SLEEPY HOLLOW: CHAPTER FOUR – SIDESTEPPING GOOSE POOP
Across the road from
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery are several side streets that all loop along the Hudson
River. Hidden deep into the neighborhood
is eighteen-acre Kingsland Point Park.
On the map, it looks like it might be slightly creepy, perhaps too
remote for a sole visitor to attempt. On
the website, it looks marvelous and green and safe, showing its summer face and
boasting entry fees of ten dollars per car.
I study the map carefully, zooming in, trying to decide if the potential
scenic vistas are worth my personal comfort and safety.
The neighborhood itself
doesn’t do much to bolster my confidence: There are no signs directing me to
the park, and there are several No Trespassing
notices posted along the short route.
Had I not purposefully set my GPS for the park, I never would’ve known
it was there nestled in the quiet corner of suburbia. I crawl past the houses, a mixture of small
homes with vinyl siding and large stone colonials boasting driveways full of
expensive cars. When my GPS announces
that I have reached my destination, I still cannot clearly see the entrance,
but I have two choices – right says something like “Do not enter under penalty
of a swift, messy, and unmerciful death,” and left says something like, “Here’s
a park. Don’t drink, don’t murder
hikers, and pick up your trash when you leave.”
I opt for the left.
The first thing I see is a
glassed in guard post with STOP written across it. I stop.
No one is there. Clearly we are
off-season, so I suppose that means I won’t be paying for a day pass. A maintenance truck blows past me in the
opposite direction as it leaves the park, and I weed my way along the tarred
road that winds one way around the area.
There are a couple of people here, none who look too scary, and I stop a
few times to snap some photos.
Finally I locate the
parking area. I pull my car into the
front space, since I am the only one driving into the park itself, and scan the
horizon. From the lot I can see the
edges of a fantastic view across the Hudson.
I do a quick survey of my surroundings: picnic tables, paths, and life
forms: a woman, a young boy, and a dog.
I decide this means it is safe to get out and walk around, so I grab my
camera, lock my car behind me, and begin hiking the few hundred yards to the
railing.
It has been raining today,
pouring, to be honest, so the ground, even where the pathways are, is muddy and
coated with chunks of ice and snow. In
addition to making sure I don’t sink in or slide away, I have to sidestep the
incredible amount of goose poop that seems to be everywhere. This, I reason, is a good sign. Fresh goose poop means the geese are
migrating northward again. Spring might
truly be on its way.
About this time, the sun
starts to break through the cloud cover.
It is not sunny by any stretch of the imagination, but the sky that was
once darkly gray is now lightening to a dirty white-ish tint. By the time I am overlooking the Hudson, the
surrounding mountains and hills are dark blue and still shrouded in
semi-fog. I snap some pictures, creating
a panoramic memory with my camera and with my cell phone (in case I get a
chance to post to social media).
From the park’s multiple
overlooks, I can see north toward Croton Point and south to the Tappan Zee
Bridge. When I traveled through here a
little over a week ago, ice choked the Hudson, and several barges appeared to
be frozen into place. Today the river is
clear of ice, as if spring came quickly and mercifully, which is more than I
can say for New England. A small,
somewhat dilapidated lighthouse guards Tarrytown, the lone area of any ice left
as far as I can see.
In almost the same moment
as I breathe in the serenity of the scenery, the reverie is broken behind me by
the passing of the commuter train on its way into the city. It is a shrill and loud rumbling, so out of
place here in the valley that it breaks my belief that I am out in the
sticks. I mean, I know I am; I came in
past farmland and back roads, but the placement of this park in this suburban
nook seems broken somehow by the reminder of urban reality.
The woman, child, and dog
are heading back toward the entrance. I
doubt being out here by myself is the smartest idea I’ve had all day, so I
cherry-pick my footing back over the mud and the ice and the endless wet mini-logs
of goose shit. I hope I don’t have any
excrement stuck in my sneakers, so I wipe my feet across the tar of the parking
lot, scuffing forward and backward and side to side before lifting each foot
for inspection.
Success! I am officially poopless.
I climb back into my car,
complete the one-way circle to the exit, which runs past the tennis courts and
along the previously hidden railway tracks, ironically spewing diesel fumes and
carbon monoxide all over those hiking the trails and trying to get some healthy
physical exercise. Passing Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery again, I weave through Tarrytown and parallel the Hudson on my way to
meet the team’s bus at the hotel so I can follow them to the field.
