Finger Lakes-Delaware Water Gap Road Trip

Continuing the “small travel” era during Covid, an end-of-summer trip to the Finger Lakes and back via Northeast Pennsylvania at the end of August 2020. First, met some friends for the day near Ellenville in Ulster County and then spent the night in Roscoe before eventually reaching the Finger Lakes region:

The next day we set out for Watkins Glen State Park in Watkins Glen:

We spent the night at the Quality Inn in Horseheads, just south of Watkins Glen:

Complimentary breakfast during Covid was takeaway:

Next day we went to the Corning Museum of Glass:

The museum is very interesting and the glass displays were often mesmerizing:

Corning itself is charming:

And the Rockwell Museum also downtown:

From there we traveled south to spend the night in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, stopping at the zany Lopez Winery & Vineyard along the way:

Rita’s Water Ice in Bloomsburg, PA with the mask request:

The next day, back to New York via the Delaware Water Gap, where we took a short hike:

Village Farmer and Bakery in the town of Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania:

Ulster County Updates

Kelder’s Farm in Kerhonkson:

Sam’s Point in the Minnewaska State Park Preserve:

Widow Jane Mine just outside of Rosendale:

Rosendale Trestle:

Rosendale itself is charming:

Main Line/Port Jervis Line To Port Jervis

The Main Line tracks — the reason Secaucus Junction is a junction — travel below the Northeast Corridor tracks there, where one switches to the Main Line out to Port Jervis:

The Moodna Viaduct trestle bridge is 3200 feet long and rises 193 feet above the valley below, making it the second-highest, second-longest trestle bridge east of the Mississippi River (second, that is, to the Poughkeepsie Bridge, otherwise known as the Walkway Over the Hudson):

Port Jervis:

I’m fuzzy when it comes to railroad minutiae but it says the Port Jervis line was once the Erie Railroad, and the Erie Limited was a fairly big time passenger route running from Hudson County across from Manhattan to Chicago. This charming old station served as the passenger stop for Port Jervis (the current Metro-North station is much more modest):

The Erie Hotel and Restaurant:

We happened upon this wonderful little caboose in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store:

The picturesque Laurel Grove Cemetery sits on a finger of land between the Delaware and Neversink Rivers:

At the tip of the peninsula is the Tri-States Monument, which is the exact spot where the borders of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania intersect:

A nearby stele “witnesses” the marker and provides details . . .

The 115-foot-long Erie Turntable dates to 1927 and was part of the railyard at Port Jervis; turntables are used to turn locomotives around where there is not a lot of space for a turnaround:

We visited in 2022, just before the Port Jervis Transportation History Center was to have opened. Sadly, it seems that the city of Port Jervis is evicting the organization that runs the center and the historic trains at the site are going to be moved (the fate of the historic turntable itself is unclear) . . .

Finally, back through New Jersey on the journey back home: