Dutchess County Exploration: Route 44 and 55, and found cards!

 Yesterday my brother and I took our next trip in the Dutchess County Exploration project, this was covering Route 44 and Route 55. These were the last major east-west routes in the county we had not done yet, although this was actually one of the first trips I planned when coming up with the concept of the project last year. 

Route 44 is actually a US route, and runs through 4 states, but the scope of this trip is only the part of it in Dutchess County. Route 55 is a New York State route but merges with 44 for a good run before splitting off and going across the county to the south. Other than a very small section just west of Poughkeepsie, Route 55 was already pretty well covered in our last trip to the eastern part of the county. The Wikipedia links actually have a very good description of the roads. 

With this trip done, there is only one more major trip left in the project, and then we'll be picking out the areas we missed. I still have to write the posts for the first few trips, stay tuned for them! 

We started out by heading down Vassar Road, a trip I've made many, many times. 

Vassar College

Vassar again

Now on 55, I didn't post more from this part since I've already covered it. (I did take more, of course)

Now in Pawling, this cemetery dates to 1788.

Scenes from Pawling

We went out to Woodinville on Old Route 55, and this is pretty much the extent of it. It's a very small area that's entirely residential with oddly pitched roads. Honestly, I doubt I will ever go there again. 

Will always stop for a historical marker if possible. 

We circled back to Pawling because we saw a cool store we had to go to...

The Imperial Castle Toy store. It was a very cool place! Lots of toys from the 60s to current, some neat displays, and a very friendly owner. I'm mostly retired from action figure collecting, but we will definitely be going back there for sure. I did get some Starting Lineups and even some cards here- they are at the end of the post. 

A life size movie Harley statue

An 8-foot TIE fighter in the window

Back on the road, headed back towards 22. 55 merges with 22 in Pawling and the entirely of that has already been photographed on two previous trips. 

We looked for the small hamlet of South Mizzen Top, the most southeastern hamlet in Dutchess County. It's two houses on a deadend gravel road, which we elected not to go down. It neither showed up on the map nor even had one of the green signs stating the name of the area, which is what I try to use when the GPS doesn't show them. 

The only other thing in South Mizzen Top is this plaque on a rock detailing the history of the Oblong. 

The area of Quaker Hill Road and South Quaker Hill Road is very nice and picturesque. 

A very impressive house on South Quaker Hill Road

After we finished on South Quaker Hill Road, we had actually dipped into Putnam county, and to head north on Route 22 from that road is an almost 180 degree turn- so far, the sharpest turn we've encountered on any travels-I'm talking in my life, from Maine to Illinois, not just in Dutchess County! On the way back I spotted this 1970 El Camino, meaning if I saw nothing else on the day it would have been a great day!  

There were actually quite a few old cars out and about yesterday- I saw at least a dozen. 

Waiting to turn left onto Route 44 from 22 in Amenia, note our Edge's reflection. 

We stopped again at the Scenic Overlook in Amenia, but this time I brought my camera with 42x optical zoom and 170x digital zoom. The next group of pictures is from there. 

Back on the road now

Another cool old building, this one in Salt Point, NY

If I had the money I'd love to save these old buildings

The Wappinger Creek in Pleasant Valley

First time I've seen one of the new Corvettes up close

This new construction, still in progress, in in Poughkeepsie. I actually like this strip, it had character, unlike most new buildings. 

Now we are in the heart of the City of Poughkeepsie. 

While Poughkeepsie has some amazing architecture, it also has a drug and gang problem, and is considered more dangerous than even NYC. 

Here's the current map of what we've explored, the pink lines in multiple places are the ones I photo documented on this part of the trip...sort of. When  I drew in the red line with yellow border, I actually messed up and colored in Route 52, instead of Route 55. Route 52 should have been in green. 

I was able to add ten new places to the Places I've been project, only half of which showed up on the GPS. Surprisingly LaGrange does not show up on the GPS- only LaGrangeville. 

Now, the stuff I got at the Imperial Castle! He had a whole display of Starting Lineup figures, and I got my first Hockey figures there! When SLUs were common and we had regular card shows, I wasn't yet into hockey so I didn't get any. Now that I am into hockey, the line has been gone for about 20 years. 

Carey was the first one I actually picked up. 

Amazingly Joe Thornton is still in the league, signing a new deal with the Panthers 3 days ago! Too bad the figure predates the trademark beard...but at least here he's wearing pants! 

Although he had quite a few NBA figures, only one of them was not already in my collection, and that was Buck Williams from the original 1988 release. There were three Nets in that first release, and I didn't have any of them...until now! 

There weren't too many cards in the shop- it's a toy store, not a card store, after all. But on the counter he did have these, which I hadn't heard of. As you all know I'm a history nut so I was definitely interested and my brother treated me to a box. You get two cards per box- one taken from the margins of an actual historical document, and one a word or if you're exceptionally lucky, a signature actually written by the president. 

I did exceptionally well on the relic, pulling Dutchess County's only president so far in FDR! 

my handwritten word turned out to be kind of a let down in that it's a simple "a" and not a president I'm particularly fond of, but it could have been worse. I would have been genuinely unhappy if it was Andrew Jackson or Trump. The store owner told us that one of his customers pulled James Monroe and John Adams, which is really pretty amazing. 

The cards are very nicely made and they are now the only things in my collection that were actually held or written by any president, so that's still pretty cool! I wouldn't mind getting some more but they were a little on the expensive side, though I do feel like it was worth it. Sorry, my scanner is still not plugged in so only pictures for now. 

Since it was a smaller trip, I only took about 250 photos. You can see them on my website here: Route 44 & 55 Trip. Thanks for reading!