2026 GREAT AMERICA 250 ADVENTURE - HUDSON VALLEY PRESIDENTS

 

SUNDAY - JULY 5, 2025: I Spent the night at the Comfort Inn just off of Interstate 84 in Fishkill, New York. I use to stay almost exclusively at Choice Hotel Properties, but after COVID the cleanliness and service at their properties deteriorate and since then I have stayed mostly at Drury Inn, Holiday Inn or Hampton Inn. 

I still have a significant amount of Choice Loyalty points; I chose to cash in some of those points for a free stay at the Fishkill Comfort Inn. I must say this is an excellent hotel. The employees were outstanding and the hotel was very clean. If all Choice Properties were like this one, they would still be my primary choice for lodging.

One of my goals is to visit all of the Presidential Libraries and Museums and visit all the presidential graves. Currently there have been 45 men who have served as President of the United States, 5 of them (George W. Bush, Barak Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump) are still living.  There are currently 39 presidential gravesites and of those 39 at the end of this trip I will have visited 28 of them.

On this trip alone I plan to visit Grover Cleveland, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, Calvin Coolidge and Chester A. Arthur.

 I still must Visit Both John and John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

From my hotel in Fishkill, it was a short 30-minute drive to the Village of Hyde Park. Here I visit the Franklin Roosevelt National Historic Site.  The site is home to Springwood, President Roosevelt’s Birthplace and lifelong home, and his Presidential Library and Museum. President Roosevelt, his wife Eleanor and his pet Scottish Terrier, Fala are buried in the rose garden.

Because I was visiting on the 4^th of July weekend, admission to the property was free. The guided tour of the home was somewhat abbreviated with our guide giving us a short overview on each floor. Then were left to explore each room at our leisure.

After finishing my tour of the house, I was free to explore the rest of the property. Between the house and the presidential museum is the rose gardens, which is undergoing extensive renovation.

The large marble monument is still in the rose garden is still there but the white marble ground stones that mark the actual graves of the President and Eleanor have been removed to protect them from damage while the side is renovated.  Also, the sundial that marked the grave of President Roosevelt’s Scottish Terrier Fala has also been removed.

The FDR Presidential Museum has a large collection of artifacts relating to every aspect of President Roosevelt’s life. One of the more historical artifacts on display is the original draft of President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech that he delivered to Congress the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

I arrived at the FDR National Historic Site just a few minutes after it opened at 9 a.m. and spent a little over 3 hours on the grounds.  There is one more site in Hyde Park that I want to visit before moving on up the Hudson Valley.

Val-Kill is officially known as the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site. Val-Kill is a small stone cottage where Eleanor Roosevelt would spend most of her time whenever President Roosevelt was at the White House or at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia.

Following President Roosevelt death in 1945, Val-kill became Eleanor’s primary home as she and the family made the decision to donate Springwood to the National Park Service.

Wrapping up my visit to Hyde Park, it was time to head north toward my next stop in the Village of Kinderhook, New York. The drive up along the Hudson River from Hyde Park to Kinderhook took about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Just south of the Village is Lindenwald, which is the Home of President Matin Van Buren. It had been my intention to take the guided tour of the house and then walk around the grounds.

But a couple of nights ago a line of very sever storms passed through the area with 80 mph winds and baseball size hail and several locations up and down the Hudson Valley have suffered some rather significant damage.

That was the case here at Lindenwald.  Several tree on the property were either completely blown over or received significant damage. As a result, the National Park Service closed the property.

So, I was unable to tour the house or even walk the grounds. Since I could tour Lindenwald, I made my way to the Old Dutch Reform Cemetery just north of the Village of Kinderhook to visit the Grave of Martin Van Buren, who served as the 8^th President of the Untied States from 1837-1841.

From Kinderhook, it was a short drive to the Holiday Inn – East Greenbush just east of Albany, New York. After a quick supper at a new by Cracker Barrel, I settled into my room, which had a great view of the Albany Skyline in the distance

Today, was a little disappointing because I didn’t get to tour Lindenwald, because of all the storm damage. But the FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Sites were excellent.  I only have a couple of stops scheduled for tomorrow as I need to head across Massachusetts which will set me up for a busy next couple of days.