By: Ana Alexander
Adventure, , , , ,

A Day in Poughkeepsie

On my fourth day in New York, I…left New York.

But not after a stroll through Central Park.

I began my morning with an early photo-walk with a few fellow photographers from the Yes Fam, who were also planning on attending the premiere of Project Iceman the following evening.

On my way to meet them, I walked through the Bethesda Arcade.

There was a couple taking wedding photos here while I walked through, which I should have taken as a sign of what was to come. But instead, I admired the architecture of the arcade.

The tiling on the interior really feels like something you’d see outside of the U.S.

If you told me this was Spain or Italy, I would believe you.

I also passed The Boathouse restaurant, which has been featured in many a movie, especially rom coms. 27 dresses anyone?

We tried to get reservations for lunch here, but they were totally booked.

I met up with my soon-to-become-strangers-turned-to-friends at a spot with a really cool view of the cityscape.

It was a cool spot to meet some new friends!

We walked around the park for a bit, stopping at this fun bridge to snap a few shots.

The fall colors were in full swing, and it was gorgeous.

Our last stop was at this fun bridge/tunnel/pretty wall.

It was a fun morning walking around, chatting with new people, and photographing Central Park. I had to cut out a bit early, however, because I had a train to Poughkeepsie to catch!

My friend is a huge fan of the presidents. Just in general. Big presidential gal. She has a goal of visiting all of the presidential libraries, and there happened to be two we’d be near during our trip, the first being in Poughkeepsie.

We headed to the train station from our hotel, and on the way we saw Hugh Jackman!

A real “Hugh” point of the trip. He seemed like a nice guy. He was there to perform in a musical, and was meeting with some fans before heading into the theatre.

After observing from afar, we made it to the train station, which actually had a nice vibe.

Except it didn’t tell us what platform our train would be on, which was stressful for a minute until we realized that no one else on our train knew where they were going, and we were all uncertain together. The train ended up being a bit late, which was just fine. It was fun taking a leisurely train ride to Upstate New York. I kept singing Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” in my head. The scenic fall leaves didn’t hurt, either.

It was really a beautiful train ride.

The Poughkeepsie train station was extremely charming, as well – I mean, look at it!

Are you not charmed?

We discovered that there is only one Uber driver in Poughkeepsie at all times (no joke) by the way only one Uber drive showed up to pick up multiple people, and our Uber app was scanning, scanning, scanning, until finally it was our turn to be picked up by this man.

This made us a bit nervous, because we had a train to catch on the way back to New York, which meant we were on a schedule for our visit of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.

I told my friend not to worry about it, because by this time in my travels I’ve learned that things generally work out, and if they don’t, I have confidence in my abilities to navigate those potential challenges. So, we decided to enjoy the museum experience.

I’d never been to a presidential library before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I have to say, I was extremely impressed by the entire experience.

The exhibits were exceptionally well-done, and as a marketing professional, I almost enjoyed looking at the set up and design of the exhibits more than reading the information kept in them.

The library began with a section on FDR’s election.

It then delved into the major moments of his presidency.

As you can read above, FDR was asleep at the White House when he received word that Germany was invading Poland – the museum had the notes he jotted down from that call on display, which was crazy to look at. Imagining that moment in time, captured in the graphite on that page, was really something else.

The exhibit displayed a timeline of the war in a really well-done fashion.

They even had war maps on display.

There was also this gift given to FDR from Britain – a piece of art made from fragments of Britain’s House of Commons, which was bombed by the Germans.

They also had FDR’s office preserved – he actually worked out of this exact room during his life.

They also had quite a bit of information on Eleanor Roosevelt, which I especially liked.

I appreciated this quote from her (among many of her memorable and powerful quotes), and found it to be inspiring.

She may have been a timid child, but she went on to accomplish quite a bit in her life.

So much, in fact, that they FBI was watching her!

They created this file to track her activism and philanthropic activities, believing she might have been up to something underhanded, but she was just a cool lady getting shit done.

Anyway, this is a replica of her FBI file.

They also had the typewriter she used to write her books and articles on!

They also had FDR’s favorite portrait of Eleanor, which he kept in his office at the White House.

And that was the FDR Presidential Library and Museum! I really enjoyed the experience, and found myself looking forward to our next presidential library, which would be JFK’s library in Boston.

We managed to get an Uber back to the train station with no problems, which was a fantastic turn of events.

Another fantastic turn of events was when we were walking through the train station, and a random woman jumped out at us and shouted, “YOU TWO! I need you!” After briefly wondering if she was me from the future, traveling back in time to warn me about something, I realized she was a photographer. She seemed to realize she’d come off a little intense, so she took her tone down a bit and asked if she could ask us for a favor. I said sure, and she explained that she was looking for two people to walk in the background of a photo she was taking, to pretend they were just people walking around the train station. I already was a person just walking around the train station, and I’ve been in her shoes during photoshoots before, where you’re desperately trying to make the shot work, so I said yes. Plus I had twenty minutes to kill.

What I was not expecting was when we turned to corner into the main hall, was that I would actually be part of someone’s wedding photos.

Yes, you read that correctly. They wanted us in the background of their wedding photos.

I’m probably in a frame on their fireplace or magnetized to their mother-in-law’s fridge.

I thought it was pretty odd that they wanted random strangers in the background of their photos, as most people want strangers edited out, but hey, not my wedding. So I walked in the background over and over as they took a few shots.

It was actually pretty fun, and super random, which is one of my favorite qualities.

After our portion of the photoshoot was done, we sat down, as we still had a good chunk of time before our train arrived. The other customers in the train station stared at us, probably wondering what the fuck was going on. I didn’t have any answers for them.

We finally got on our train, which started lovely and becoming concerning as we learned there were fires on the tracks! Our train stopped in a random city, and we were told that Amtrak couldn’t take us to our destination due to the fires on their tracks, but they could route us via a different train carrier for free, so we ended up hopping onto a much dingier train after about an hour.

Exhausted from a day of presidential libraries, spontaneous wedding photos, and literal fires, we rounded out the evening by visiting Ayza, a wine and chocolate bar in New York, which served the best goddamn salad I’ve ever had in my life. I know that I will think about this salad for the rest of my days.

The salad featured caramelized goat cheese, mixed field greens, toasted walnuts, baby candied beets, and I added tofu, which was sublime. The caramelized goat cheese was absolutely out of this world and my mouth is watering as I type this.

They also served mulled wine, which made me so happy, as I was beginning to get nostalgic about the Christmas Markets I’d visited in Europe the year before.

They served it in this cute container with tiny cups.

We ended our evening by returning to our hotel and ordering Levain cookies from UberEats. Honestly, they were to die for.

We’re talking crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside.

And with that, we wrapped up our fourth day in New York. The next day, we’d visit Angelina’s, Bryant Park’s Christmas Market, and Grand Central, before heading to the Yes Theory Project Iceman movie premiere.

Stay tuned for more!

Let’s Connect: