7/12/15 - Hyde Park, NY

We moved about 2 hours down the road to Hyde Park, N.Y.  We got a space in a state park that does not have hookups.  This is the first time to boondock on this trip.  Also this is the hottest day we have had in the last few weeks.  It got up to 85 yesterday and the humidity was a little higher.  The forecast for today is about 88 and still higher humidity.  It was cooler during the night so sleeping was fine.  I just had to sleep with earplugs because people are noisy and I can’t turn the fan on for white noise without electricity.  Nothing bothers Jim - he slept like a log.

Today we took a tour of the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.  This mansion was built on the Hudson River in the ‘Gilded Age’ when Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan and Rockefeller and others amassed unimaginable wealth.  Cornelius Vanderbilt rose from poverty to become a shipping and railroad tycoon.  He left his money to his eldest son William who expanded the railroad operations and doubled the fortune.  His eight children lived lives of excess and extravagance.  They built 40 opulent mansions and country estates largely depleting the family money.  William’s son Frederick and his wife Louise chose Hyde Park to use as their spring and fall country estate.  They had this mansion built along with outhouses and gardens.  Many of the mansion’s contents were bought in Europe.  Furnishing and construction costs totaled $2,250,000.00.  They had no children and left the house to Louise’s cousin. During the depression she tried to sell the estate for $350,000.00 but she had no takers.  Her neighbor, Franklin D Roosevelt, suggested she donate it to the National Park Service and it was bought from her for $1.00.  Pictures were allowed in the house without flash.  It was very dim inside so the pictures aren’t that great.  It was hot in the house and we went to Hyde Park Brewing for a couple of beers and then back to camp where I cooked supper.