Hey there, and happy Friday!

Look at all of the light: the brilliant, almost white, bleaching stately apartments on the Upper West Side and one of the most handsome subway stations, ever, to the low light of shade and the moody brilliance of night time. New York, you are gorgeous!

We had a second sidewalk lunch made fancy with beer for the hubster and a pretty cocktail for me. I went out on a limb and ordered a cold soup, which I normally think of as an upmarket euphemism for vegetable juice. To the chefs at the DB Bistro, I’ve been schooled! That beautiful bowl of sunshine was an absolutely delicious surprise.

We splurged, along with what seemed to be half of the tourists populating the streets of Manhattan, on a trip to the top of Rockefeller Center. Hundreds of us ogled its beautiful interior before we jammed through security, and at least one of us, ahem, yours truly, got taken out of line for forgetting to remove a Swiss Army Knife from our belongings. I just about cried when I thought I would have to discard it, having bought it in Switzerland on my honeymoon and carted it practically everywhere for the past twenty-three years. Thankfully the kind security officer gave me (and us) the option of coming back, as long as I promised not to stash it in a planter box on site. My solution, while definitely not on the premises or on my person, was probably just as illegal, but it was there when I returned. A hearty huzzah and a fine lesson learned!

How about that view? I chose the Top of the Rock because the top of the Empire State Building doesn’t have a view of itself, and what a great loss that would be for the Colleen Sohn photo archives. I don’t know the names of the majority of the buildings pictured, and am too lazy to look them up, but dang, they are a sight! The Chrysler Building, my absolute favorite in the Manhattan skyline, is not nearly as visible as I would have liked, all weird angles or obscured by glass, so we walked (surprise!) until it was photo ready and, a fine bonus, got a shot of Grand Central Station decked out in it’s late night splendor. At that hour it is a near ghost town, too. Another great day!

New York City on September 11th. I got to eat at a sidewalk cafe in Brooklyn, something I had always wanted to do. Inspired by countless fil-ums and television shows, I suppose, the slant of light, the notion of being still while the city in all its aliveness walks and breathes and honks its way to somewhere.

We walked a lot that day, spying locations both intentionally, in the case of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, and by sheer chance, at the Maritime Hotel, made special to us by Bored to Death. Gosh, I love that show. We met our friend Tom on the High Line and had drinks at the Frying Pan, and walked downtown to see the 9/11 Memorial, a swarm of people and the physical sensation of so very many names, my fingers skimming the letters, a blind woman searching for meaning.

We will part ways with our friend here and walk to Little Italy and the Festival of San Gennaro, eat pizza as good as our memory of it at Lombardi’s, and stroll the neighborhood where we first stayed for ten days more than twelve years ago, that simple unimposing building located at 5 Prince Street, bank of windows glowing with the feeling of home, and a near literal hop, skip, and a jump from Bowery and the New Museum.

We’ll walk up Bowery to 14th Street and Union Square, on the way taking my favorite picture of the day, the one just above the Bowery Electric photo, that best captured my mood of the moment, of being happy amongst a sea of humanity on a warm summer evening, all of us separate and doing our own bidding, yet a fingertip distance from one another and thusly connected.

By the end, we had clocked more than nine hours on our feet, which in that dizzy happy tourist way felt like nothing until we plopped down on the subway for our ride home to Queens and laughed aloud at our throbbing feet.

A road trip to the Big Apple! Our streak of toll-less roads is now over some $22.90 later. It was worth every penny and crazy-wild to see highway signs for New York City. The hubster and I were wide-eyed and giddy at the unfolding of the island of Manhattan across the George Washington Bridge. I’d been awake since three, my brain refusing sleep, but after being cooped up in the car all day could not wait to walk, and will, over the course of our four day visit, go hog wild in this department, clocking in more than twenty hours.

We bought pastry at Circo’s, chocolate cake for the hubster and a lobster tail (sfogliatella) for me. We ate our treats on a park bench, watching runners and galloping dogs on leashes, and listening to the chatter of a handful of languages that were not our own. Utterly delighted at the musicality of foreign tongues and our sweets, mine tastier than an ancient memory of it and better than the hubster’s, too.

Though I was succumbing to fatigue and the hubster called me his little bobble head for my sleepy resemblance to one, we walked on. It was hot, and we stumbled across a great bar, enjoying surprisingly good frozen margaritas (I normally feel cheated by them) and our kind of music on the hi fi before calling it quits. A great first day!

This is Buffalo! Capacious and threaded with one zigging highway after another, it’s the home of hot wings, friendly strangers, and a near perfect summer. We were not fooled about the rest. We saw the tell-tale signs of WINTER, the reflectors attached and bobbing some six feet above fire hydrants and other life-saving necessities. That is deep snow, with the city receiving an average of 85 inches a year! So let’s bask in summer while we can, take in the Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts, listen to great music, and watch sweet souls on parade.

Next stop, the Albright-Knox Gallery. The massive sculpture is made from more than 50 canoes (artist: Nancy Rubins). I love it!

Barking Irons

Dan Colen

Save the canvas, it is made entirely from chewing gum.

Child’s Blue Wall

Jim Dine

Screen Play: Life in an Animated World

Nearly fifty animated works from the past thirty years. What a lucky break to see it!

You can, too, at least until September 13th.

I don’t remember who made this.

Watching Marco Brambilla’s Evolution(Megaplex) with 3-D glasses.

Out of Nothing

Miao Xiaochun

One film as seen from five angles. It was really quite stunning.

Dying Living Woman

Camille Henrot

Here we are, the reason for the whole weekend, Niagara Falls. This is the American side, the top photo the Niagara River charging forth at an astonishing 32 million gallons a minute. We were surprised at how incredibly close we could get, our bodies positively thrumming with the thrill of the sublime.

We walked over the Rainbow Bridge to Canada (and back) to get the best views, which sounds stranger than it is and, judging by the solemn looks of the occupants we passed, far better than being stuck in a car whiling away the time at a border crossing. If you decide to follow suit, be sure to have your passport and two quarters to get through the turnstiles back into the U.S. I’ve got my finger on the border and my hand resting oddly at my side. I’m no supermodel…

The hubster: the most handsome and best traveling companion, ever.

We laugh. We eat. We wander and wonder. We get lost and found.

Loyal She Began, Thus She Remains

Ontario Coat of Arms

Up early Friday morning for a drive north. Cool and quiet, the sun only just rising to burn through a layer of fog. I squealed at the sight of it. The world is full of marvels.

Lake Erie, our first stop in an incredibly action packed weekend, and a jaunt on the wonderfully picturesque Presque Isle peninsula. Still fairly early in the day, we nearly had the beach to ourselves, and I wished that we could have stayed forever; it was so perfect. Our first time at a Great Lake, the pair of us stood in wonder at the size of it, the Canadian shore well beyond the Earth’s curve and the sight of our eyes. So much water!

More water at the shore in Jamestown and Chautauqua Lake in New York. Growing up just over twenty miles from Boulder, Colorado and it’s own Chautauqua, I was keen on seeing another. How beautiful they both are! Jamestown is also the childhood home of Lucille Ball, which splains (a la Ricky Ricardo) the fabulous mural.

The hubster and I, at once thrifty and adventurous, have yet to pay a road toll, preferring the slower pace, tricky directions, and marvelous rewards of of the less travelled route. Which brings us to the last photo and our final stop of the day, our wonderfully out of the way airbnb in Amherst, New York. Up next, it’s Buffalo and Niagara Falls!