
Croton Point is a peninsula that juts out into the Tappan Zee, the broad lake in the Hudson River just south of West Point. As such, it is surrounded by water and should be prime real estate. Except that the chosen use for much of the peninsula is a garbage dump. The dump was closed and capped in the 1990s and now it is reclaimed recreational space. But what a waste!
Another thing that makes Croton Point interesting is its proximity to commuter rail. To enter the park you must pass a commuter rail station and cross a bridge over a huge commuter train yard. I looked into it and this line is a direct shot to Yankee Stadium – a factoid that would be relevant if I actually tried to do the 30-stadium MLB tour – I could stay at Croton Point and be an hour by train from Yankee Stadium and about 2 hours by train from Citi Field, home of the Mets.