06-24-2017: Christine’s Birthday

For Christine’s birthday this year we took a weekend trip to New York City, the Bronx, and Hyde Park.  We crammed a lot in to a couple of days.

Since we were heading towards the City anyway, at the last minute Christine decided to try and get an appointment for an MRA at Weill Cornell Medical Center.  She was overdue for a new scan to update her status.  Fortunately, she was able to make an appointment for Friday, June 23, so we headed out a day earlier than originally planned and drove to Manhattan.  I don’t really mind driving in Manhattan, but parking is another story.  Instead of paying a fortune for a parking ramp (one sign indicated a half hour was a bargain at $17.74!), we decided that I would just drop off Christine at her appointment and then drive around a bit to see if I got lucking finding a parking space on the street.  NOT!!  Eventually, I just pulled over into a loading zone spot and sat.  Nobody bothered me and I enjoyed watching people walking by.  Soon Christine called for a pick up and I drove the 12 blocks back over to the medical center.

Christine then wanted to go to Macy’s to look for a favorite brand of jeans.  As we got further downtown, the traffic was horrible and there were crowds of people on the street.  We were near Times Square, so that explained the crowds.  We couldn’t find a reasonable place to park, so again I just dropped her off.  Around the corner was a big loading area and I pulled over.  Again, no one bothered me and I sat watching people go by.  Christine didn’t have any luck shopping, unfortunately, but we managed to reconnect, which was kind of funny.  We were both on our cellphones giving second by second updates on where we each were.  We managed to find each other at the corner of 6th Avenue and 33rd Street.

Then off to the Bronx where we booked a night in a Days Inn.  Traffic on the FDR was awful.  It took us over an hour to go just 8 miles to our hotel.  But we found our hotel easily and settled in for the evening.

For Christine’s birthday, I bought tickets for the NY Botanical Garden for the day and tickets for Chihuly Nights for the evening.  As readers of this blog know, gardens are one of our favorite things.  Combine garden with Chihuly, well there’s a million dollar combo!

I had never visited the NYBG; Christine had, but decades ago.  ­­The NYBG is an iconic living museum, a major educational institution, and a renowned plant research and conservation organization. Founded in 1891 and now a National Historic Landmark, it is one of the greatest botanical gardens in the world and the largest in any city in the United States.  And currently, there is a Chihuly exhibition installed at the garden, so throughout the garden there are fantastic Chihuly glass pieces, either standalones, or incorporated into plants and water features.

The weather was beautiful, although before we left the hotel it was raining very hard and quite dark with rain clouds.  But that cleared out soon and by the time we arrived at NYBG it was hot, humid and sunny.  The first Chihuly sightings were these.

Our first activity was a tram ride around the gardens to get the lay of the land.  NYBG is something like 300+ acres containing a variety of garden types from perennials to rock gardens, to native plants, to rose gardens, to forests – pretty much every imaginable kind of planting.

One of our favorites is hydrangea and we saw several varieties that were all absolutely gorgeous – pinks, whites, blues.  We’d really like to grow hydrangeas at our cottage, so what we saw today inspired us to pursue that.

We visited the rose garden which is the only original garden at NYGB.  Unfortunately, most of the rose blooms were spent or very past their prime.

We rode the tram to the Mertz Library and Art Gallery where there were several Chihuly pieces on display. The statues and fountain were beautiful and the Blue Polyvitro Crystals were striking in the fountain.

Some of the pieces we saw in the Mertz Library and Gallery are below.

We’ve been watching Genius, the NatGeo series about Albert Einstein, and I told Christine that the Palazzo Ducale Tower reminded me of the back of Einstein’s head in old age.

We then walked over to the Pine Tree Café for a sit-down and nice lunch.  Afterwards, we found a bench in the shade so Christine could have a birthday call from Eve.  We then headed to the Haupt Conservatory, a stunning example of a Victorian-style glasshouse with a huge dome and many wings housing various ecosystems of plants.  There are also two courtyard pools containing wonderful aquatic plants.  On our walk to the Conservatory, we wandered through the Ladies Border garden, which had lots of nice flowering plants and shrubs.

The Chihuly piece in front of the Conservatory is titled Sol Del Citron.

Within the ecosystems in the conservatory were many Chihuly pieces.  All were beautifully situated and we learned that Chihuly works very closely with the architects and landscapers to ensure that his pieces complement the setting, and vice versa.

The courtyards contained pools of aquatic plants and one pool had panes of glass in interesting shapes that reflected in the water.

We then set off for the rock garden and native plant garden.  Everywhere is just beautiful.  And for all the people visiting the garden, it really was relatively quiet and very peaceful in most areas.

In the small pond in the native plant garden were a couple more Chihuly pieces.

We then walked through the Thain Forest to the Bronx River.  It was so heavenly being in the forest as a respite from the hot sun.  The river runs through the park and there is a trail along the river.  There is even a waterfall.

We then walked back to the visitor center where we had a drink and something to eat.  The second part of our visit was Chihuly Nights, where the glass pieces are illuminated.  While waiting for it to get dark enough, we listened to a Latin band and enjoyed their music.

Then, back around the gardens to where all the Chihuly pieces were.  I’ll give you just a flavor of what the pieces looked like illuminated.

It was a beautiful evening at NYBG and it was really fun to be there at night.  But it was a long day.  By the time we left, we had been in the gardens for almost 12 hours.  And that’s a lot of walking, so we were tuckered out and ready to get back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.  Christine said she really enjoyed the day, so I’m happy that this was a successful birthday venture.

But, the weekend’s not over yet.  On Sunday, we went to Hyde Park to both the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Historic Sites.  For now, though, I’ll end and hopefully I will get the next blog installment about Hyde Park done soon.