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Lillian, Clark, and Jack
at Croton-on-Hudson Park |
25 July 2026 - Sunday
Our son, Chris, reached out to us to see if we could come for a visit to his home in Connecticut to spend some time with the grandkids. Both children had a week with sports and other activities and only one parent available to manage everything. Chris's wife, Heather, had a business trip planned to France of all things!
We left mid-morning and battled traffic as we drove up to arrive Sunday afternoon. A flurry of activity greeted us as Chris and Heather finished some work in their garden before Heather got ready to drive off to JFK airport in New York for her flight to Paris.
Having checked the weather forecast for the week, Clark found that today would be the best choice for an outing to hike at Croton-on-Hudson in upstate New York - something he thought would be a great family activity.
Chris volunteered to drive, and the five of us piled back into our car for more hours on the road. Once again traffic was heavy as we slogged our way to the park. When we finally arrived, close to 4:30 in the afternoon, we were all happy to extract ourselves from the car and check out the park!
As we drove in to find the parking lot, we got our first views of the grounds. None of us expected the scene that met our eyes!
Clark and I have traveled up and down the Hudson River in our various boats more times than I can count, each time passing by Croton-on-Hudson ,and never once imagining what a gem was hidden there.
Croton-on-Hudson is part of the Westchester County Parks system. Our first obstacle was deciphering the maps to figure our where we would hike and how long it would take to do so. The maps were not so very helpful.
Fortunately, Google Maps led us to the appropriate entrance for the parking lot, and from there it was pretty straight forward as to where to go and what to see.
Wikipedia gives the history of the Croton-on-Hudson as being established in the late 1800s in support of New York City and the NY Central Railroad. Irish, Italian, and German immigrants moved to the area to do construction work for the aqueduct. Construction of the "New Croton Dam" began in 1892 and completed in 1906. I was in awe looking at the size of the structure while thinking of the manpower required and the lack of modern technology used in engineering and construction.
We found a place to enter the trail and began our relatively short hike to the top of the dam.
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| Chris, Lillian, Clark, and Jack |
The woods along the trail contained some interesting structures and ditches / ravines.
"Break time already??"
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| Lillian found a "seat" along the way |
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| Jack just relaxed in place. |
"Lillian!! Watch where you're walking!!!"
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| Don't fall in! |
The trail led us to the dam. Clark took pictures of the rest of us from the end of the trail.
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| Ev, Lil, Jack, and Chris |
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| Clark taking a picture |
From the walkway on the dam, we could look down at the sites below ...
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| Lillian |
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| Jack, Lil, and Chris |
and watch the many folks taking advantage of the park on a great-weather day.
Views from the dam were impressive to say the least! We could see the bridge we had driven over to
reach the parking lot
and see the water rushing by below us.
It seemed like I was always trailing behind my family.
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| "Hey! Wait up!" |
The sheer height and width of the structure was impressive.
I asked Lillian to take a picture of Clark and myself. She did a great job!
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| Jack and Lillian |
Finally we reached the spillway!
We found enterprising people at the park - both at the top of the dam and down below on the park grounds. Up top, two women had a cart and were vending sliced mango and watermelon. Down below we found an ice cream truck and a hot dog vendor. The entrance fee being $10 per car, folks came to make a day of it.
Having seen everything to be seen up top, we retraced our steps down the trail to the grounds below for a closer look at the base of the dam.
Standing by the wall, people look miniaturized.
Jack wanted a coin to throw into the fountain. I did not have one, perhaps fortunately, as I saw no other coins in this fountain.
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| Lillian, Jack, Chris, and Clark |
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Jack heading for the wall
with a stick he found along the way |
Clark, Lillian, and Jack decided to go over and climb part way up the wall of the dam for a photo op.
It did not look like something I was willing to try climbing - even just a short distance! I was not interested in a twisted ankle today.
Then we walked over to get a closer look at the water coming off the dam.
I enjoyed studying the details of the architecture of the structure. Amazing!
We then walked across the grounds to the bridge we drove over to enter the park for yet another perspective.
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| Bridge for cars coming into the park. |
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| Clark taking pictures from the car bridge |
Before leaving the park, Chris bought the kids treats from the ice cream truck on site. All three adults abstained. I knew if I had ice cream, I would not eat dinner. On the way home, Chris suggested we stop for Chinese food in Danbury and ate at the "New China Wall" restaurant. We had enough food to have left overs for several days afterwards.
27 - 31 July 2026
We stayed at Chris's house until Friday to help him out with juggling work and children activities. Jack had some summer school to attend leaving Lillian home alone with her mom in France. Clark and I spent time with Lillian when Chris and Jack were away at Jack's school.
Clark and Lillian spent a good bit of time in the pool together.
I remember it was not too many years ago that Lillian refused to jump in the water afraid to get water in her eyes. Times have changed significantly!
Jack had a remote control boat that he decided to add to the pool-time fun.
He also jumped into the pool!
Lillian and Jack both play soccer and had games / practices to attend.
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Complex dribbling exercises
Jack - blue shirt
Lillian - #14 |
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| Lillian practicing footwork |
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| Jack poised to get the ball |
One night Lillian had a basketball game. Jack and I stayed home together while the others went. Alas, Clark did not take any pictures!
Jack, Lillian, and I played a number of card games together including card games like Uno, Crazy 8s, Garbage, and a "Magic the Gathering" card game called "Instinct" closely resembling the rules for contract bridge.
Jack challenged me to a couple of games of chess where I knew how to move the pieces but had no idea of a strategy to win the game. At 8-years old, Jack was better at the game than I was.
Jack built a picnic set from a Lego-like kit.
Lillian wanted to go shopping, so the three of us (Clark, Lillian, and me) went to the West Farms Mall to help her spend her money - hopefully wisely. She went looking for
squishable dumplings and cinnamon sugar pretzels. She found both and a few other things besides!
Of course, Lillian and I did some crafts together while I was there.
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Blue (for Lillian) and Orange (for Jack) Squishable Dumplings
beside a bird house Lillian painted. |
Lillian wanted to make flowers from pipe cleaners, but she needed me to work the hot glue gun to stick them together.
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| Pipe-cleaner flowers |
One morning, Lillian made waffles for the three of us (Clark, Lil, and me) for breakfast - Yummy!
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| Clark helped |
Another day, Lillian announced that she wanted to bake. She pulled a child's cookbook off the shelf, and we looked through the pages to find something yummy. We opted to make Chewy Brownies, and my oh my they were delish! They had cocoa powder, chocolate chips, sugar and brown sugar plus more - simply sinful!
Since we have foldable bikes for the boat, we stuffed them in the trunk of our car to use while in Connecticut. One day, Clark, Lillian, Jack, and I went for a bike ride down the
Farmington Canal Heritage Trail near their home.
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| Lillian, Jack, and Ev |
Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us having a long bike ride. A storm popped up! Fortunately, at the time, we were located at Sweet Claude's Ice Cream shop located right on the heritage trail at the "Factory". We enjoyed our ice cream treats until the rain stopped sufficiently for us to pedal back home.
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| Mural at the "Factory" |
Later in the week, Chris took ownership of a new car and took us out for ice cream at the "Micro Creamery of Connecticut", located in the Cheshire area, to celebrate the occasion. Earlier, in the afternoon, he was acting "shady" and saying he had errands to run. The errand he had was to pick up the new car and surprise everyone with it! What a surprise that was! His old car was 16 years old and ready to be replaced.
On Friday it was time for us to head back to New Jersey. Lillian had an outing planned for the weekend at
Great Wolf Lodge. A friend of hers was having her birthday party there to enjoy the indoor waterpark with friends. I helped Lillian pack for the trip the day before, and as Clark and I left to head back home to NJ, she was anxiously awaiting the arrival of her friend to get going to the party.
We waited until Chris got home with Jack before leaving. The drive from Chris's house to ours normally takes us about 3.5 hours. Usually, though, we drive home at 9:00 at night. We left on Friday around 1:15 and got home 5 hours later. Every road was backed up with traffic. Sadly, our timing meant we hit Jersey shore traffic on the Parkway.
When we finally got home, we quickly unloaded a few items from the car and then ran across the street to our neighbor's house for dinner. (I mentioned our evening with Marina in my last blog update.) It was so nice to be able to have a relaxed and enjoyable dinner and evening of music after that hellacious drive home.
