Jaunt to the Saugerties Lighthouse

We had a strenuous hike in the Catskill Mountains yesterday, so today we chose siimpler fare.  We went out for a light lunch at Love Bites Cafe, in Saugerties, New York, and then decided on a stroll to the Saugerties Lighthouse, which sits at the mouth of Esopus Creek where it empties into the Hudson River at Saugerties.  This was our first view of the lighthouse, which had been the keeper's residence, with the light constructed atop:

We parked at the Ruth Reynolds Glunt Nature Preserve.  Ruth Reynolds Glunt was a local historian who published a book titled, "Lighthouses and Legends of the Hudson."  She was the widow of Chester B. Glunt, a U.S. Coast Guard light attendant stationed at Turkey Point in Saugerties.  She was friends with many of the lighthouse keepers along the Hudson River and she campaigned to save the lighthouses, one of which was the Saugerties Lighthouse.

At the parking area, we found a gravel-paved path through the Nature Preserve, which is a wetland on an peninsula created on one side of Esopus Creek where it enters the Hudson River.  Two attractive wooden bridges led us deeper into the Preserve:

As we stood on a bridge, trying to determine whether the beaver-chewed trees were felled by local beavers, or whether they floated down the Hudson River from some other site of chewing, we heard the unmistakeable call of some local ducks.  We looked down and, to our surprise, found four entirely different ducks all hanging together in one little mini-flock.  They looked, perhaps, as if they were sizing us up as possible contributors of bread or other goodies.  They certainly weren't afraid of us:

Eventually, the path led to a sandy beach along the Hudson River, where Kathy sat on a bench to take in the sepia-toned winter river scene:

The ground was littered everywhere with these spiky seedpods, which flummoxed our attempts to identify them:

Eventually, with some research, Kathy discovered that they are the seeds of the European Water Chestnut, which is an invasive species that plagues the Hudson River watershed.  The plant forms a dense green mat on top of the water that chokes out other life, which, you can understand, is why Hudson River residents don't like it much:

In 1978, the Saugerties Lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, due in large part to the efforts of Ruth Reynolds Glunt.  It presented an imposing facade to us as we reached the point of the peninsula:

The original lighthouse, constructed in 1838, sat in the water, but this replacement, built in 1869, sits on solid land, although a sandy beach nearly surrounds it and separates it from more solid, vegetated land.

This was the first non-coastal lighthouse we've encountered in our travels.  It was also the first lighthouse that was a light constructed on top of a house, rather than a light on a column that adjoined a lighthouse keeper's residence.  For a fee, one can sleep overnight in this house, which has been established as a bed-and-breakfast by the sponsoring Saugerties Lighthouse Conservancy.  As a consequence, we were not allowed to walk inside; but we would have dearly loved to see its interior design.  Well, maybe we can spend a night here sometime when we next come through the area.