Wednesday, September 25, 2013
On the road west
Am heading for the Grand Canyon...never have been there before. And am reading de Booton's book, The Art of Travel, along the way. But my first stop has been the hot springs at the Orient Land Trust...a place about which I have blogged before. Coming here always feels like home, a kind of spiritual home, like Ghost Ranch in New Mexico or the vast temple complexes in Tamil Nadu.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Staying at the Pod
Pingpong, anyone? so the last few times in New York City, I've stayed at the Pod Hotel. Tiny room...but great design...and public places to hang out...which I guess is the point...who wants to stay in their room...it's time to get out and around...
in the library books are organized by color...broad stripes in black and white alongside one of the bars...there are three bars...generally full...and then there are the elevators which have glass walls...three shafts in a row....so you can see who is going up while you are going down and vice versa...
But often you're going up to the bar on the terrace of the 17th floor...overlooking the rest of the city...by day or by night....
A good place for a drink before turning in....
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in the library books are organized by color...broad stripes in black and white alongside one of the bars...there are three bars...generally full...and then there are the elevators which have glass walls...three shafts in a row....so you can see who is going up while you are going down and vice versa...
But often you're going up to the bar on the terrace of the 17th floor...overlooking the rest of the city...by day or by night....
A good place for a drink before turning in....
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Manhattan
A walk
Got up early to head west on foot along 39th street...the morning sun not quite yet hitting directly on the streets...
passing the taxis heading for Grand Central Station to search for the morning's first fares... Further west coming to the Hudson, new apartment complexes catch the early rays...
As does the river itself and the ferries coming to their Manhattan port from Jersey City, Weehawken, Edgewater...Jersey towns providing part of the workforce that fills the city's streets...
Only five passengers, including myself, heading west...to the towns along the Palisades, the cliffs that range along the Hudson's shores.... When I was a kid growing up on those cliffs, the apartments along the boulevard were just beginning to be built...and those now further south in Jersey City were not even a gleam in someone's eye...and those in lower Manhattan had yet to be built and destroyed and built again.
Getting up and around the cliffs was always child's play...swinging on the ropes strung on the girders underneath "suicide bridge," for example, was part of that play....but now there are fresh stairs and, even, yes a light rail that connects to Bergenline Avenue.
Bergenline...one of my first jobs working as a bus boy at Tedesco's, a restaurant with "great mussels"...shopping for "good" clothes at Schlesinger's with my Mom...for a long time has moved to a Latin beat...you get a bit more English above 60th Street but generally it speaks Spanish with all of its flavors.
I walk from 51st Street where the elevators lift passengers from the light rail's deep tunnel to the sidewalk, wander past my elementary school on 74th street, its students filing under the portals that still proclaim "Girls" and "Boys." But the boys and girls line up together now.
But why the walk? Ahhh...meeting friends at a restaurant at 79th and Bergenline. Tapas de Espana. Friends from the same elementary school...class of 1958.
After lunch...walk back through North Hudson Park...along the boulevard that runs atop the Palisades...stopping off to see the Mom of a friend who still lives in her apartment...
Take that long stairway back to the ferry...crossing with the late afternoon sun against the high walls of the skyscrapers...
And then back along 39th street...now heading east...to the hotel...a late afternoon drink...that stretches into the evening.
I love hiking in the mountains of Colorado...but this, this was a great hike.
passing the taxis heading for Grand Central Station to search for the morning's first fares... Further west coming to the Hudson, new apartment complexes catch the early rays...
As does the river itself and the ferries coming to their Manhattan port from Jersey City, Weehawken, Edgewater...Jersey towns providing part of the workforce that fills the city's streets...
Only five passengers, including myself, heading west...to the towns along the Palisades, the cliffs that range along the Hudson's shores.... When I was a kid growing up on those cliffs, the apartments along the boulevard were just beginning to be built...and those now further south in Jersey City were not even a gleam in someone's eye...and those in lower Manhattan had yet to be built and destroyed and built again.
Getting up and around the cliffs was always child's play...swinging on the ropes strung on the girders underneath "suicide bridge," for example, was part of that play....but now there are fresh stairs and, even, yes a light rail that connects to Bergenline Avenue.
Bergenline...one of my first jobs working as a bus boy at Tedesco's, a restaurant with "great mussels"...shopping for "good" clothes at Schlesinger's with my Mom...for a long time has moved to a Latin beat...you get a bit more English above 60th Street but generally it speaks Spanish with all of its flavors.
I walk from 51st Street where the elevators lift passengers from the light rail's deep tunnel to the sidewalk, wander past my elementary school on 74th street, its students filing under the portals that still proclaim "Girls" and "Boys." But the boys and girls line up together now.
But why the walk? Ahhh...meeting friends at a restaurant at 79th and Bergenline. Tapas de Espana. Friends from the same elementary school...class of 1958.
After lunch...walk back through North Hudson Park...along the boulevard that runs atop the Palisades...stopping off to see the Mom of a friend who still lives in her apartment...
Take that long stairway back to the ferry...crossing with the late afternoon sun against the high walls of the skyscrapers...
And then back along 39th street...now heading east...to the hotel...a late afternoon drink...that stretches into the evening.
I love hiking in the mountains of Colorado...but this, this was a great hike.
Location:manhattan--new jersey
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Family
Official portrait...the Werge-Whitehead family celebrates the fifth anniversary of the wedding of Ingrid and Geoff. After five years, there are four members of this combo...a doubling of the population.
Ingrid....
and Geoff...
and Freya...not feeling so well here after a round of vaccinations for two year olds....
and finally the new Ms. Addie....
This does not include the cats. Anyway, Happy Anniversary.
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Ingrid....
and Geoff...
and Freya...not feeling so well here after a round of vaccinations for two year olds....
and finally the new Ms. Addie....
This does not include the cats. Anyway, Happy Anniversary.
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Location:Cranston, Rhode Island
East Coast
So when I say I am going to the east coast, I mean just that...going to various points along the coast that stretches from (for me) southern Maryland to Boston...all points between.
At Ingrid and Geoff's house, we are just two blocks from the east coast...the point at which this continents slips beneath the waves of the Atlantic or, in this case, Long Island Sound. From the old Norse, "sund," meaning strait...via old English and, then, English.
But, yes, it is having to do with water....and the lives that people living on the coast lead. A humid life...given the moisture in the air...such a contrast to Colorado...but one that now participates in the sea as if it were just a form of recreation...
or of physical beauty...providing a backdrop for daily life...viewing the water from the windows of our houses...or viewing our houses from the vantage of the water...
Either way the east coast is this geologic line where the sea meets the land...once it was the life-blood, the highway, the font of commerce, the passage to this continent from other continents...still it defines a cultural and economic paradigm...all along the perimeter between walking on solid, if soggy at times, ground and swimming in, or under, the waters.
At Ingrid and Geoff's house, we are just two blocks from the east coast...the point at which this continents slips beneath the waves of the Atlantic or, in this case, Long Island Sound. From the old Norse, "sund," meaning strait...via old English and, then, English.
But, yes, it is having to do with water....and the lives that people living on the coast lead. A humid life...given the moisture in the air...such a contrast to Colorado...but one that now participates in the sea as if it were just a form of recreation...
or of physical beauty...providing a backdrop for daily life...viewing the water from the windows of our houses...or viewing our houses from the vantage of the water...
Either way the east coast is this geologic line where the sea meets the land...once it was the life-blood, the highway, the font of commerce, the passage to this continent from other continents...still it defines a cultural and economic paradigm...all along the perimeter between walking on solid, if soggy at times, ground and swimming in, or under, the waters.
Location:Cranston, Rhode Island
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
20 minutes on the bike...
So I went out this morning on the bike after, finally, getting a new pair of riding shorts, and within 20 minutes came to the following sites.
And so I figure now that if you are looking for someplace to live and can choose, then choose a place that has a bunch of fun things to see or do within a 20 minute bike ride.
And so I figure now that if you are looking for someplace to live and can choose, then choose a place that has a bunch of fun things to see or do within a 20 minute bike ride.
Location:Providence, RI
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