Previous trip
It didn't go the way I planned; no bicycles for one thing.
Here's another chance at the pictures, and I think the links are fixed, but anyway we'll move right along.
The trip mutated from a drive down the Hudson to take a MetroNorth train into Manhattan and stay with artist neighbors, to a drive twice as long on which I was able to take my dog - an excellent companion, if not much on conversation. We stayed two nights with my sister's family in New Haven, and he deferred properly to the grouchy old lady dog.
Friday, Feb.18th, my sister and I took MetroNorth along the shore to go see The Gates. She had proposed that we take her folding bicycles, and I meant to brag to you about what a cool idea that was - though perhaps less safe than cool. I was somewhat relieved when she decided it was too cold; I've never been much good with bicycles, and haven't ridden one in years, except that this winter I've got my old but not dead mountain bike in a training stand to give my knees some low-resistance exercise (and it seems to help enough, even in small doses, that I do it nearly every day). Though there are dedicated bike paths in Central Park, they don't go in and among the paths where the gates were enough to be satisfying, and the prospect of riding among New Yorkers while trying to rubberneck... nah.
It was an excellent thing that we spent the day together, the two of us, not with another sister, not with our mother, not with her husband or daughters... just us, not having to talk a lot, but mutually focused on being in the day. A bright blue, windy, billowing day. Chilly (she wore long underwear; I'm glad I didn't because the train down and the Cooper-Hewitt museum were sweltering; I wished I had a warmer hat, and kept putting up the hood of my jacket, thinking it was warm enough to put it back down - as I did whenever I thought about being photographed - and finding how much good it did at keeping my cap on and blocking the wind about my ears) but invigorating.
And the drive through the northwest Connecticut hills (& adjacent bits of Mass. & NY) was beautiful both ways. I did stop at my favorite ceramics supply place, a handsome library I'd admired several times from the outside (I found some nice hardbacks for $1 that I thought belonged in a collection local to me) and a famous waterfall (Bish Bash) I'd heard of for years, and figured out a longer scenic detour around Albany that's a stress reliever (I would have been facing into the setting sun for the freeways near the city, which prompted me to go north on a bucolic route) and get back on the direct Northway near Saratoga.
I love driving like that, but need the justification to be going somewhere not just joyriding for its own sake.
Here's another chance at the pictures, and I think the links are fixed, but anyway we'll move right along.
The trip mutated from a drive down the Hudson to take a MetroNorth train into Manhattan and stay with artist neighbors, to a drive twice as long on which I was able to take my dog - an excellent companion, if not much on conversation. We stayed two nights with my sister's family in New Haven, and he deferred properly to the grouchy old lady dog.
Friday, Feb.18th, my sister and I took MetroNorth along the shore to go see The Gates. She had proposed that we take her folding bicycles, and I meant to brag to you about what a cool idea that was - though perhaps less safe than cool. I was somewhat relieved when she decided it was too cold; I've never been much good with bicycles, and haven't ridden one in years, except that this winter I've got my old but not dead mountain bike in a training stand to give my knees some low-resistance exercise (and it seems to help enough, even in small doses, that I do it nearly every day). Though there are dedicated bike paths in Central Park, they don't go in and among the paths where the gates were enough to be satisfying, and the prospect of riding among New Yorkers while trying to rubberneck... nah.
It was an excellent thing that we spent the day together, the two of us, not with another sister, not with our mother, not with her husband or daughters... just us, not having to talk a lot, but mutually focused on being in the day. A bright blue, windy, billowing day. Chilly (she wore long underwear; I'm glad I didn't because the train down and the Cooper-Hewitt museum were sweltering; I wished I had a warmer hat, and kept putting up the hood of my jacket, thinking it was warm enough to put it back down - as I did whenever I thought about being photographed - and finding how much good it did at keeping my cap on and blocking the wind about my ears) but invigorating.
And the drive through the northwest Connecticut hills (& adjacent bits of Mass. & NY) was beautiful both ways. I did stop at my favorite ceramics supply place, a handsome library I'd admired several times from the outside (I found some nice hardbacks for $1 that I thought belonged in a collection local to me) and a famous waterfall (Bish Bash) I'd heard of for years, and figured out a longer scenic detour around Albany that's a stress reliever (I would have been facing into the setting sun for the freeways near the city, which prompted me to go north on a bucolic route) and get back on the direct Northway near Saratoga.
I love driving like that, but need the justification to be going somewhere not just joyriding for its own sake.