Besides the “first” last name van, Rip van Winkle and I share some history of profound enough unhappiness to consider disappearance; I weathered the “storm” in plain sight whereas he went into these rocky banks of the Hudson River and stayed up here for 20 years, returning with some cockamamie story about being kidnapped or befuddled by outlandishly-dressed bowlers plying him with intoxicating drink, a tale I’d respond to with “Sure, Rip. Ever consider rehab?”
Rip has clung to my back so long I decided to follow his path last weekend to see what he might have seen. Here’s a vista looking southward toward Esopus and Crum Elbow, I think. Yes, there’s snow in themthar Catskills, or Cats’ Hills. You may have looked up at these peaks from the River or the Thruway; here’s what the wayward Rip saw, what you’d see from up there.
Another overlook in roughly the same direction.
The speck in midstream is the lighthouse that appeared two weeks ago in foto 12 of the Flinterborg post here.
If you know the River between Saugerties and Catskill, you’ll know these silos in Cementon.
Skeptical or not, I did see enough interesting features in the rocks to
tread with respect. I even conversed with a few gnome-like rocks (rock-like gnomes??) to
… or tried to. No sure what language they spoke or whether they dealt with ol’ Rip. No eye contact and nothing but silence . . . as if there were all out to sea or across the universe themselves.
Rip must have seen these critters, right?
For me, it was a weekend reconnoitre. I’ll head back. One goal is to fotograf a ship or tow from one of the overlooks, soon. Thanks to Joel for pointing the way.
All fotos this weekend by Will Van Dorp.
5 comments
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October 20, 2009 at 7:16 am
davis
great pictures — at last, something to make me glad I’m sitting inside a warm office
October 20, 2009 at 10:34 pm
bowsprite
I think I see a flattened out cutter suction head.
October 20, 2009 at 11:11 pm
tugster
w. irving’s unpublished epilogue to the rip van winkle story has the 20-year sleeper return to draw incessantly in his sketchbook these strange designs that capture inventions of the bowlers in order to pass the wonders of the mountaintops onto posterity. these drawings included technology for dredging, nuclear power, and recreation. amazing guy, that rip.
October 21, 2009 at 9:17 am
Michael
I particularly like the jaws in the last photo, and the pagan fountain just before it.
The snowy photos not so much. I’m clinging to Indian Summer!
October 21, 2009 at 10:49 pm
bowsprite
…said the guy who goes ice windsurfing…