Together--Part 1

 In July, Jeremy and I had our 20th anniversary and last weekend we got to spend four nights in Cold Spring, New York to celebrate. We stayed in this adorable vacation rental that a long time client of Jeremy's owns. I did not know anything about Cold Spring before we went. I learned that it has a lot of history dating back to colonial times. Jeremy found the hike we did on the first day. It was the Bull Hill Short Loop. It was 4.3 miles with amazing views, a brook and an elevation increase of 1100 ft in the first 1.3 miles. Here we had gained a few hundred feet of elevation and had no idea how high 1100 ft would feel climbing!

A little higher...

This was a pretty neat view. The Hudson River. On the near side of the river is Cold Spring. On the far side of the river was West Point.

I needed a break. Actually we both had to catch our breath a few times.

And we made it to the top. I do love mountains.

Going down the mountain started with some rocky trails. We walked through some easy forest trails which led to a stream.

We followed the stream to what we ultimately wanted to see on this trail--the Cornish estate ruins. Copied from this website  "In 1917, Edward J. Cornish and his wife Selina acquired the 650 acre estate from a Chicago diamond merchant, Sigmund Stern. Stern built the estate the decade before, but to this day no one knows who the architect was. In 1938, the couple died within two weeks of each other, with Edward dying at his desk in NYC. The estate remained under the care of Cornish’s nephew Joel until a fire destroyed the majority of the mansion in 1956."

The grounds were so neat to explore, to imagine what a grand property this once was. We had already passed the cistern, greenhouse and stables. Below the house was a pool.

This front window was huge!

The trail followed what would have been the driveway to this estate. Rocks lined the path. We decided ice cream was in order. Black raspberry hit the spot.

 We ate our ice cream at an inlet on the river where we took a picture because we had gone from the mountain back to river level.