Oh, Ophelia
You’ve been on my mind girl since the flood
Oh, Ophelia
Heaven help the fool who falls in love.
(You can find the song/video here.)
It rained all day yesterday and all night as well. I got a knock on my door this morning about 8am and the wagon-master said all the river sites were to evacuate. The water in the river alongside my campsite rose 6 feet overnight and the rain was predicted to continue throughout the rest of the day. I quickly packed everything up, and while unhooking my utilities, I had to wade back and forth through a large 6 inch puddle beside my RV.
I’m not impressed with this campground, Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park near Poughkeepsie. When the wagon-master tried to negotiate new campsites for us, she was told to just tell us to go home. In the meantime, we parked in the driveways of many of their empty cabins (which they could have offered in exchange) and went on today’s tour. The wagon-masters worked in the background to get us other campsites.
Our tour today was West Point Military Academy. The wagon-masters said this was everyone’s favorite stop on the tour last year. Perhaps seeing West Point in the warm sunshine with several stops to get off the bus to walk around would have been much different than my view of a bunch of gray buildings in the distance viewed through a bus window covered in rain drops. It might also have more appeal to veterans and football fanatics as there were many veiled jokes about Army/Navy football games which I didn’t understand.
We did stop at the Protestant Cadet Chapel and go inside.
We also stopped on the banks of the Hudson River where our tour guide explained why this area was chosen for the location of West Point. The Continental Army chose this point to defend against the British troops coming north. The Hudson River is mostly straight except for this section where there is an “s” in the river causing the British to slow down, and high banks to see them better.
We returned to the campground and the 11 RV’s (out of 25 total) that had to evacuate now had campsites 8 miles away at the KOA. I am now set up in a campsite nestled in a bunch of trees on higher ground. This is really nice instead of the usual RV parking lot found at most KOA’s.
I have very few photos today. But maybe you’ll get a kick out of this last one. I took it at the Thayer Hotel at the edge of West Point, where we had lunch.
