The Union Church is located in the small village of Pocantico Hills, adjacent to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow.

As for Hudson River cruises in October, Rip Van Winkle has daily cruises from Kingston and River Rose offers cruises from Newburgh three or four times a week. Both are quite enjoyable, as long as the weather cooperates.

Cruises? Oh, that might be nice!

This is draft 3 and, I hope THE FINAL! (only need hotel and tour bookings now). Now that the route is pinned down, I hope to spend tomorrow booking hotels, etc.

There are still a couple of questions here, at Day 5 Tuesday. I’d appreciate your comments or suggestions.

Day 1 Friday: We start off from Toronto early and drive Ithaca (about a 3.5 hour drive). Get there by midday, explore the town and campus and stay overnight. Leave early the next morning.

Day 2 & 3 Saturday & Sunday: Drive to Rhinebeck/Hyde Park (about 3.5 hours). It sounds to me like Rhinebeck is the nice of the two towns, so we’ll likely stay there for Saturday and Sunday night. Explore the FDR House/Library, Vanderbilt Mansion, have a meal at the CIA, visit Innisfree Gardens, and do the Hudson River Bridge walk and possibly Wing’s Castle. Leave Monday.

Day 4 Monday: Leave this area and drive to Tarrytown (a little over an hour). Stay overnight in Tarrytown and visit Kykuit, possibly Sunnyside, go to the Tarrytown theatre if we can get tickets. With any luck, our NYC friends will drive up and meet us for part of the day. Leave Tarrytown sometime Tuesday, probably morning or midday.

Day 5 Tuesday: Leave Tarrytown and drive to Storm King (about an hour). Perhaps we’ll stop in Nyack for a walk-around. Spend most of the day at Storm King.
:-/ Question: Where to stay Tuesday night? Should we drive up to New Paltz for a walk-around, dinner and a sleepover?

Day 6 Wednesday: Leave from wherever we spent Tuesday night and drive to Rochester; do some stuff there (to be determined later); stay overnight

Day 7 Thursday: Leave Rochester and drive to Toronto (about 3 hours)

Arrive home, on Day 7 Thursday, tired but happy. Write trip report.

I've got bad news for you: Storm King is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays!

PS: Since Storm King opens at 10, you can go there on Wednesday for, say, 3-4 hours and still have time for a 5 1/2 to 6-hour drive to Rochester from there on that day. Th

Then, for Tuesday, I'd switch your trip to Innisfree Gardens for that day from your Saturday/Sunday schedule. That'll make your schedule for those two days a little less hectic.

Darn it!

Well, yes, we could do as you suggested, Howard, but that wouldn't get us into Rochester until the evening so we'd have no time to spend there.

The only hotel I've booked so far is Ithaca (Homewood Suites; ElizabethS's Super 8 was all booked up). I'd have to re-jig the whole route but I guess we could go down the east side and up the west side. So:

Ithaca
maybe a stop in New Paltz
Storm King
maybe a stop in Nyack
Tarrytown
Rhinebeck/Hyde Park area (incl Millbrook & Poughkeepsie)
home via Rochester

Do you think that would work? It would get us to Storm King on Saturday, I think.

First of all, I'm a little confused about that list. Its order in the listing doesn't make sense.

Having said that, I'd drop New Paltz and leave Nyack as a maybe, if time permits.

In the New Paltz area, we enjoyed the Huegenot sites and hiking at Minnewaska. Had an excellent meal at a Thai restaurant called Lemon something--sorry I don't remember the exact name.
Haven't been to Nyack except to host a dinner there. Nothing fabulous in the way of tourism comes to mind.

When I think of Nyack, I think of a large mall near the apporach to the Tappan Zee Bridge, not anything worthy of a tourism stop...

"First of all, I'm a little confused about that list. Its order in the listing doesn't make sense."

Sorry, Howard. Do you mean that Storm King doesn't make sense in that list?

I'm not working from a very detailed map (because the detailed maps are too detailed). This new route is basically the same as the other route but backwards so that we get to Storm King on a day that it's open.

So instead of this:

Ithaca
(then south down the west side of the Hudson)
Rhinebeck/Hyde Park/Poughkeepsie
Tarrytown
(then turn around and go north up the east side)
Storm King
Rochester
home

It would be this:
Ithaca
(then south down the EAST side of the Hudson)
Storm King
Tarrytown
(then turn around and go north up the WEST side)
Rhinebeck/Hyde Park/Poughkeepsie
Rochester
home

It's still 6 nights and we'd get most of a day and an overnight in Rochester.

Neither one of us is a much of a shopper and there are no bargains anyway with our dollar being so poor, so we'll not likely stop at any malls.

We'd still need a place to stay overnight after Storm King, unless we drive straight to Tarrytown, maybe go to the theatre, stay overnight and then spend the next day there.

I just want to say that I really appreciate all the time an effort you've all been taking helping me plan this trip. I'm finding this unusually (for me) complicated because of the shuffling of days things are open and when we get to wherever we get. Thanks a million.

The distances are not great, so you could easily get from Storm King to Tarrytown & just stay there. Storm King is on the west side of the Hudson, so you'd cross either the Tappan Zee Bridge which will take you right to Tarrytown, or the more scenic route across the Bear Mountain Bridge.

From Tarrytown (on the East side of the Hudson), it would be an easy drive up the Taconic Parkway to get to Poughkeepsie/Hyde Park/Rhinebeck - ~60 to 75min drive, so not a long way.

I think that's going to be the plan, J62. And Tarrytown sounds like a nice place. I'm thinking we could get there in the afternoon, browse, have dinner, go to the theatre, stay over and then make our way northward the next day.

Thanks for the two bridge suggestions. We might go the more scenic route.

As J63 pointed out, your east and west notations were a little off. Storm King is on the WEST side of the Hudson, so stay on that side when you leave Ithaca, eventually getting on Route 9W which leads to Storm King. After that visit, you have two choices:

1. Stay on Route 9W South and cross the Hudson via the Tappan Zee Bridge, which leads right into Tarrytown, or,

2. Stay on Route 9W South and cross the Hudson via the Bear Mountain Bridge and them follow Route 6 to Route 9 to Tarrytown.

The next day, with you on the EAST side of the Hudson, just follow the Taconic State Parkway to your destinations.

Yes, of course -- I got my east and west confused! I did actually know where things were. It was writing them down that was the problem! #-O

OK, then. I now have a new route! Can you stand one more revised draft? Maybe when I've got the hotels/inns booked?

goddesstogo, you can post as many revised routes as you want!!!!

Working hard at it all day!

Wow, it's hard to find a decent hotel in/near Tarrytown. The Alexander Hamilton is all booked though I had a nice chat with the fellow there. Did you know there are only two inns in that area, his and Richard Gere's?

The chain hotels nearby don't get very good reviews but I did get a studio suite at the Residence Inn Marriott in Yonkers (which google tells me is only 12 miles or 22 minutes away) and it gets very good reviews. It's more than I was hoping to spend ($296 all in) but it can be cancelled up to the day before if I find something better.

Got tickets to the Tarrytown Music Hall -- we're going to their Classic Albums Live series and we're hearing the Beatles Abbey Road.

Wearing my fingers down to the nub on the keyboard and my eyeballs are spirals. This is the hardest trip I've ever planned!

More to come.

I don't think staying in Yonkers is a good idea - it's one of the least nice towns in Westchester.
We stayed at the Doubletree in Tarrytown 4 years ago and it was very nice.

There are several decent hotels and motels in the Tarrytown area including the Doubletree, Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott and others.

Forget about Yonkers.

OK, I'll look again tomorrow.

If I recall from past research that place in Yonkers is in a barren executive park wasteland with a couple of chain restaurants between the parkway and 9A. I believe you can do better. And don't trust random negative reviews.