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!