We left Troy bright and early (well, early) at 6:30am. It was easy to tell, because the American Star‘s side thrusters make themselves known very effectively throughout the ship.

Our guest lecturer, Mike Link, spoke about John Burroughs, an American naturalist who traveled with notables like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone. He was a prolific writer who has almost vanished from the public eye, though quotes like “the smallest deed is better than the greatest intention” are still current.

The trees were putting on their usual October show along the riverbank, but there were a couple of human-made objects that caught my eye, like the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, which would have been a very interesting place to live!

A drone from the cruise line accompanied us to get footage for their commercials.

Just before we reached Kingston, we passed the Sojourner Truth/Ulster Landing Park.

The Rondout Lighthouse, which is part of the Hudson River Maritime Museum, guards the entrance to Rondout Creek; the museum is located on the creek, and we’re moored there.

After lunch, we traveled to the Mills Mansion (Staatsburgh), on the other side of the river. It was one of five homes owned by the Mills family; the others were in New York City, Paris, Newport, and San Francisco. The San Francisco mansion was known as “Millbrae” and is now the site of San Francisco International Airport!

Mrs. Livingston Mills had inherited the house from her father; it was a nice, cosy 25-room mansion, but she wanted something larger so she could entertain in proper style. She hired Stanford White to remodel and wound up with 80 rooms and 15 bathrooms!

The dining room was quite impressive; our guide called it a “house-sized room” (about 1800 square feet). It has a great view of the Hudson.

There’s only one public restroom in the mansion – but it’s impressive!

The back yard has a beautiful view down to the river.

The front of the mansion isn’t as impressive as the inside, but it’s not bad.

And then we drove back to the ship for dinner and evening entertainment. We’ll be docked here until tomorrow afternoon.

We started today with a trip to a part of the Capital District I’d never visited – Altamont. Our destination was mildly historical, but mostly agricultural: Indian Ladder Farms, a pick-your-own farm founded in 1916 (they also have a cidery, a brewery, and a farm store with apples they’ve picked).

We started our time there with a walk on their nature trail. We had a great view of the fall color on the Helderberg Escarpment.

The nature trail took us by some apple trees which are yet to be picked.

We enjoyed apple cider doughnuts and hot apple cider at the store, then we picked some apples to bring back to the ship. There were three varieties available: Jonagold, Mutsu, and Empire, and we picked some of each – so many, we gave most of them to the ship’s hospitality manager to distribute.

This afternoon, we took the Troy Lock and Dam cruise, which, of course, started with a bus ride to Albany to board the Dutch Apple II for a narrated cruise back to Troy.

The dock is next to the Albany U-Haul location, which has found an interesting use for a spare truck.

Our guide, Peter, told us about the sights we passed, like the one-fifth scale model of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon atop the old Delaware and Hudson building (now the SUNY Administration Building).

There were a few birds flying near the ship, including this Blue Heron.

After sailing through downtown Troy, we reached the Troy Federal Lock, which marks the northern end of the Hudson River estuary.

We sailed through the lock and could see the very beginning of the Erie Canal to our left – but we turned around and retraced our course.

We had to wait for an Amtrak train to clear the Livingston Avenue Bridge before we could return to the dock.

Then it was back on the bus to Troy and the American Star.

This evening, we were entertained by the gypsy jazz of the Hot Club of Saratoga; it was a very enjoyable evening.

We leave Troy early tomorrow morning without having set foot on the RPI campus, but Reunion is only three years away.