An End of the Season-ish Walk Along the Historic Croton Aqueduct

Using my camera, which died quickly because I didn't bring extra batteries, I managed to take pictures during this brief trip. I happened to join almost at the last minute after a friend mentioned about it after checking Sundance Outdoor Adventure Society's webpage. Sixteen guys joined today's trip, which was thankfully uneventful, surprisingly relaxing, and didn't even cause me to sweat (although I felt some minor pain from my butt) after over 2 hours of walking through the trail that our leader, Peter & his co-leader Chris, carried on most excellently for the group. 

The trail included streets on Scarborough, where we were afforded views of the Hudson River, as well as the old houses and their yards.  I could not help but be reminded of the old houses we have in Stapleton in Staten Island. They must have been built during the same period; they have similar designs on porches, windows plus materials used.

 A few minutes before we would see a pack of near-flying wild turkeys passing by the backyard of the house shown on the left side of the picture.

 A backyard of the one of the houses along the trail that allows private views of the Hudson River. My landlord, who does inspection of houses as his business, would point out that houses built close to bodies of water would usually have huge glass windows set up a la 'widow's peak' that are close to the roof  of these houses. And I recall having seen several houses with such windows that would allow residents to have picturesque views of flowing bodies of water, the traffic of water vehicles, and other movements at any point in time as their schedules would allow them. I can just imagine having my coffee and breakfast before such styles of windows in my dining room LOL

 We soon discovered a lot of trail markers along the way. We even had to back-off once or twice so that we could pursue the right trail that our leader wanted us to pursue, which would lead us to our end destination.

 Just like the rest of my companions, I gawked at this bird perched on a mature tree branch from a distance.  We also took lots of pictures of the scenery afforded us from the trail. There were at least 2 or 3 other birds of similar size that we saw along the trail. These birds looked so nonchalant, and just went about with their natural ways during those moments. I was just imagining scenes in my playful mind if these big birds would actually mind people watching them (and without bothering them at all, which I know some of us can't promise not to do so).

 A weir somewhere in Sleepy Hollow---read Wikipedia's article on the Croton Aqueduct. On the opposite side's a cemetery, which is one of the many cemeteries I noticed were dotting the trail of this trip.  People surely have been working and living in these parts along the Hudson River with scenic views (that almost look like they're not ever changing) for many generations now.

 A view of other side of the Hudson River at least half an hour's walk to the end of the trip in Tarrytown.

Some of the participants at the point when we were resting for less than 15 minutes. The section on the left side of the picture is marked 'private property.' That sign meant we could not walk beyond it and had to divert to another direction, which our leader was really familiar about. In less than 20 minutes, we were in the Main Street of Tarrytown, where we had our lunch.