Last weekend I joined a couple of friends to do the Walkway Over the Hudson in New Paltz. The walkway, bikeway, skateway, strollerway is an ingenious bridge created on the bed of an aging and abandoned train bridge that once linked  Highland to Poughkeepsie.
Our day was blue-skied and warm for October. The leaves were still teasing us with only pockets of color - single candle trees of orange and red. Lots of yellow shimmered in the October sun. The Hudson danced below. Spread out in shining waters to the bends of the River that Flows Both Ways, as the Mahicans called her. There along the banks were stories - nature and human told. Cliffs rising above the river. Trains on each side - west for cargo and east for passengers. Promises of mergansers and sturgeon and cod were whispered by the waters. Everywhere there was delight.
The humans on the bridge, many with their dogs, mirrored the delight of the day. People of every color, shape, fit, ethnicity ambled, ran, talked and walked across the bridge. It seemed that we could get along, be good to one another, revel in life and creation. It seemed that we could connect with the community of life - the whole community! It seemed like a celebration just to be breathing on such a bridge on such an October day, under such a blue sky!

Walkway over the Hudson