West North
Due to scheduling issues, the Father's Day trip to the U.S. Military academy, just northwest of New York City, was delayed until late last week. The 300-mile journey went fairly smoothly, considering that I couldn't listen to the type of music I usually listened to on long road trips. We arrived around 2pm, and went straight to the West Point museum, behind the visitor's center, since I knew it closed at 4:15. Very interesting displays, artwork, and stories about the founding of the academy in 1802, under President Jefferson's watch (even George Washington couldn't convince a wary Congress that a standing army wasn't a bad idea). Another floor showcased the history of the Army, and the basement held tons of armaments, big and small (got to see a bunch of weapons I fire playing "Call of Duty"!)
Other tidbits we learned: little realized today, but fifty percent of the first graduating class was Jewish.
The other guy wasn't.
But the classes got bigger (the father of Lew Armistead, who died for the Confederate cause during Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, was among the first graduates), and then anyone who was anyone during the Mexican War had been a West Pointer. Robert E. Lee was the commandant in the 1850s. Edgar Allen Poe was a cadet who got his best ideas working nights at the Post cemetery. The attendees have etched a permanent place in history: Patton, Westmoreland, Custer, U.S. Grant, Eisenhower, and however you spell Schwarzkopf.
We then took our bags into the Five Star Inn next door, only to be told that our room wasn't in that building (like I'd been told), that the Officer's Club was closed for the summer (even though it didn't say so on the website), and "Five Star" was more a cute military reference as opposed to any official grade by an accredited resource. I've stayed in nicer places in Turkey, with the "Continental Breakfast" consisting of individually wrapped muffins and bagels like you'd find at a 7-11. Shithole.
Still, we'd heard that the West Point Club's pub was open, so we changed into nice clothes in case they had a dress code, finding a small, dank, wood-paneled room with chairs seemingly still scattered from the previous month's graduation party, chips on the floor, noodles on the chair, and the one other customer there dressed in beat-up jean shorts and a t-shirt. But we weren't too dismayed, still in awe of the beautiful on-campus scenery and view of (and across) the Hudson.
We had no idea the academy was built into and up the side of successive hills -- you think of a wide-open campus; flat, for tanks and marching and going 'hut'. But it was just idyllic. The father-in-law wants me to get a job "teaching aerospace" there. Tempting.
The next morning, after a 7 am phone call from some lady at DTRA who got my out-of-office reply and still determined that asking me about tablecloths for the 13 Aug ceremony constituted "an emergency", we had a great breakfast across the street from the Visitor's Center, then took a two-hour guided bus-n-foot tour through the Academy. Again, most everything was shut down for the summer, so The Long Gray Line was just a Big Green Square being mowed (though we did see some New Cadets going through training).
Seeing all we thought we could, we decided to head home around 1:30, thinking we'd get in before Ryan went down. Unfortunately, what took us under 6 hours to get there, going home took closer to 8 hrs -- over 45 minutes just to cross the Delaware River. I felt bad for my passengers (especially when we got less than a mile from my Dad's house and got stuck behind an accident clean-up for 20 min), but we relished the experience and will remember West Point, as opposed to North-South I-95, when we think back.
I'll also remember the trip back as the time I realized "The Bear Went Over The Mountain" has the same tune as "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."
I really should have had more music.
"NoodleChair" would be a good name for a punk band.
Other tidbits we learned: little realized today, but fifty percent of the first graduating class was Jewish.
The other guy wasn't.
But the classes got bigger (the father of Lew Armistead, who died for the Confederate cause during Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, was among the first graduates), and then anyone who was anyone during the Mexican War had been a West Pointer. Robert E. Lee was the commandant in the 1850s. Edgar Allen Poe was a cadet who got his best ideas working nights at the Post cemetery. The attendees have etched a permanent place in history: Patton, Westmoreland, Custer, U.S. Grant, Eisenhower, and however you spell Schwarzkopf.
We then took our bags into the Five Star Inn next door, only to be told that our room wasn't in that building (like I'd been told), that the Officer's Club was closed for the summer (even though it didn't say so on the website), and "Five Star" was more a cute military reference as opposed to any official grade by an accredited resource. I've stayed in nicer places in Turkey, with the "Continental Breakfast" consisting of individually wrapped muffins and bagels like you'd find at a 7-11. Shithole.
Still, we'd heard that the West Point Club's pub was open, so we changed into nice clothes in case they had a dress code, finding a small, dank, wood-paneled room with chairs seemingly still scattered from the previous month's graduation party, chips on the floor, noodles on the chair, and the one other customer there dressed in beat-up jean shorts and a t-shirt. But we weren't too dismayed, still in awe of the beautiful on-campus scenery and view of (and across) the Hudson.
We had no idea the academy was built into and up the side of successive hills -- you think of a wide-open campus; flat, for tanks and marching and going 'hut'. But it was just idyllic. The father-in-law wants me to get a job "teaching aerospace" there. Tempting.The next morning, after a 7 am phone call from some lady at DTRA who got my out-of-office reply and still determined that asking me about tablecloths for the 13 Aug ceremony constituted "an emergency", we had a great breakfast across the street from the Visitor's Center, then took a two-hour guided bus-n-foot tour through the Academy. Again, most everything was shut down for the summer, so The Long Gray Line was just a Big Green Square being mowed (though we did see some New Cadets going through training).
Seeing all we thought we could, we decided to head home around 1:30, thinking we'd get in before Ryan went down. Unfortunately, what took us under 6 hours to get there, going home took closer to 8 hrs -- over 45 minutes just to cross the Delaware River. I felt bad for my passengers (especially when we got less than a mile from my Dad's house and got stuck behind an accident clean-up for 20 min), but we relished the experience and will remember West Point, as opposed to North-South I-95, when we think back.
I'll also remember the trip back as the time I realized "The Bear Went Over The Mountain" has the same tune as "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."
I really should have had more music.
"NoodleChair" would be a good name for a punk band.
posted by Dan at 9:03 PM
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