July Appendix II: We had Gardner Visitors!

JULY 12: And just 2 days after Mom, Dad and Emily left, Katie and Carolyn (Liz’s sister and niece) arrived for their visit. First stop? Serendipity 3, which I hadn’t been to since…2004? A fun start for their visit indeed!

JULY 13: We started the day with breakfast at Daily Provisions before walking down the High Line to the Yayoi Kusama show — this time we did wait in line for the Infinity Room. From there we returned to the High Line and finished our walk down to the West Village with lunch at Sweetgreen (not pictured) and some soap shopping (also not pictured).

That night? Back to the Future on Broadway, but first, dinner at the Stardust Diner — a thing I had ignored for all of my New York time and then discovered was actually pretty fun and cool. After Back to the Future, Uncle Quentin met up with us for a late night cheesecake hang.

JULY 14: Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island! What a time for patriotic feelings! Also, what a time to be caught out in the open when a gigantic rainstorm arrived. We survived! That’s what matters.

JULY 15: Started the day with a visit to the Manhattan Temple, followed by lunch at the Smith, a walk through Central Park, a pedicab ride for the princesses and cookies with Quentin and Craig in Verdi Square.

That nigh we took a trip out to Carroll Gardens for a fantastic meal at Frankies and a fantastic slice at F&F after our dinner there with Quentin.

JULY 16: The final day! Before church we visited the Cloisters before catching a little church and then it was time for Katie and Carolyn to head back to Columbus. What a great visit it was! A true highlight to our NYC Summer!

July Appendix I: We had Barnes Visitors!

July 6: Mom, Dad and Emily came to New York for one last NYC visit (or, one last visit while I’m a resident, at least). We started off by meeting up in Chelsea so I could check out a gallery or two. With them! We popped into the Richard Avedon show for a bit and then went and had a good time at the new Kusama show but did not wait in line to go into the Infinity Room.

Then we caught a cross town bus and met up with Liz for dinner at Yellow Rose, a TexMex spot that really makes us all say Yee-Ha! Post Yellow Rose, we took a nice long walk up to 34th street.

July 7: We met up for lunch at Urban Hawker and then the ladies and I walked around midtown and the Library before meeting back up with Dad for dinner at Peter Luger. We retreated to everybody’s hotel for a minute after that and then went and saw Peter Pan Goes Wrong and then called it a day.

July 8: A big adventure! We drove up to the Vanderbilt estate up in Hyde Park!

And the we drove up the road a little bit to visit the Roosevelt estate.

And from there we drove over to the Woodbury Commons Parm for a very nice dinner.

July 9: Well, this is odd. Looks like I hardly have any pictures from this day? But we went to church, walked around the village, and had dinner at Anton’s and then walked to the river and got rained on a little. Here is a picture of us on the pier. And then a picture of us paying our respects when we heard that Cosby Edwards had died.

July 10: Came down to midtown in the morning for one last bite with Mom and Dad and Emily. Daily Provisions breakfast! What a way to cap off 20 years of visits and meals!

Here’s a picture of a picture after the first meal I shared with Mom and Dad in New York, btw. “The dumpling house on Eldridge” — back then that’s all that it was known as. Now it’s a Vanessa’s and three times as wide! So much changed over 20 years, but having visits from family always stayed a highlight.

We Had a Spectacular New York City July

And now: a post about “everything” Liz and I did in July — you may get to the bottom of this post and say “Really? That’s everything you did in July? Seems like a kind of short post for all of July?” Well, guess what? It isn’t ALL of July! We had two important sets of visitors come visit and they each deserve their own great big blog post! And a few other adventures of ours from July deserve their own posts — especially the adventure that didn’t take place in New York at all (are you excited to find out about that??) — Ok, so, for now, Let’s Go! Here’s “everything” we did in July!

JULY 1: You know we love a walk! You know I love overdoing it with an itinerary! Liz had wanted to see Chinatown so I was like: “Ok, what if we walk the High Line, then visit some Chelsea art galleries, then walk through the West Village (where you might find a new favorite pair of pink boots), then walk through Soho (stopping at Baggy, among other stores) and THEN walk through Chinatown?” She agreed. So we did all of that and, predictably, by the time we got to Chinatown we were pretty worn out. BUT not too worn out for some dumplings! (BUT probably too worn out for the noodles we had after the dumplings.)

JULY 4: Ohhh boy, Cornelius had a visitor! Look at him looking at it!

Also July 4: Again, we love walks! So we planned up a very ambitious 4th of July walk up the Hudson. Our ambitions got the best of us, and it was hot, and there were tons of bugs, so we walked about a little more than a half of what he planned to walk, but still made it from our house up to Hastings on Hudson — which, if that had been our original plan, would’ve sounded like a pretty ambitious plan itself! We walked through all sorts of neighborhoods, really learned a lot (particularly about Yonkers), it was fun! And hot! And sweaty! And buggy!

July 6-10: Final visit from Mom, Dad and Emily, to be posted separately

July 12-16: First visit from Katie and Carolyn, to be posted separately

July 22: Cornelius was being photogenic in the living room.

July 25: A grand day out! You know I often say I’ll go to the beach once a year, and this year we decided to really make that day count! (Meaning -- We have a car! Let’s use it!)

First we headed to one of our favorite places there is, Roll n Roaster in Sheepshead Bay, the ultimate fast food time machine and roast beef experience.

This is how I feel when my Roll n Roaster sandwich is all gone:

But this is how I feel when I discover there’s a Brigham Street in Brooklyn and it’s RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER from Roll n Roaster!

From there we drove over to the beach, the Jacob Riis Beach, and walked up the beach a bit, probably not all the way to Fort Tilden, but away from the majority of the beach goers. It was very nice at the beach and then the storm clouds rolled in. And shortly after we retreated to our automobile and drove off for our lunch/dinner, the rains did come quite heavily.

We lunch/dinnered at L&B Spumoni Garden, one of the city’s most magnificent treasures—and now it has a cameo in the new Ninja Turtle movie!

July 26: We went to the Bronx Zoo! It was So Humid! And Crowded! But still, it’s fun! Look at the great reptile photos I got!

July 27: Patricia invited us over to Governor’s Island for a Nature Walk. The nature walk took place on a part of the island I had never been to before, way past the new glamping resort and up on the manmade hills they’ve made that now blossom with native and invasive species, bugs, and sheep aplenty. Post walk we foodtrucked at the old part of the island before returning to the island where we live. Manhattan.

July 31st: One More Walk! Not ones to leave goals incomplete, Liz and I took the train up to Tarrytown, the original goal destination of our July 4 hike (ambitious, right?!) and walked down to Hastings on Hudson from there. It was much more pleasant weather this time! Tarrytown was found to be nice as always and we were walking along the road until we got to a path that took us by Lyndhurst Manor Castle and then behind other fine Hudson River homes. Nice walk, nice time, nice July!