While At Half Moon Bay...

On June 7th the thirty eight mile trip from Liberty Landing Marina to the town of Croton-On-Hudson and its Half Moon Bay Marina...

... was made at a leisurely pace. Among the benefits of staying at this marina is the access to shopping, the availability of a car rental, and the proximity to the train to take you into New York City if you wish.

We did not intend to do this but it turned out to be a blessing in the long term.

The view from the marina office is not bad either.

The next day was spent cleaning up the boat, getting a car, and talking to other loopers about their experiences to date. Everyone has an interesting story to tell if you have the time to listen.

On Sunday, June 9th, we made the trip up the Hudson River in the rental car to tour West Point. The drive to get there had several viewpoints looking out over the river...

along with some historical information. This location told about the this narrow spot in the Hudson River having a very heavy linked chain spread across it by the Colonial army to prevent passage of any British ships.

There was an uninvited "guest" [not the driver] that made part of the trip with us. They do have some big bugs in this area.

Once we signed in at West Point we were assigned a bus to tour the campus.

The cadets need to be in great shape because this campus is well spread out and has a lot of hills between many of the buildings.

A big portion of tour was dedicated to the history of the campus and the army officers of fame who had graduated from West Point. As you would expect there are many markers...

monuments...

and memorials to people important to West Point. This one is for their long-time football coach, Red Blaik, who requested that he be buried there.

The tour included the old chapel which served the campus in the early days of West Point...

and ended at the new chapel which can seat all of the 4000 plus cadets.

As you would expect there is a slice of history everywhere you turn. We truly appreciate those men and women who have served our country in this fashion.

A few days later we were invited to have dinner at the CIA... the Culinary Institute of America.

This was located about an hours drive north of our location. We said "yes" immediately and joined Micheal and Leslie from How Lucky Again and their family, Jay and Theresa, who were visiting them.

The campus was impressively large... 

and picturesque.

 We were told that they start a new class of 90 students every three weeks. The graduating student who served us at dinner said that there were only 14 students left in her class.
These two had just completed their day of training.

Our dinner reservations were in the American Bounty Restaurant portion of the CIA.

Everyone loved their meal...

and the desserts that followed.

Our waiter...

took us on a tour of the kitchen when we were done eating.

The evening crew was busy starting the preparations for the next days menu.

We left that building very happy that we came!

Nautical Word For The Day: [from seatalk.info]

Papa:

1. The phonetic term used in radio transmissions to represent the letter "P".

From Great Loop Jargon:

2. The term most often used to hail this particular "grandpa".