Archives for 2011

Day Two in NYC was rainy, but we had managed to get tickets for the matinee of the show War Horse, which had won 5 Tony Awards including Best Play. We had originally planned on seeing the show later in the week, but tickets were pretty hard to come by, so we had to take what we could get. It took two hours to get to Lincoln Center, taking the Staten Island Railroad, then the ferry (which we missed by two minutes while getting a Metro card, so we had to wait a half an hour for the next ferry), then the subway up to 66th Street. We picked up our tickets with about an hour to spare, so we walked over to a rather nice Chinese restaurant where we shared a House Special fried rice, as usual. Headed back to the theatre to claim our loge seats, which were fine except the gaggle of teenage girls behind us, who quieted down for most of the show, except at the beginning of Act Two when their behavior warranted a stern warning from their chaperone (after a few caustic words from the patrons next to us). Despite that minor disruption, the show was INCREDIBLE!!! I could never have imagined a show like that being successfully staged as a play. The puppetry of the horses was fantastic. At worst, you had to be in awe of the incredible job the puppeteers were doing, at best they became invisible and all you saw was the animals themselves. Fantastic! The story was compelling, the suspense put you on the edge of your seat, the occasional humorous relief was delightfully welcome, just a great show overall. Again, worth every penny of it. Afterward, Hubby wanted to look for a new business suit, since most of his didn’t fit anymore with his weight loss, so we headed over to Fifth Avenue (grabbing a subway to avoid the rain, which had been pretty constant all day), then found a little shop on the second story that had a suit he almost instantly fell in love with. It needed some altering, so we arranged for them to make the changes, and we would get back in touch with them to have it shipped UPS once we had an address where they could send it. We stopped for coffee and ice cream in a puny little shop, then we headed down to Macys to look for suits for me, as I have the same problem. Stopped at several other place along the way, but didn’t find anything worthwhile. We finally gave up and headed back to Staten Island, getting back after 10:00. Plugged my ears and crashed once again!

Had nice weather today, so we decided to spend it checking out the trails at the Clay Pit Pond Preserve. Turned out to be pretty disappointing. A lot of the trail ran a perimeter around the park along a road and even behind a dilapidated apartment building, with great piles of trash along the way. Some of the more promising trails turned out to be closed, so in detouring around them we ended re-doing some trails, including one that veered behind a shopping center. Weird to be riding in such an urban area. The trails were pretty poorly maintained as well, with junk all along the way. We only ended up being out less than two hours, but frankly, that was enough. The noise of traffic was a bit unsettling. Looking forward to getting back into some real woods!

Headed west on a few backroads, having decided to dump at a Rest Area on I-91 south of Hartford. About ten miles before reaching there, one of the tires on the RV lost all of it’s tread, so we had to pull over, change the tire, then find someplace that had a replacement that was open on a holiday. Fortunately, all was accomplished in relatively short order, delaying us less than 45 minutes or so. We found the dump as well, and flushed out our tanks. Eventually we arrived in Staten Island just a little behind schedule. One shock though was the cost of going over the bridge from NJ. $52.50 and for the RV and $32.50 for the horse trailer!!! Just to get on the island!!! Didn’t have enough cash, and they didn’t accept credit cards, so the woman just said that a bill would be sent to me, as my tags had been recorded when I pulled up!! Really?? I guess the reason the tolls are so high is to pay for all the high tech billing apparatus! Is that the face of redistribution of wealth? Charging a fortune to pay for all the bells and whistles of collecting that fortune? How many times does that money change hands? I don’t know why I’m surprised, our whole complicated federal tax system is the exact same thing. Well, enough of that rant, suffice it to say that we made it to our designated stable, Richer Farms at just 5:00. We set up next to the barn with a not so glamorous view of their truck parking area, but at least it’s NYC and they’re on the edge of a park where we can ride, weather permitting. Had to sleep with earplugs in because of the noise, not surprisingly.

At last we managed to plan a ride day. Headed off the farm across a field, then down a road till we finally came across a sort of trailhead. That led us through pretty dense forest, past a couple of small lakes, behind some houses in a neighborhood, and generally everywhere the park had trails. This is officially a state park, but apparently the lands were acquired by not yet developed, so other than a few campfire areas, not much has been done. More trash than we’re used to seeing, but not surprising in such an urban area. We were only out for about two hours, but at least we got our ride in! Yeah!