Cabin Fever Chronicles – Getting Outdoors with Rod

Sabretts and Kosher Salted Pretzels = NYC

You probably don’t know this, but NY is my home town! I have relatives in southern CT, Long Island and Manhattan. Recently I paid a visit to my Finny Akers, my nephew, and his son, Jackson. While there I also spent a day in the City and saw my cousin Liza Greene, and a college buddy, Andy Schattman. A visit to NYC is always worth the trip!

I stayed in The Bronx with Finny – one must take a commuter train into Grand Central Terminal, and from there, you can walk about the City or grab the subway to zip to any destination. Wonderful!

All Aboard! Cute conductor!

It wasn’t long before I arrived at Grand Central. I planned to have lunch with Liza but I arrived early. So, I spent time walking about Manhattan. It was a bit windy and rainy! In rainy Portland, Oregon, where I live, people walk the streets clad in Gore-Tex. But in NYC, umbrellas rule!

Umbrellas everywhere, crowing the areas above your head!

NYC is the capital of making money. Rain is just such an opportunity and I saw several folks hawking cheap umbrellas, and passing pedestrians were snapping them up.

The wind was taking every opportunity to destroy any unsuspecting umbrella. Quite a few caught gusts and were wrecked.

I spent about an hour walking around Midtown Manhattan. Even on a rainy day people watching is entertaining in New York City.

I was to meet Liza back near Grand Central for lunch so I returned to that area.

Liza and me!

It was terrific to see Liza. We talked so much that it was hard to even order food! Everything from Oregon, to Hurricane Sandy, to her daughter, to my brother John.

Do you use Facebook? On this trip the social media website came into play as friends and family learned I was coming to NY! So, with a quick click of the mouse and a text message and a subway ride to lower Manhattan, I was able to connect with longtime college buddy and ski friend Andrew Schattman! It was great to see him! Funny how quickly something like that can happen.

We were college buddies and later took shares in a ski house in Killington, VT and also skied out in Colorado.

Me and Andy!

Then with some more time I headed uptown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I wanted to see some of the Egyptian collection and my favorites – the Impressionists.

I was not disappointed. In fact, I was completely overwhelmed. I had not been back there in 20 years, and its collection is absolutely MASSIVE and beautifully presented.

Block-long galleries of Roman and Greek sculpture and statues, as well as Mesopotamian, American Indian, Eurpoean paintings, Chinese antiquities, it’s absolutely WONDERFUL and ENDLESS. You can spend days in there!

There is Renoir, Manet, Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh, Degas, Cassatt, Pissarro, Gauguin – they’re all there! My eyes teared as I witnessed some of my favorites.