Where To Now?

Originally posted on my Quest blog . I've been working on a new brochure for the  Troy Irish Genealogy Society . In the process, I've been looking at old photos of Troy. This city is one of the most interesting ones in this area, in my opinion. Looking at the skyline from the Hudson River is like stepping back in time. The church spires tower above a crowded matrix of row houses and historical 19th century buildings. It looks much like this, even today. View of Troy from Mount Ida (I think) This afternoon, I was going over to Troy to register for a drawing class at the  Arts Center of the Capital Region , a gift from Kef. As I was sitting at the stop light to turn right onto River Street, my eyes were drawn to the Market Block building rising up at the corner of River and Fulton. The light changed, so I couldn't take a photo, but you can see it  here on a Google Map street view . This amazing structure is characteristic of many buildings in the  Central Troy...

There are many historical sites in the Capital Region that I've wanted to visit. Today, I was out in Albany Rural Cemetery doing some headstone photography. As I was wrapping up my work I noticed the Pruyn family headstones. This reminded me that I had not yet visited the Pruyn House , a historic site that's just down the road from home. So, rather than going straight out of the cemetery to go home, I turned right and made my way to Pruyn House. (For those of you, like me, who are not accustomed to seeing "uy" in names, it sounds like a long "i"... so imagine that the name is spelled "Prine House" and you'll be pronouncing it correctly in your head.) This home was built between 1825 and 1830 on land owned by the Van Rensselaer patroon. The home belonged to the patroon's land agent (i.e. rent collector), Casparus Francis Pruyn. He was the sixth generation of Pruyns to live in America, the first having arrived in the 1660's. Althou...

We woke up early this morning, primarily because we went to bed so early yesterday. Kef had about 4 hours worth of conference calls in the middle of the day, so we went right to breakfast to make sure we were back in time for all of that. We drove south to a restaurant we saw on the way here...  Black Bear Diner. I had a delicious cinnamon roll french toast, plus walked away with a cute coffee mug. Kef had a hearty chicken fried steak with hashbrowns, eggs, and a ginormous buttermilk biscuit. We had a few minutes to spare before Kef needed to be back, so we made our way up to a scenic lookout point near the airport. The view was spectacular... and apparently many tour groups come here. There was a large group that had come in to the Phoenix airport at the same time we did. But they moved on and cleared some space for us to get a view and some photos from a prime location. The parking lot attendant told us we should come back for sunset... our parking pass would still be good. ...