On the Peninsula Trail

 

Here in the Midwest, we're currently wavering between Winter, Part Three and Practice Spring, with temperatures varying anywhere from 35 to 65 depending on the day. 

So one day last week, when the forecast bafflingly called for clear skies and a high in the upper 60s, I declared it Homeschool Field Trip Day. We left our bathroom work crew to go about their day without having to step over or around us every ten minutes and drove out to a spot I've been wanting to visit for years. It's a nature preserve adjacent to million-dollar houses on the shore of one of our nearby lakes, a narrow peninsula that leads a mile straight out, water on both sides of the ridge that you walk along. The parking lot is deliberately pretty small to limit visitors, so despite its beauty it's quiet and fairly unpopulated.

It was the perfect place to spend the day.

It was made clear to me that I apparently spent the entire winter hibernating, because I did not have ANY wind for the unexpectedly steep elevation changes we encountered. I spent most of the hike gasping for air and vowing to get my cardio back on track when, you know, the days are a little more reliably not 40 degrees and raining.

Luna got a little winded, too. 

Good thing the view was so beautiful! Gazing out at the scenery is a great excuse to stop and make sure you're not dying right that second.

My greatest happiness is that my teenagers still bring me awesome rocks to look at.

We have some geology studies that we're VERY low-key working on, so during this field trip I forced the kids to each find three interesting geological things to sketch. 

Will sketched a bluff, and then it was back on our feet for the final leg of our trek!

The trail ended on a dirt beach, with water on three sides and the far lakeshore visible in the distance.

I brought a picnic (that, plus the extra water, hardback book, travel watercolor kit with even more water, and camera might have explained a little bit of my hiking woes...) for us to share, and then I might have had a wee nap while the kids played with Luna, finished their sketches, and also sat quietly to enjoy the day. 

The lake level was very high, I think, so I'll be curious to come back one day in the summer and see what this beach looks like then.

Not gonna lie--the hike back was even tougher!

Will finally took my backpack and gave me Luna, who stopped often enough to sniff stuff that I could save a little face with my rest breaks, and who could generally be relied upon to tow me at least partway up every incline. 

It was a brilliant day, the kind of very early spring adventure that reminds you that yes, pleasant weather IS coming, and full days exploring outdoors will soon be the rule rather than the exception. I think this little hit of Vitamin D will get us through Winter's Last Gasp and into Spring, For Real!

Whirlwind Trip to NYC Day 3: Central Park, North to South

 We treated ourselves to a nice lie-in on this day, partly to try to recover from last night's downstairs rave, but also because our only plans for the day were to meander across the entire length and breadth of Central Park... and to watch Hadestown that night.

A block and a half walk and two subway stops put us right across the street from Harlem Meer.

We took the easternmost path south, strolling past Untermeyer Fountain--

The Central Park Dialysis Center is so lovely!

--and the Conservatory Garden--

--before stopping to rest our feet and enjoy the view on top of some likely looking bedrock.

We saw a couple of really great dogs as we walked south between the North and East Meadows, and I don't feel like we even spotted any other tourists until we reached the west side of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir:

We strolled in a very non-jogging fashion down the Shuman Running Track, then left the reservoir at South Gate. We tried to peep at the Temple of Dendur through the window of the MOMA but we couldn't see it for the glare, which was a bummer. Fortunately, there's an obelisk just out in the open to peep at!

I highly recommend enjoying it from a nearby bench while eating a bag of m&ms. 

We didn't see any turtles in Turtle Pond, but we did spy this belligerent squirrel!

Will wanted to see Belvedere Castle--

--which has a lovely view to the northwest:

Afterwards, we rambled down The Ramble:

Note the typical view of my family from my perspective in the far rear.

The best thing that we did all day was happen to stumble upon this holiday tree dedicated to pet memorials.

I think that between the four of us, we looked at every sweet photo, and read every heartfelt, heartbroken word:

And now I can say that I've cried in Central Park!

I, for one, needed a boost in spirits after that, so we went to find Alice!

There's a good view of Billionaire's Row from Conservatory Water:

Will wanted to do Central Park Zoo, but it didn't seem cost-effective for the remaining hours it was open, so instead she just gazed longingly at it as we walked by. We did hit a couple of playgrounds, though, because apparently a million-mile march in 40-degree weather doesn't cause one to lose one's enthusiasm for SWINGS!!!

By the time we reached the Grand Army Plaza, Syd was having a major hankering for bagels, so Matt Google Mapped us down 5th Ave. and then who knows where to score the BEST bagels Google Maps could offer:

I don't really know where we went or the path we followed or what we saw on the way, however, because I was pretty busy having a very quiet panic attack. I was SURE our evening performance of Hadestown was going to be canceled, and I kept checking my email and the message boards to try to find some info, and whenever I didn't come up with anything I didn't feel comforted--I just started again.

Finally, sitting in this bagel shop, feeling like I was about to puke except the shop didn't have a bathroom, I agreed with Matt when he suggested that we might as well just go check out the theatre, make sure there was no sign up canceling the performance. We had to be over there in a couple of hours, anyway, so we could kill the time hitting up all the tourist shops around Times Square. 

Of course, when we got there, there WAS a sign up canceling the performance. Matt swore and I burst into tears standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Like, I was so pathetic that a random security guard even popped into existence out of nowhere to comfort me. Thank you, Random Security Guard! You were so nice! 

I think the decision was made to shop for presents in Times Square anyway, because I remember at some point standing in the middle of a billion I Heart NY T-shirts, and I have this photo:

And by the time Hadestown *would* have started, when Matt and the kids had already brought me back to the AirBnb and tucked me up onto the comfy couch in my pajamas and put food and a stiff drink in my hands and queued up more Supernatural episodes on someone else's Netflix account for me, Broadway.com had already refunded all our ticket money back into my Paypal account, so at least there's that, I guess.