Quote Of The Day

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

— John Muir

The Hudson Valley SPCA is a no-kill sanctuary in the Hudson Valley region of New York, with locations in New Windsor and Goshen. Dedicated to rescuing, sheltering, and defending animals, the organization works tirelessly to find loving forever homes for every animal in its care.

Open six days a week — closed Wednesdays — the shelter welcomes visitors, volunteers, and potential adopters. Whether you're looking to adopt, donate, or lend your time, the Hudson Valley SPCA offers many ways to make a difference for animals in need.

Interesting Facts

New Paltz, New York hides some genuinely surprising history beneath its well-known Huguenot charm:

• The Huguenots' deed was radical for its time: When the twelve original Huguenot patentees purchased land from the Esopus Lenape in 1677, they negotiated directly with Indigenous leaders rather than simply claiming the land by conquest — an arrangement considered unusually formal and reciprocal for colonial-era New York.
• America's oldest street got its name wrong: Huguenot Street is often called the oldest street in America with its original buildings still standing, yet the street itself was not formally named "Huguenot Street" until the 19th century — the settlers simply called it "the street" for generations.
  
  
• A mayor who made national headlines in 2004: New Paltz Mayor Jason West performed same-sex marriages in February 2004, making him one of the first elected officials in the United States to do so, months before Massachusetts legalized gay marriage — he was charged with solemnizing marriages
  without a license, though the charges were eventually dropped.
  
  
• The Shawangunks are geologically unique: The Shawangunk Ridge running near New Paltz is composed of white quartzite conglomerate dating back roughly 430 million years, making it one of the most ancient and erosion-resistant rock formations in the entire northeastern United States.
  
  
• SUNY New Paltz has an art museum older than the college itself: The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art holds a permanent collection that predates the college's current identity, with roots in art education programs established when the school was still a normal school training teachers in the early 20th century.

Secret Little Hack

Skip the Crowded Trailheads — Park at the Cemeteries

On peak fall weekends, the Mohonk Preserve and Minnewaska lots fill up before 9 a.m. and desperate hikers circle endlessly. What locals quietly do instead: park at one of the small historic cemeteries dotting Huguenot Street and surrounding roads, which have modest pull-offs that are perfectly legal, almost always empty, and often within a short walk of connector paths that feed into the ridge trails. You skip the $20 preserve fee entry confusion entirely on certain approach routes, and you get a genuinely eerie, beautiful walk through 17th-century Huguenot stone houses before you've even hit the first switchback.

The trick is treating the cemetery lots as your staging area — bring your gear ready to go, lace up there, and you're moving while everyone else is still idling on Route 299 wondering why their GPS sent them to a full parking field.