It's a whirlwind ...

I am at my townhouse in California, which my daughter and her guy are living in.  Arrived yesterday, after spending only a day in Florida on our return from New York City.  Pen flies out on Monday, and then we're taking my car back to Alizee in Florida, thence embarking on Alizee for the Chesapeake.  ... What an incredible whirlwind of travel this has been!  We're ready for a break.

We arrived in New York City from our London and Budapest travels, and we spent a wonderful week with Neil and Ruth Cowan at their home in Glen Cove, Long Island.  Neither of us are used to traveling by rail and subway everywhere, but it's what we did on jaunts into the Big Apple for sightseeing.  Not so bad really, but I'm glad I'm not commuting any more. 

Jet lag and general weariness limited our New York sightseeing.  We walked the new Highline, an elevated freight rail line that has been converted to a garden walkway above the streets of the city right along the Hudson.  We saw the public libraries (the two main branches), strolled 5th Avenue and other well-known streets, had lunch in a great little Italian place downtown near the start of the Highline, dropped into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and generally soaked in the busy city life.  We took one day and went up to Nyack to visit Pen's step-daughter Jill and her husband Mark ... they treated us royally and Mark cooked a massive dinner.  And, we took part of another day to go to Queens and have dinner with Sue Horning, history colleague of mine and singer in the Email Special jazz group (unfortunately, she couldn't play with us in Budapest).  We also had a couple of dinner parties with Ruth and Neil, one with some of their old friends and the other with her daughter May's family. 

All in all a wonderful time!  We look forward to seeing them again soon, but we're aching for a traveling break.  The upcoming road trip will be fun and different, but I'll bet we just veg for the week following it.

Photos