Home Again!

We left the Hudson Valley on Monday morning and were home by mid afternoon after a wonderful adventure!  Now it is back to "reality".

This has been a rather busy week, especially for Ken.  He had 3 settlements throughout the week and this was his final working week.  As of yesterday afternoon, he is officially retired from the Real Estate Business.  It is so exciting for him (us) to start the next phase of our lives.  This weeks settlements all had some challenges and caused him to lose sleep several nights.  I am so thankful that the stress of this professional will now be behind him.  He is looking forward to "reinventing" himself and to spending more time together!

Kevin took Wendy, Ken and I to lunch to celebrate his last day and do some reminiscing.  This team has been together for many years and Ken will continue to be a mentor whenever they need to talk to him. 

Friday evening our daughters and their families had a family retirement party at Jamie's house complete with banners, balloons, a special retirement mug, etc.  We were there for hordeorves and dinner and had such a wonderful evening.   It was so nice of the girls to plan it.  We had a cake from a Achenbachs, a local bakery, that has been baking a special cake for Ken's clients on the anniversary of their home purchase every year since they bought the property.  Some have been getting them for 20 plus years.  The cake is decorated with a house and trees and says Happy Home Anniversary from The Ken Hosler Team.  So I ordered that same cake with the words Happy Retirement Ken and the bakery gave it as a gift to Ken.  How nice.  They have made so many cakes with that some decoration for so many years for the Team.  It was a win/win for the bakery and the clients.

 

Our 6 year old granddaughter, Bria, had written this on their
driveway for her PaPa!

The cake all our clients have received every year on the purchase
date of their home!  Now it was Ken's turn!

The happy Retired Couple!

This is our daughter, Jamie.  She had the party at her house!

Our daughter, Lanie, was her helper!

The playground that daddy, PaPa, and Pop Pop put together!
The granddaughter love it!!!!
 

This is Jamie and Dane's backyard.  What a great play for the
little ones.  The even get to canoe here and they are in town
within a 1/2 block of the high school!

We are looking forward to our next trip which is to Moody Beach in Maine starting July 7 and then the next week we move to Sandy Beach in New Hampshire for another week.  The Frankhousers were supposed to be with us for those 2 weeks, but things are sort of "in the air" right now.  They had an accident on Wednesday night bringing their repairs trailer back from the dealer.  A gentleman in a truck ran a red light and plowed into them, totally demolishing their Jeep and Trailer.  Fortunately they were not injured (a miracle) but now they are not able to camp.  They were going to check with the CG's to see if they could rent cabins for the 2 weeks.  Haven't heard if that will be possible. Certainly hope they will be joining us.

Trip to the Woodstock Museum!

The 6 of us meet at Willie to have breakfast together at 9:30.  Time for the Frankhousers and Martins to pack up for heading home!  We packed our lunches, said our goodbyes, and then left for the 1 1/4 hour drive to The Museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.  Ken really wanted to see this "tribute" to the Woodstock Festival and I was excited too!

Not at all what I expected!  I was looking for a "hippie" like building with wild colors, peace symbols, etc. but that was far from what we discovered.  This museum all about Woodstock and the 60's is so well done and very informative.  Many little movie presentation to watch throughout the museum and much memorabilia, including a colorful bus and VW Bug.  We enjoyed reminiscing about the 60's, since we graduated from high school in 1968 and got married in 1969.  The facts and info about Woodstock was very interesting too! 

This is the building that houses the Woodstock Festival Museum!

So much happened in the 60's!

This entire museum was so well done!

Our Graduation Year!

Our Wedding Year!

Were we really Hippies?????

What a line-up of singers!

Joe Cockers singing ended the Festival!

Then we walked outside to see the actual site of the stage and the area where all the people watched all the concerts.  The grounds of this area were beautiful and it really was a natural amplitheater.  

The building and the surrounding grounds are beautiful!

This is the outdoor stage for many top name concerts
throughout the summer!

The open area near the fence is the site of the stage
for the Woodstock Festival!  Easy to see why it was a
natural setting for the Festival!

The memorial to the Festival and a closer view of the stage area!

Back to Willie by 5:30 to do some prep work for our departure tomorrow, a quick dinner, and some cleaning of our canopy.  This has been a great area for so many exciting new adventures.  Really enjoyed our time here! 

What a Fantastic Day!

The 6 of us met at Martin's site for a pancake breakfast at 9:30.  Earlier I had walked around the CG checking out the yard sales.  We had a new treat for breakfast - apple strudel pancakes!  Delicious!! 

Then Frankhousers and we hitched our 4 bikes onto Diesel and we headed towards Kingston to ride the bike trail.  Doloris had sore knees from yesterday and decided she shouldn't ride.  They decided to do some wine tasting instead of ride bike!  Sam, Kathy, Ken and I rode on the gorgeous, scenic and wooded D & H Canal Trail for a total of 10 miles.  It was a great ride!  Tried some geocaching, but no luck!  Think we will need to pay the monthly fee for the extra hints and tips.  We just aren't being very successful!

The beavers have been busy!

 

Saw this snake slithering in the water!

A second beaver lodge, but no beaver sitings!

This property really caught our eyes right off the trail!
Ken would like to know their story!!!  Must be from
the 60's and the hippie era!

Then we drove to the Kingston waterfront to meet up with Fred and Doloris for lunch at the Mariner's Harbor Restaurant.  We were able to eat outside and the sandwiches were delicious.  We would highly recommend the open faced meatball Parmesan.  After taking some group photos, we headed back to the CG.  Stopped at Cherries for some Perry Ice Cream.

This trolley runs on a short track at the waterfront!

This was a delicious open faced meatball Parmesan sandwich!

This is the Mariner's Harbor Restaurant!

We took this paddleboat ride!!!!!!

The weather today was absolutely beautiful with plenty of sunshine, lower humidity and temperatures around 86 degrees.  A perfect day to ride bike on a trail in the woods.

A Very Active Day for the Happy Campers

After a good nights sleep, Ken and I had a great breakfast in Willie and then packed our lunches and loaded up the bikes for our day's adventure!  The 6 of us drove in Martin's truck with the 6 bikes and headed to the town of Highland to walk the Walkway Over the Hudson.  It is a 1.28 mile walk across the Hudson River to the town of Poughkeepsie.  The walkway soars 212 feet above the Hudson and nearly 1 million rivets hold the bridge's 20,000 tons of steel together.  It is the world's longest elevated pedestrian bridge and hosts over 500,000 visitors annually.  It really is worth seeing!

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Bridge seen from the Walkway!

After eating our picnic lunches, we headed to the Wallkill Rail Trail in New Paltz and road our bikes on the trail for a total of 10 miles.  A beautiful trail, but rather narrow and rather stony.  The noise of the cicadas was unbelievable and they were everywhere.  Didn't realize how loud they could be.

From the bike trail we could see the lookout tower
we climbed yesterday.  That climb gave us quite a view!!

Back to the CG by 6:15 to shower and get dinner ready.  We cooked over the open fire and then sat around chatting until 10:15.

Fun day with special friends!