Empire State Tour 2021 - Day 4 - Troy to Hudson

 A huge storm front with heavy rain and massive thunder and lightning came through last night. It knocked the temperature down 30 degrees. It rained all morning, so we hid in our room at the Troy Best Western until nearly 11:00. By then, the rain was very light. Temperature was in the low 60s.

Originally I wanted to push 75 miles today to Kingston, but I realized the hotel options were all expensive and located next to Walmart. So I shortened the ride to only going 47 miles to Hudson, where we have a super cool but pricey AirBnB right off the gorgeous historic main street. Hudson is a magnificent example of historic preservation.

After about an hour we got to a pizza place in Hampton Manor, just before East Greenbush. The rain had picked up a bit, so we dawdled inside over our pizza until it slacked off again, which was just after 1:00. The big challenge here was keeping from getting a chill in our damp clothes until it was time to go. We were still actually pretty cold when we left, but we warmed right up when we started pedaling. It would have been smart to bring a warmer layer.

We did the Empire State Trail all day. Even though we had reservations about it from earlier, I researched the map and it appeared to mostly follow the right of way of the Albany and Hudson Railroad, which was an electric interurban line. This turned out to be a winner, because after pizza, it was all rail trail, either paved or crushed stone in very good condition. And even better, it went at a slight upgrade to the high point between East Schodack and Nassau, and from there it was all flat or slightly downhill to Hudson. 

There was a lot of wildlife along this trail! We saw a fox, deer, rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, wild turkeys, and many songbirds, including indigo buntings, goldfinches, catbirds, and a brown thrasher. There are horse farms and many cows.

This was great. We actually rode the whole way from the pizza place without a break because the riding was so easy, and we got into Hudson feeling really good. And we were in by 4:30, which is pretty amazing considering the amount of time we spent sitting around waiting for the rain to stop.

Here I am looking all chipper in our cool AirBnB, with Chinese lions.

Max was happy too, and especially delighted to discover our place has a sleeping loft, which he immediately claimed.

This place also has a washer and dryer, so all our clothes are now clean and dry.

There are many really great restaurants right by our lodging in Hudson, and they are all closed on Tuesdays. So instead we went to American Glory, a BBQ joint, wait sorry, an "American Gastro-Que Pub" is what they call themselves. It was not so great. But it got the job done.

Here is the Strava track.