New Paltz, NY

New Paltz, NY

June 3, 2012 – After driving through rain most of the day from Gananoque, Ontario where we had gone to the musical Nunsense II the night before, we had decided that a night in a tent in the Catskills Mountains would not be the most pleasant way to spend the evening, so we traveled along Routes 55 and 52 through Minnewanka State Park arriving before dark in New Paltz, NY. The rain had finally gone away and we were able to enjoy the rest of the evening taking a walk around New Paltz. New Paltz is an interesting place to visit. It is located on the banks of the Wallkill River and its architecture is a mixture of old and new. It even has lavender parking meters!

New Paltz Super 8 Motel – a bit tough to find nestled in the trees without an overabundance of signs to guide you there, but a pleasant motel for our purposes.

Walking down toward the river we passed an eclectic mix of buildings with modern looking buildings on some corners and well-maintained older buildings from 1888 and perhaps older on other corners. I found the purple parking meter and painted garbage can to be nice touches.

 

 

The Wallkill River Railtrail passes through New Paltz and there are a number of newer shops just waiting to greet anyone using the trails.  Others can shop there too when the shops are open :-).  It was getting pretty late when we passed by, so only the restaurants and the “In Good Taste” Wine and Spirits shop were still open.

 

 

It was getting pretty late when I learned why the area was rather popular with tour buses. In addition to the scenic and architectural aspects of the region, New Paltz also has a direct tie to the Huguenots of France and six of the original Huguenot homes still stand beside the Wallkill River.

Since it was getting pretty dark by the time that we learned about the Huguenot connection, I upped the ISO and did my best to capture some low light images of the Huguenot homes.

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