FROM FRAMINGHAM TO NEW JERSEY DOWN THE HUDSON RIVER: COUSIN VISITING IN CONNECTICUT
Catonsville, MD, Tuesday, 05 August 2008

Leaving our friends in Framingham, MA, after two weeks, we headed for Madison, NJ, to visit other old friends that we had known and sung with in Frankfurt. A wonderful visit and great to see Julia and Chuck and the kids again.

On the way to Madison we drove along the Hudson River and stopped at Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY, where Kathleen'S mother had lived as a child, and where her parents and maternal grandparents are buried. Once you start tracing names and places you get rather caught up in the chase.

The Hudson River is spectacular. It is broad and deep and runs between high wooded banks for hundreds of miles into the interior. No wonder Henry Hudson and many who came after him were sure that the river must cut all the way through the continent to form a navigable passage for ships. It didn't and doesn't, of course. But it does go a long way and, with the construction of the Erie Canal from Albany, NY, to Lake Erie near Buffalo, NY, a viable commerical artery was created in the early days of the USA that lasted until the arrival of the railroads by mid-19th Century.

Leaving Madison after two nights we headed back to Baltimore with a brief stop to visit one of Kathleen's long-lost cousins. It has been over forty years since they have seen each other; they were still teeenagers when various branches of the family met for summer vacations at the lake.

Arriving back in Catonsville, Contessa Chessie was doing somersaults to greet our arrival. She hadn't forgotten us after all.