Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Summering in New York


My husband is a New York native and when he says he is from New York he says, "Northern New York, God's Country." LOL Well, New York is near and dear to my heart as well. I lived there for five years and had our third daughter at West Point, while living on the Hudson River in a beautiful little village called Cornwall on Hudson. I made a lot of good friends while we lived there but as they know, it was too darn cold for me. ;0) Plus, most of my family live in Oklahoma or Kansas and Texas. So as the girl needing to be closer to her mother and oldest daughter we moved back to Oklahoma. We often travel to the "North Country" to visit our family, my in-laws and our friends. We miss everyone and it's such a beautiful place, esp. in the spring, summer and fall. (Notice I left out winter? It's actually very pretty then too, but I'm just not a fan of the snow. Snow=work to me.)

I wanted to share a photo from our latest trip to the St Lawrence River. My husband's family has a cottage on the river and we were blessed to stay a week at the cottage with Scott's grandparents. On one of our many sight seeing trips on the river took us on a boat ride to Heart Island. This is where Boldt Castle was built in Alexandria Bay by the millionaire hotel proprietor, George C. Boldt, who also built the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. He purchased Heart Island because it was in the shape of a heart as a gift to his wife. He began work on an amazing full size Rhine castle. Unfortunately his wife passed away and the castle was never quite completed as Mr Boldt ordered all work be stopped. Many of the buildings like the children's playhouse, powerhouse and boat house were fully functioning, however the huge castle was never quite completed. The castle now has a society which is raising funds to fully restore and complete the castle and the grounds. I have included a website if you would like to see some beautiful images that other photographers from the area have shot. I also just had to include a snap shot of my family while we visited Heart Island. If you're ever in the area or are stationed at Fort Drum, New York, take a boat ride to the Island (several companies leave from Alex Bay) and spend a day there. It will be well worth it.
http://www.boldtcastle.com/