Roebling's Aqueduct and into the Forest(burgh)

 Last week my brother and I took three adventures- our first three in months- when he had the week off from work that was originally scheduled for Lake George. Although I already posted about Space Farms, which was our second adventure, the first was actually back to Roebling's Aqueduct. 

Back on March 1st, our last Adventure, we visited Roebling's Aqueduct, which connects Barryville, NY, to Lackawaxen, PA. But it was freezing cold, there was all kinds of glare, and I didn't realize my camera was zoomed in, and the historical markers were all messed up. We knew we had to go back, and finally, we did. As an aside, it's awfully hard to use a smart phone camera when you can't feel your fingers.

The overlook on I-84 heading towards Port Jervis is a favorite of mine...although the historical markers there are unreadable. 

That little white dot that I circled is actually an airplane, and we were ABOVE it on I-84, as it was going in for a landing somewhere in either Pennsylvania or New Jersey. I'm not sure where it landed, as all three states meet in that area. 

Going up Route 97 means the Hawks Nest- a curvy road on the side of a cliff. It's ok going north, scary as heck going south. We didn't come back the same way.

You can see the Delaware River down in the valley below. That's what separates NY from PA. 

We are now in the parking lot for the Aqueduct, looking at the Delaware River, and into Pennsylvania.

And here's the Aqueduct

There were a TON of caterpillar nests in the trees, more than I've ever seen, over there. 

This sign made me laugh, and got "got a mule, her name is Sal" in my head for the rest of the day, even though it was a different canal.

We walked the towpath, which is where the mules once walked, pulling boats along the Delaware River and the D&H Canal.

The Delaware River is really peaceful and beautiful. I could see myself spending many days in those chairs watching the water. Nowadays it's somewhat secluded, but back in the day it was a major commercial river. You can see some of the remains of one of the lochs in the foreground from when it was a working river.

We saw a ton of Kayakers that day. Probably about 20 of them. OK, so 20 may not be a ton, but it's the most I've ever seen in one place. (To compare my use of "ton", there were literally thousands of caterpillar nests)

The buttress was impressive. 

Looking up at the bottom of the Aqueduct.

I like big buttresses and I cannot lie.

I also took a video while standing here but I have not figured out how to load it on the new blogger format yet.

That water there is a remnant of the D&H Canal...and looks like it hasn't been touched since the Canal was closed in 1898. It's completely closed in and stagnant. 

Really weird pattern on the tree.

Although hard to capture in a still photo, this is an eddy, where the water flows backward in a circular pattern. There are many along the Delaware, and they give their name to many towns along it.

This is as far as we went on the Towpath, the further we went the more bugs there were so back we went.

Now we begin to see some historical signs. They are only shown in full here, but I have closeups of the words on my Fotki, which the link is placed at the bottom.

Looking down at the towpath we just walked.

Because it used to be filled with water, for boats, the cars are actually down low in the bridge. When you drive across it- which we did back in March, but not this time- you can't actually see the water.

You can see where the remains of the dam are still in the water.

Pretty sure we have now crossed into Pennsylvania by this point, walking across the bridge.

Looking back into NY

There were a ton of cars crossing the bridge that day. When we visited in March there were maybe 4 the entire time we were there.

That brown house on the right has some great views of the River...and they can hear it too, as the bridge is in an area of rapids. 

It must have looked a lot different back in the day. This is a detail shot of the sign in Lackawaxen.

Taken in PA looking back at NY

The bridge, and the remains of the Dam, make the area directly south of the bridge into a rapids. 

I held my camera out over the side and pointed straight down. This is not without risk as there's no strap on a smart phone.

Even the carving is nice.

I decided that I want to live in that giant brown house, or one of the ones in Lackawaxen, and spend a lot of time watching the water. 

There's a somewhat less stagnant remainder of the D&H Canal.

OK, being honest, I mostly took this for the Mustang.

Unfortunately, the Toll House museum was closed due to the corona virus...meaning we will be back at some point. 

This is inside the museum, taken through the window.

Taken from the museum's porch.

When looking up the town of Barryville NY, where this is located, on Wikipedia, they had an incorrect date for the toll house, so I corrected it. Only the third time I've edited Wikipedia. (Just in case you are curious, the other two were correcting the listing for Jebidiah Springfield, and clarifying the entry for Kari LaRaine Miller to make it clear that she was not driving drunk, but had been hit by a drunk driver- information taken from her Topps card)

After we left the Aqueduct, we headed inland, exploring some new towns...along the way, we found the Mongaup Reservoir, which was also very peaceful and serene.

This is representative of most of the roads we were on that day. Small, two-lane, curvy, and mostly woods around. It isn't called Forestburgh for no reason! 

We ended up finding a cool old house, which we stopped for a photo session of. 

Nobody celebrates sesquicentennials anymore.

There were a lot of little old houses along the way. I'm big time into architecture and I enjoyed seeing them.

We crossed and drove along the Minisink river. 

I didn't expect to find a race track, but there one was!

The burial sight of the first European settler in Sullivan County, who fought in the Revolution. His house once stood here but it's totally gone now.

We ended up back on Route 17, which I'm not particularly fond of, despite enjoying superhighways as a general rule.

Great old barn.

Finally back on I-84, crossing the Hudson river on the way home.

We ended the trip at Wendy's and I saw two old cars. I didn't photograph the spicy nuggets I got. 

I took "only" 397 photos on this trip, which you can see here: Roebling's Aqueduct

Thanks for reading!