Twenty: New York

I made it. 

And to celebrate attaining my goal, the Universe threw me a bit of a curve ball to add to the adventure and to make it more memorable. But I will get to that in a second. First things first... 

 I was on the way back to Massachusetts after visiting some friends in upstate New York. The day was rather gloomy, though the sky was starting to get a little lighter as time went on.  My original plan was to go to Connecticut and then home,  but I was close to Bear Mountain in New York on the Hudson the clouds really started to break up and a brilliant afternoon sun came out. It was going to be a gorgeous autumn afternoon and given that I was on the Hudson I had to stop and take advantage of it. 

I changed plans and headed to Iona Island, a former U.S. Navy munitions depot that is now a bird sanctuary surrounded by hiking trails with CSX's Hudson line going right through the middle of it. I like coming to this spot because there is a moderate amount of train traffic, some interesting trails to hike on and plenty of wildlife to photograph. There is also a steady stream of visitors to the site, but I have never seen it get crowded. 

I parked the car in a dirt lot, nodded to a fellow, who was also there taking train photos and decided to hike around a bit. I slipped and fell in some muck -- I am not exactly sure what it was but it did have a musty, earthy scent to it even after it dried. It didn't matter though because I was out there by myself and would be my only company on the trip home. I have fallen, slipped, and stepped in things before and it is just part of the adventure. 

Northbound through Iona Island, New York.

The first train was a northbound led by CSX AC44CW 48. I ended up taking a head-on shot of it as it approached the signals. I figured I would have other options sooner or later, so I wasn't put out by the lack of creativity. There is an old New York Central milepost (41) at the crossing on Iona Island and wanted to get a photo with it to prove I was actually in New York. I try, when I can, to get a sense of place in my photos. It's also something that the editor of Railpace loves to see when you submit photos to the magazine. And he is right by the way. A sense of place makes a good photo much better.

One of the problems with this project, though, is that many times I am rushed and I just want to grab the photo to get me closer to my goal. Other times I don't have the time to get creative. This time I was just lazy.

After the northbound went through things quieted down. Some of the people who had arrived to hike returned to their cars and left. I decided to take a walk around to see what else I could see. I came across a young buck and he let me get pretty close to him. I often encounter deer on my trips. One time, in the Berkshires, a deer surprised me and I surprised her. 

The young buck.

I had got up to stretch and walk away from my cameras a few dozen paces when I heard something come bounding up behind me in the woods. It sounded like a man crunching through the underbrush. Instead it was a full grown doe. And she wasn't happy to see me. She didn't run. Instead she stood over my camera bag snorting and thumping her hoof.  All I kept thinking was ``why didn't I keep my camera in my hand.'' I was less than 10 feet from her and it would have been a great shot. Or I would have had a hoof planted in the side of my head. I am not sure which. She finally shook her head and vanished back into the woods. 

When I returned from my little trek around the woods, the only car left in the lot besides mine belonged to the other guy I saw when I first arrived. It seemed kind of odd to me that the parking lot had cleared out, but odd in a way that didn't register fully until later. I hung out for a little while longer and there didn't seem to be anything else coming, so I got in my car and decided to leave. I had my 20th state after all even if it was kind of a lackluster shot. 

As I was driving back to the road, I noticed there was water on it that hadn't been there before. Coming in I saw a sign that said the road might flood, but this seemed a little sudden. I drove around the bend and out to the causeway that connects Iona Island to routes 202 and 9W. When the causeway came into view I got an interesting surprise -- the road was gone. 

The water had already begun to recede when I took this shot.

Gone, as in underwater. For a second, I was a bit worried. If the river had flooded out the road and this lasted more than a few hours, this would certainly go down in the annals of among my stupidest moments. But then I remember that the Hudson River is a tidal river quite a long way north of New York City. I realized the tide had come in.

I turned around the car and drove back to where the other guy had parked. I pulled up next to him and asked him if there was another way out. He smiled and shook his head. He said that he had heard the tide can cut the road sometimes but he had never seen it happened and not quite believed it could either. He introduced himself as Andrew from New Jersey. He related a story that another guy told him about being out here and getting cut off. 

``He said he called his wife and said `sorry honey, I guess I have to take more pictures of trains,''' Andrew told me. Not a bad downside. Because this is the age of technology, I had a laptop and Andrew had something that looked like an I-Phone and we went searching for tide tables. It was pretty much the peak of the tide, so we figured we had at least a couple of hours to wait for the water to recede and for us to regain our freedom. I called my wife to tell her I was cut off from civilization. She laughed and told me to have a good time and she would see me when she would see me. 

The milepost marker I wanted to squeeze into a shot.

In the meantime, all Andrew and I could do was wait for CSX to provide a diversion.  And CSX was kind enough to oblige. I ended up getting my shots with the milepost. The lighting was better now too. I finished the day with one last head-on shot with my 500 mm lens.

The last shot of the day -- the headlight in the distance, which is how I started this journey.

We checked the causeway, the water was receding and we were free. I said good-bye to my fellow cast-a-way and headed north to I-84 and home. A good day had ended and my goal of twenty states had been accomplished.