November '98 Historic Traveler Feature Kids are sometimes good, fun traveling companions, despite their lackluster enthusiasm for historic sites. I say it. And I know what I'm talking about. This summer my wife, Beth Ann, and I spent a couple days visiting some historic sites in New York's Hudson River Valley. At Historic Traveler we have to face the facts.
Many former children have unpleasant memories of being dragged to historic sites by their parents.
Beth Ann still claims to bear emotional scars from being forced to visit Gettysburg over the July Fourth weekend in 1976. To really make things a challenge, we decided to stay on the road for about 14 hours the day before exploring the Hudson River Valley. We arrived late in Hudson, a town on the east side of the Hudson River about 30 miles or so south of Albany, after a grueling trip. We stumbled about a bit through the dark streets of Hudson in search of the St. Charles Hotel, a place we picked out of a regional brochure because it claimed to be historic. So we turned the air conditioning on full blast while Dad rushed out to find a fast food place that was still open.