Monday, August 4, 2008

Sunday August 3, 2008

Today is rainy to start the day. After much guessing what the weather is going to do Tom says “let's go for a ride". Perhaps, “the Catskills look inviting.” So the weather looks like it will break and off we go for a ride into the Catskills. They happen to be about an hour east of where we were camping.

We head east on route 17 (future I-86) to exit 90. There we get off the divided highway and head up the north edge of the Catskill Mountains. We drive through tiny villages heading for Downsville. In Corbet we find a small village with a one lane bridge going into town. It is a quaint village and Nancy just has to get out and take photos of the bridge.

Upon arriving in Downsville, we find a covered bridge built in 1746! Nancy has to have photos and she gets out to snap them, getting in the car to travel over the bridge. Then Nancy wants photos of Tom and Charley driving over the bridge so she walks back over the bridge to snap her shots.

Looking at the map we decided to drive to the north out of town on a back country road. We traveled up the north side of the Pepacton Reservoir. The road is twisty, winding and lots of fun. We both imagined what a fun ride it would be if we were on our motorcycles. We came up to a bridge and passed over it and found out the Pepacton Reservoir is the reservoir for the City of New York's drinking water and the headwaters of the Delaware River. Apparently when the reservoir was filled, several small towns were submerged as there were signs “Former Site of ???town”. We continued driving with the intention of finding a road traveling right through the center of the Catskills, when we find out the road is closed for repairs. Our only way to travel is back the way we came or continue on down the road ending up back at Downsville. We had rain off and on but the drive is still lovely.

In Downsville we found a 40's style diner. We had lunch before heading back to our campsite.

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