Day 134 (9/27): SIghtseeing in Greater Albany Area

Susan and Dick had a full day of activities planned for us on Saturday. We started off with a tour of the historic section of Schenectedy, which consisted of a number of square blocks of beautiful homes built in the mid-1700's, along the banks of the Mohawk River. We were particularly lucky because they were having a fair in the historic district, and so there were lots of people walking the streets in colonial style dress, as well as music and other entertainment. Although we had not purchased tickets for the house tour, we were lucky to be given a tour of a beautiful old house in which one of Dick's highschool classmates had grown up and in which she still lived.

We then drove towards Albany to see the Cohoes Falls, which is one of the two major falls on the Mohawk River. The Mohawk River played a vital role in the history of the United States, because it is the only river that flows through the Allegheny Mountains. Without the Mohawk as a transportation artery through the mountains, it is likely that the "west" would have eventually broken off from the "east."

We completed our sightseeing with a trip to Rockefeller Plaza in Albany, with a tour of the New York State Museum and the state office towers. Dick had been the lead civil engineer on one of the office towers, and in addition to being impressed with how the building was constructed I was impressed by the fact that for the year or so of the building's construction Dick would climb about 100 flights of stairs every day!