🏰 Portcullis in the Fridge + Vanderbilt Mansion & FDR’s Home

August 25, 2025

🏰 Portcullis in the Fridge + Vanderbilt Mansion & FDR’s Home

I love to make postcards and I love to visit national parks and I am happy to report I was able to achieve these things in another beautiful New York week.

Monday June 23rd, 2025

Starting off the week with a postcard to Germany.

Had a nice chat about why Nebraska is the home of arbor day on this card.

Here are some glamor shots with Penny and the postcard.

I’m still trying out different ways of drawing trees to see what looks right. I am using the empty space on the postcards that I send to practice and try new things.

Here’s a homemade postcard for my pal Tony in Michigan.

I have no idea where I picked up this advertisement from, but slapping a blank shipping label on the back of anything will turn it into a postcard.

Another style of trees I’m trying out and also you can see some of the original advertisement through the label here.

In this postcard I was chatting with Tony about some stickers that I bought that I regret.

These stickers.

I don’t like the text that is with the cats on these.

I am still going to use these stickers, but I will cut the text off.

Check out this postcard that I received from Cyprus.

I suggest that people send me the cards that they’re having trouble getting rid of. I don’t know if this is why this card was selected by the sender, but it’s an odd one.

I am thankful for the card and how unique it is and I am especially thankful to receive a card from Cyprus.

One of my favorite things about postcrossing is receiving a postcard from a country that I have never received before.

Tuesday June 24th, 2025

Postcard from Bangladesh!

I wonder why it came in the plastic sleeve?

The folks that work at my local corner store are half from The Dominican Republic and half from Bangladesh.

I am trying to doodle and improve in little ways when I find time and there was a day I spent trying out different ways of drawing windmills.

Oh, and there’s a book about taking criticism (something I struggle with) on the corner of my night stand.

Good book.

Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well if you’re interested.

Therapist recommended.

And here’s where my notes fall apart.

I have a spreadsheet that I write little blurbs in to keep track of what I do every day and for the following image I have the following notes: “Unl Abyssinian lion postcard to to u. Chat about drawing a windmill and fantasy maps”

I’m pretty sure that the notes say that this is a UNL (University of Nebraska Lincoln) postcard of an Abyssinian lion that I sent to Tony. It seem that I forgot to take a picture of the front, though.

Please accept my dramatic description instead: You are standing in a mid-1970s museum filled with taxidermized beasts. Before you stands a family of large cats in a poorly lit glass structure. You read the sign next to the display to learn that these creatures are African and that they are nearing the brink of extinction due to trophy kills and by ranchers protecting livestock.”

These creatures are increasing in numbers thanks to land protection initiatives.

It was an old postcard that was yellowing with age.

Wednesday June 25th, 2025

I HAVE BEEN PORTCULLISED!

I opened the fridge and this portcullis fell out.

My partner has been watching too much Taskmaster which has led to this silliness.

When using postcrossing you will request an address to send a postcard to and will receive a random available address from another country that is in the available pool and today I received a request from China that mentioned enjoying postcards that can be made into things.

I have the perfect postcard for this.

The South Tower

I don’t know if I would have the patience to put this together, but it is an interesting idea for a postcard and I hope that the receiver enjoys it.

It received a doodle of the windmill that I have been working on.

I was chatting with an online friend recently who mentioned the Christmas card that I sent a while back and that I should make them again.

I think that I will try to do this again this year. I noted this on my calendar to that I will have enough time in advance to get these made.

In the mean time, I sent him a postcard from Ellis Island here in NYC.

If you ever do come to NYC and visit the statue of liberty, don’t skip the Ellis Island visit that is included. It is absolutely worth your time.

Thursday June 26th, 2025

Penny is lost in thought about existential dread.

We feel you, Penny.

Today I also put stickers on my wife’s Tattoo.

I have a friend in Nebraska who was debated coming to NYC to be in a live studio audience. So I sent him a postcard made from a Jimmy Fallon coupon. I believe these are given out after being an audience member of the show and can be used for a discount in the NBC store at 30 Rockefeller.

More doodles, and more funny bird stickers.

Friday June 27th, 2025

Cats

Saturday June 28th, 2025

Today we are heading upstate into Poughkeepsie, New York.

The goal: Visit the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site and get a national park passport stamp.

Also take the tour.

My favorite part of any historic site is the tour.

Step 1: Get up very early and head to Grand Central

So sleepy.

Step 2: Get on the Metro North train to Poughkeepsie

No smoking

Step 3: Enjoy the ride

Step 4: Watch the gap

Step 5: Send a postcard to my pal Tony in Michigan

Step 6: Send a postcard to my brother Shane in Arkansas

Step 7: Continue to enjoy the ride

Step 8: Wait for the bus to head further north into Hyde Park since the train doesn’t go any further North

Step 9: Realize that Google maps has done a terrible job at documenting the routes and times in this part of the country

Step 10: Order a rideshare through an app and wander around the building for a little bit

I got closer to this gated off room in the picture above.

Old buildings like this are fascinating.

I gave a little bit of money to a few homeless folks here for bus fare and to just kind of have a better day.

Had a chat with a fellow about having a small collection of rocks at home that I have found that I thought looked nice. He told me that he did the same thing and pulled out a sock filled with rocks.

I later learned that he was not allowed at local shelters because of carrying weapons around.

I am guessing this sock was involved.

I wish that we had a better safety net for folks facing poverty and mental health issues.

My rideshare driver arrives and he teaches me the correct way to say “Poughkeepsie” and I arrive at the Vanderbilt mansion!

I check-in and get my stamp in the main building and walk to the mansion entrance with a group of about 20 people waiting to join the next tour.

Why did I take a picture of the sidewalk?

This must have been an accident.

Back to the mansion.

Our tour guide gives us a quick introduction of the house and explains how we should behave while inside the building.

Check out this statue thing.

I think it’s a clock.

The big numbers go to twelve and the small ones go to sixty.

The Vanderbilt’s were one of the earliest wealthy and famous families in the U.S.

This house was primarily for hosting guests.

One of the most notable things that I took away from this visit is how well the staff were treated.

Upon the passing of one of the owners, the staff received money according to the will.

Staff stairs

It can be hard to see at this angle, but this is basically a ladder with a hand rain for the staff to maneuver between floors without being seen by guests.

My favorite stories during this tour were related to the staff.

It was common for rich folks to steal each other’s chefs around this time, but the Vanderbilts paid and treated all of their staff well and only had three chefs during during their time here.

Another item of note is the old ice box that the mansion still has.

When the refrigerator was becoming popular, it was not added to the house so that the ice workers could retain their jobs.

The tour is absolutely delightful.

We were able to see three floors by entering the front entrance, going upstairs and then down into the basement and kitchen area and then exit from the staff entrance.

If you’re ever in the area, this is absolutely worth the visit.

Take the tour.

Also, this is directly along the Hudson river.

I try not to look up too many details about a location before visiting so that I get to learn and have new surprises.

This has led to many unfortunate situations where I have showed up at the wrong time, or that the main attraction was not available.

It is difficult to find a balance between expecting surprises and visiting unprepared.

Tours are a great way to get the best out of a visit to a national park visit.

With this visit there are other locations that are part of the park, but house access is only part of tours.

After the tour there’s not a lot to do, unless traveling to the farm.

This is how I find myself with a lot of time left over and figuring out what I should do next.

The Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site and the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site are both in this area too.

Or I can try going to the farm part of this location.

The bus situation was hard to figure out here, so I’ll ask the ranger who gave the tour about the best way to head back toward the town and which site to visit next.

And then something magical happened.

The rangers give me great advice and a ride to the next location!

We’re going to the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, baybeeeeee!

Hopefully they have food. I’ve been in trains and mansions all day.

Whew!

They do.

But for real. I’ve heard stories of rangers giving rides to folks, and now it’s happened to me!

The stories are real!

Rangers are the best.

I’ll just eat a little something here and then get a full meal in town.

Mmm. Strawberry dragonfruit.

And a panini, which you may not know is our cat Penny’s last name.

Penny Panini.

Whispers: “Polka dot bikini.”

This little eatery is very modern.

Still sipping my drink as I wander around a little bit.

Good timing!

There’s a tour of FDR’s house about to start.

Oh, and before I forget, I picked up a postcard to send to my friend Dan in Austin, Texas who works at the LBJ library.

This guy had a lot of books about sea vessels.

Also a lot of political cartoons up on the walls.

I hear he made it a point to leave them up when they may be related to guests visiting his home.

An early elevator.

It was a bit tricky to find the starting place for this tour, but I made friends with a random lady who was also visiting and we worked together to find it.

This tour goes through tight hallways, so it sort of forms a line to visit each room.

Another fantastic tour!

There’s a lot to see at this park.

Outside I see this plant and I snap a couple of pictures so that I can identify them with an app on my phone.

It looks to be Common milkweed or Sullivant’s milkweed.

I’m not sure how to tell the difference, but it sounds like it’s bitter and possibly toxic.

I don’t make it a point to eat random plants, but I am happy to have this new knowledge.

Note: There’s a way to tell the leaves apart up close.

August 25th, 2025

Taking a short break in the middle of writing this to chat about misophonia.

I had to take a break from writing today to escape neighbor noises.

If you’re not familiar with misophonia, it’s that thing that makes people super cranky about chewing and whistling sounds.

For me the sound trigger is loud music, specifically bass when I can’t hear the rest of the music.

I haven’t had much trouble with it here in NYC, but for some reason my neighbor above me decided to just crank up the music.

This started around 3:30 in the afternoon and I’m work from home, so I went straight to my noise cancelling headphones as a first resort which was working well, but it got louder and louder until my poor wife was getting pissed off and banging against the ceiling with a broom.

So now I’m trying not to go crazy because of the noise, but also help my wife and finally I just went upstairs and banged very loudly on the door and yelled “Turn it down!”

And then I left.

Fight or flight.

If I stick around, I’ll do something that I regret and I was reaching that teetering point.

Some time at the park and a coffee shop helped me cool down and a chat with a pal on the phone got me back to normal.

Working through the after-freakout-shame, but I didn’t get too crazy like I have in the past. I’ll accept this as a partial win.

Something to chat with my therapist about, right?

Anyway, if you know anyone who get super agro over certain sounds, tell them to look into misophonia.

It’s genetic and it’s for life.

Thank you.

Back to adventure.

Saturday June 28th, 2025 continued

After the house tour and the plant, it’s time to check out the regular museum part of the park.

There’s a lot to see here, but they’re the types of things that I would suggest seeing in person.

One of my favorite things about my country is the national parks.

We put time, effort, and construction into preserving our history and creating tools to teach.

There’s so much to see that could be expensive and out of reach of most people, but the national park system and the bureau of land management as well as state, county, city, and other initiatives put within reach of regular folks.

And I plan to take full advantage of it.

Also I got my two national park stamps today.

Hell yeah.

Okay, three stamps.

But for two locations.

The numbers written in there are for the year the stamp for the site was released, by the way.

The FDR location is on the 2019 sticker set, for example.

I don’t have enough time to make it to the third historic site and that panini wasn’t very filling.

This means that it’s eating time!

Good bye visitor center!

This place doesn’t have a walkway in.

Only a road.

I prefer to walk on the side with opposing traffic so that hybrids and electric cars can’t sneak up on me.

There’s a nice diner nearby that I’ll spend some time at and then I’ll figure out how to get home.

Oh.

A drive-in theater.

I wonder if they still use this.

Probably not.

That looks a little bit overgrown.

But it is diner time!

Look at this Happy Days looking place.

The only thing that could make it any more 1950s is if they had a roller-skating rink nearby.

…

I…

Oh man!

Look at this place!

Chill out.

Charge the phone.

Write a postcard to Mike.

I need to stop drinking milkshakes, but I am exhausted so today we are allowed this small treat.

Y’know? I’m not much of a pickle guy, but I like to give things a fair shot.

This pickle was not for me.

I’m not there, yet.

The burger and fries are nice.

The Eveready Diner in Hyde Park is a great spot for a bite after spending all day learning about U.S. history.

(Get the milkshake).

I, again, couldn’t figure out the bus situation.

I think Google maps has bad data or something.

I’m ordering another ride from a scummy taxi app. (I tip well).

Now for the last picture from this day.

I don’t remember exactly what I was doing, but this role-playing game had a system where you’re supposed to roll dice on the page and use this to determine various groups who are “on the ins” or “outs” based on where they land on the page.

As I’m on a train and didn’t bring dice, I instead roll dice on a phone app, write those rolled numbers onto paper and sprinkle them on the page to get this.