very simple

Caught this Central Park performer taking a little nap break.

I went to Philadelphia last weekend for my twentieth (!!) law school reunion, and in between the multiple parties and recuperative naps, I obviously wandered around town and took some pictures. This is the always fantastic sign for the reading terminal market, which is hard to photograph because it is wedged directly across a narrow intersection and behind this annoying streetlight.

For years going from the train to my folks house in the berkshires, I have passed this store and always sworn I was going to stop and take pictures of the sign. Last thanksgiving my dad and I stopped and had breakfast nearby, and I discovered that the store had actually closed so…last chance.

taken last weekend – abandoned newsstand made over into impromptu art commentary on the state of current news.

Little free libraries are everywhere. This one is in millerton, New York, and we passed it on the way to the train after thanksgiving last November.

sorting through some unposted photos, a shot of the fountain in city hall park from last june, when it was sunny and warm.

yesterday was the third women’s march – it was a little colder and grayer, and the national organization leadership has turned into a massive conflict-riddled mess, which of course resulted in various local marches literally disassociating themselves, which IN TURN led to three competing marches here in NY – an actual march organized by the local organizers who have organized the march every year here, a competing “rally” downtown organized by the national group, because they didn’t like getting tossed over, and a third rally for disabled protesters at grand central, because neither of the two other groups took account of the fact that their events weren’t accessible. So far, so…good(?).

Anyway, because supporting women and protesting the ACTUAL shitshow that is our national government is probably more important than any of this crap, I still dragged my ass out to the local march, in part because it seemed like the less objectionable of the two marches AND it also began literally in front of my apartment, so…maybe I’m a little lazy before deciding to walk several miles. As always, the camera came along and I took some pics. It was less crowded this year, probably due in part to the mess above, but also because they’ve been hyping snowstorms all week and the folks who would normally drive in from elsewhere thought better of getting stuck in the city. But people still showed up, and it’s still important to keep our eye on the ball, which is the real horror show in washington.

Today is both the first day of 2019, and the last day of my holiday vacation from work. Said vacation involved pretty much working from home the first week I was home (my own fault – I had a deal closing that I knew about before I planned things), and then trying to do a bunch of long-delayed home improvement projects. As usual, I cleaned out some stuff, but I also got a bunch of prints…printed AND hung up, and I finally painted the built-in cabinet that I had built six years ago when I renovated my bathroom.

So today, being the last day before I have to go back to work, and the weather being unusually cooperative (approaching 60 degrees and sunny? that’s not something to worry about in January), I decided to haul my camera across the Brooklyn Bridge and take some immensely cliched pictures of both the bridge and the eight gazillion tourists who had the same idea (can’t really blame them. It was really nice out).

Most of the pics are either of or from the bridge, but the first image is of the Beekman Hotel, which I will someday stay at just for the experience. It reopened two years ago after being restored – the building had fallen into complete disrepair and was in danger of being condemned completely. Luckily someone had the presence of mind to recognize the beauty of the place.

(As usual, wait for the page to finish loading and then click on the thumbnails to see the full images)

New York City has been absolutely captivated by its latest celebrity visitor – and hey, we all need a little distraction from the unending stream of horrendous political and ecological disasters going on around us – so why not spend a few days reading about and chasing a…colorful…surprise guest from out of town.

Yes, we’ve been graced with the presence of a rare (for the region) Mandarin Duck, who has taken up residence in Central Park. No one quite knows how he got here, but he seems pretty happy to commute between two different park ponds and hang out with our more…native species.

I was going to go attempt to see him last weekend, but in following the bird twitter-verse, he was hiding out, so I went and saw proto-feminist art instead. Today, he was hanging out on a little island away from the crowds, and so I wandered around and took some pics of him, as well as some of the ducks that weren’t getting as much love from the horde.

(as always, wait for the page to fully load and then click on the thumbnails for the slideshow)

For my summer vacation this summer, I opted to go to Alaska. I traveled with G Adventures/Nat Geo, the same venture that I went with to Iceland in 2016 and Peru in 2017. I chose Alaska for a variety of reasons – first, the trip was one that fit into my existing vacation schedule. Second, I have been trying, at least periodically, to go more places within the United States that I wouldn’t ordinarily travel to (see Wyoming in 2015). Lastly, I wanted a trip that was a bit shorter than my normal two weeks, because my brother was coming home for a spell, and I wanted to split my time off so that I would actually get to spend at least a few days with him. So…Alaska.

The trip looped from Anchorage to Homer to Seward to Denali and back to Anchorage. It started a bit rocky, with my flight nearly getting grounded at JFK and ultimately sitting on the tarmac for six hours, thanks to a veritable monsoon in NYC. A few rebookings and many hours later, I landed in Anchorage, missing all of the first day/night activities, but at least not missing the tour, unlike all of the folks who were supposed to be on cruises who missed their boats.

First stop took us to Homer, a cute coastal town, where we were supposed to go on lots of hikes, but due to the typhoon-like weather than apparently followed me from NYC, we instead visited every coffee shop in town, along with the very small, but very cute Pratt Museum, and squeezed in a hike when the weather finally cleared up a bit.

From Homer we circled around to Seward, another coastal town, where we got a private behind-the-scenes tour of the Alaska Sea Life Center (interrupted by an always fun fire alarm!), saw our first puffins, went on a boat tour of the alaskan coast and saw more puffins in the actual wild, together with a pod of orcas, and hiked up to view Exit Glacier, which is much smaller than it was even a few years ago.

From Seward, we had a loooong drive up to Denali, stopping a few times to stretch our legs and take pictures along the way. Our first full day in Denali was a 4 hour one-way bus ride deep into the park to view wildlife and the Alaska range – of course it was cloudy and rainy on the day we were scheduled to do this, so we couldn’t actually see Denali (only 30% of visitors actually ever see the mountain). The next day, when we did some more local hikes, it was (obviously) clear and beautiful.

Last, we headed back to Anchorage where at least some of us had a day to wander around before leaving for the airport, but not before I (or really, our fantastic tour leader) arranged for a local photography guide to take me on the Denali and Parks highways early in the morning so that I could do some landscape photography. As a bonus, we ran into some beavers building a beaver palace, even though they normally only come out in the evening!