Lake George

It's been exactly a year since we went to Lake George, and I'm already feeling nostalgic. I've shared some photos from the mini diner tour we took on the drive up (here and here), the life-changing Magic Forest (including a Snow White exhibit of questionable provenance and many Muffler Men) and the excellent mini-golf scene, but Lake George is packed full of so many additional delights.

We stayed in the cutest little A-frame cottage at the Amber Lantern Motel, proving my theory that any hotel that uses classic plastic key tags (see also the Wiltshire Motel and the Wigwam Village) is an excellent choice. The first morning we ate breakfast at the Prospect Mountain Diner, and we liked it so much that we came back two more times. They had jukeboxes at each table and served a waffle topped with fresh apples that was so good I'm still dreaming about it a year later.

Lake George is located in the Adirondacks region of upstate NY, and our trip wouldn't have been complete without spotting at least one Adirondack chair—luckily they were all over town, including on the porch of our cottage, lined up across from the lake and we even found an oversized one, cementing Lake George as the kitschy summer destination of my dreams.

The area is bursting with vintage roadside charm, from cozy woodland cottages to 60s motels, the neon and signage is top-notch. We had soft-serve cones as big as our heads and cheesesteaks from Martha's Dandee Creme, saw Inside Out at the Glen Drive-In and somehow checked everything off my must-do list in just a few days.

We drove to the top of Mount Prospect, threw skeeballs and tried our luck at the shooting gallery, shopped for souvenirs at Gift World—still using decades-old cloth shopping baskets—visited the Mystery Spot and tried out its bizarre acoustics and drove by one of the last remaining Howard Johnson's restaurants (the horrible reviews scared us away from actually eating there). I said it when we first arrived, but I believe it even more a year later—Lake George is a magical place.

Governors Island: The Hills

Governors Island is one of my very favorite New York City summer destinations. It's cheap (or free), and fairly quick/easy to get to, but once you're there you feel miles away from the city. I first went in the summer of 2013, and returned later that summer for the French carnival Fête Paradiso, in September of 2014, and in July of last year.

Just in the three years since my first visit, the island has undergone some wonderful transformations. About a third of the island was still under construction in 2013, and in 2014 a new section of the island opened, including the too-sunny-but-fun Hammock Grove. This year the remaining portions opened to the public and I was thrilled to discover some wonderful, new-to-me abandoned buildings: a crumbling service station, old military housing and a strip mall of sorts containing a hair care center, dry cleaners and commissary.

The southwestern tip of the island has been transformed into a new landscape known as "The Hills," featuring four, man-made hills, picnic areas, lookout points, winding paths, slides and art installations. The line for the slides was insanely long—as most lines in New York usually are—so we just headed to the top of two of the hills. The views of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty are wonderful, and Rachel Whiteread's permanent, site-specific art installation, Cabin, is worth checking out.

We also happened upon a Volkswagen car show, which was something unexpectedly charming on a usually car-free island. It's a funny thing to have finally lived in New York long enough to personally witness drastic changes, improvements, demolitions, sad closures and grand openings, and I look forward to checking in on Governors Island for many more summers to come.

Conservatory Garden: August 2016

Now that I no longer have the pleasure of commuting every day through Central Park, I don't get to the Conservatory Garden nearly as much as I should. It's one of my very favorite spots in the park and I'm always happier after spending some time there, even if it's just my lunchbreak. I decided to check in on the gardens recently and it was as beautiful as ever. The last time I was in the Conservatory Garden, the tulips were in bloom, so I was way overdue for a return visit.

Plants will always be a mystery to me—as evidenced by the time I mistook a billion chrysanthemums for daisies, or the succulent that I recently murdered—but that's part of why I admire them so much. I started off looking at the dahlias and other blooms, but very quickly started to fall in love with all of the darker plants. It's a trend I noticed when I visited at a similar time last year, but the dark color palette is definitely more pronounced this year. Deep purples and charcoals might not seem like an obvious choice for a summer garden, but that's what makes them so wonderful.

The deep reds were also really beautiful and as always the contrasts of textures, colors and shapes is really spot on. The Great Fall anticipation always begins for me around this time of year (I blame back-to-school advertising) and for a brief moment I allowed myself to get excited for all things pumpkin, spooky and crisp.

BBG: Roses

Before going to Coney Island for fireworks, we spent most of the Fourth hanging around Prospect Park, including a walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I hadn't been to the BBG since the very beginning of spring, and it's always a nice place to spend a sunny afternoon. We planned on checking out the rose garden, specifically, and found it to be past its peak but still worth the trip.

I was initially disappointed to have missed out on peak bloom, but quickly became enamored with the garden in its current state—roses that were still amazingly fragrant and beautiful despite the fact that they were mostly dying or already dead. It wouldn't have done anyone any good to be sad that we had missed out on this season's most beautiful blooms, and it was nice to instead shift my focus to appreciating the imperfectness of nature and the elusiveness of perfect timing.

I'm forever impressed by gardens—and the fact that plants can not only grow and survive, but can sometimes produce extraordinary flowers. Plants are such a mystery to me that I think I probably marvel at them more than a seasoned gardener probably would, but I'm just grateful that I can visit such beautiful gardens without having to actually figure out how to keep plants alive on my own.

Coney Island: At Night + Fireworks

I've been to Coney Island more times than I can count, but until Monday I had never been at night. I'm not a huge night person—I go to bed around 10pm most nights—so it's rare that I'm still exploring the city when it starts to get dark, especially during the summer. We decided sort of last-minute to go to Coney Island for the Fourth of July fireworks, thinking that it would be more chill than trying to squeeze ourselves into a viewing area for the Macy's fireworks over the East River. Coney Island was still packed but there is a lot of space, so it ended up being my most stress-free city fireworks yet.

Coney Island is wonderful by day, but by night it's a glittering, flashy, bright, magical wonderland. All of the neon signs are beautiful in the sunlight, but they're really made to be illuminated. It was nice to see the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone alive again, and it's hard to imagine that just a few months ago they sat still, stripped of their cars during the off-season

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Seeing Coney Island during a summer holiday was a nice counterpoint to the off-season or non-peak times in which I usually find myself at there, and where I'm typically annoyed by loud noises and crowds, I found myself only delighted at the energy of it all. All of the games and rides were up and running and I love that even in the days of video games and virtual reality, there is still a place in this world for balloon darts and "Feed the Clown."

The fireworks were lovely—long enough to satisfy my American need to see explosions, and short enough that I was in bed by 11pm. It might just be projection or a sign that my brain officially thinks in emoji now, but I could swear that I captured a heart-eyes smiley face in the firework above—do you see it too? Now that I know how beautiful the boardwalk can be at night, I want to go back and practice some long-exposure photography and I'm thrilled to be able to have an entirely new side of Coney Island to explore.

Coney Island Art Walls 2016

Last year was the first year for the Coney Island Art Walls and they're back this year with (mostly) new artwork. My mom and I walked around before the Mermaid Parade, and there were barely any people around, but after the parade the place was packed. In addition to the walls, there are food and drink vendors and a stage, making it a great place to hang out and drink a $13 (!!) plastic cup of sangria, if you're into that (after standing in the sun watching the parade, we sure were).

I'm always amazed at what people can do with spray paint, although some of the walls this year were a bit more dimensional. I love the one that reminded me of a more elaborate Wall of Stuff from the classic Marc Summers Nickelodeon show, "What Would You Do," although I'm sure that's not what they were going for, or if anyone but me would ever get/agree with that reference.

I loved the grotesque Ronald McDonald and all of the classic Coney Island imagery, but as always my favorite was the new one by Marie Roberts, who paints all of the classic sideshow banners for the Coney Island museum and the current-day freakshow. Her paintings are the perfect representation of what I love most about Coney Island—it's a little old, a little scrappy, a little weird and so unlike anything else.

Coney Island Art Walls 2015

Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2016

Last year, crappy weather prevented me from going to the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, but I've been eager to go back since I first went in 2014. Started in 1983, the Mermaid Parade is so uniquely New York that I can't really imagine it taking place anywhere else but Coney Island. It marks the unofficial start of summer, featuring more than 3,000 artists from all over paying homage to mermaids, Neptune and all things of-the-sea—and because this is New York, pretty much anything else.

Every year a new Queen Mermaid and King Neptune are crowned. In 2014 it was Mayor deBlasio's children, Dante and Chiara, and this year model Hailey Clauson and President and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Carlo A. Scissura, took the reins. The best part about the Mermaid Parade, however, is how very unlike every other parade it is—there are no corporate floats, no one passing out flyers, no one soliciting votes. I suppose it does feel a little like the Halloween Parade, but more organized, joyful and well-lit.

As expected, there were a lot of pasties, boobs and painted bodies on display, and I really love seeing a variety of shapes, sizes and ages being their beautiful selves. If you ever need a healthy dose of body positivity, look no further than the Mermaid Parade. Mermaids are not inherently feminist in nature—those tails look awfully binding and never forget that the Prince falls in love with Ariel once she can no longer speak—but I love how inclusive and celebratory the parade feels.

Coney Island has always been the perfect place for people to get weird, and in any parade there are always people that go slightly off-topic. I saw a few parade regulars, a few people who obviously just wanted to be basically naked in public and a few people who tried their best to stretch the theme to meet their personal agenda. There were a few topical costumes too, including "Mermaids for Orlando," a David Bowie tribute group, Mr. and Miss Seaweed (who somehow scored number 420) and "Sea Change 2016" featuring Hillary, Bernie and Trump stand-ins.

I wonder how long it will take before I decide that I should start actually participating in these parades instead of merely attending them. The Thanksgiving Day Parade will always feel nostalgic to me, I love all of the dogs at the Easter Parade and the Chinese Lunar New Year Parade is a great way to feel as if you've traveled halfway across the world without leaving New York—but you'd be hard pressed to find a parade as creative, vibrant and joyful as the Mermaid Parade.

More Mermaids: 2014 Mermaid Parade

Coney Island: September

Right now it's full-speed ahead to fall and then magical snow and then mutant piles of ice and trash that in some places probably haven't even fully melted from last winter. This summer whizzed by, as time is fond of doing now that I'm old, and it seems like just yesterday we were eating hot dogs with our gloves on celebrating a very chilly opening day at Coney Island.

We made it back a few months later, and although Coney Island doesn't officially close until after Halloween, it felt like a little goodbye to summer. It was still very hot and we sipped a soda from Nathan's, got our fortunes told by Grandma, rode the Wonder Wheel, walked the boardwalk, browsed the Phoenicia Flea and saw the Coney Art Walls.

There were hints that the season is coming to a close—t-shirt sales, premature Halloween decor, a chilly breeze at the top of the Wonder Wheel—but I'll never tire of seeing Coney Island in any season. We passed up the line outside of the new Wahlburgers location (is it that good?) for pizza at Totonno's, and I was thrilled to finally cross it off my list of classic pizzas to try. It was really good—maybe not totally worth the long wait and shoddy service—although it was the perfect end to a perfect day in the perfectly imperfect Coney Island.

Lake George: Mini Golf

No matter what happens in my life going forward, our Labor Day weekend trip to Lake George will remain one of my favorite trips ever. The entire weekend was perfect—beginning with the diner stops on the way there, everything that followed was magical (not to mention the life-changing Magic Forest). We packed so many things into three days and it was the perfect end to a summer that flew by alarmingly fast. Every activity we did was summery, including not one, but two nights of playing miniature golf.

I can't remember the last time I played mini-golf, but it was probably when I was in Ohio and I was probably not an adult yet. I had almost forgotten how silly and fun it is, and how very bad I am at all sports, mini-golf included. The first night we went to the Around the World/US (18 holes for each) golf course, right across from Lake George. I wanted to see the World's Fair muffler man, which we did, before playing the Around the US course. Aside from some glaring inaccuracies (a Hoover Dam-themed course representing the wrong state), it was a really great course with just the right amount of kitsch and challenge.

In addition to the Bunyan muffler man, they also had a muffler man-esque Native American, a big lobster, the classic windmill, a surfer, Florida orange, Vegas roulette wheel and Colorado Rockies. The 18th hole was a New York subway station—with a real subway bench and a replica train car—that you actually went underground to play. I was unnecessarily excited to do so—considering we both spend a large portion of our lives in actual subway stations—but there was something weird and wonderful about being in one on a mini-golf course upstate.

Our last night in Lake George was spent playing Goony Golf, which we saw as we were driving around town our first day and knew we needed to play. If you have to pick only one mini-golf place in Lake George, I would go with Goony. It was colorful, whimsical and more stylistically cohesive than Around the World, although it was much more crowded.

I loved all of the brightly-colored concrete figures and hand-painted signage. Goony Golf is slightly newer than Around the World, but still has a vintage kitsch appeal in its simplicity and whimsy. My favorite was definitely the Goonysaurs, which we saw from the road, but was even better up-close with its glowing eyes and big bone cane. Even the trash cans were whimsically topped with clown heads. If heaven exists for me, I imagine it can't do much better than to resemble the Magic Forest, with a side of Goony Golf.

Pesaro, Italy

Every morning one of the first things I do is check the Timehop app because I love to look back on things I've done. It's why I take so many photos and why I started blogging (and why pre-Internet, I was an obsessive journal-writer and scrapbook-maker). One year ago yesterday, I got back from my first-ever European trip (to Italy) and I realized I've never really written a lot about it. When I returned I was so overwhelmed by the volume of photos I had taken and the insane amount of things I had seen that it took some time to process it all.

We ended our three-week trip in Pesaro, a beach town on the coast of the Adriatic that was unlike any of the other cities we had seen (Rome, Florence, Venice and Ravenna). We were there for the Rossini opera festival, which was lovely, but the beaches were completely unreal. Somehow I had in my head a vision of candy-colored, striped-umbrella-laden Italian beaches and Pesaro turned out to be that, and so much more.

Every beach had a different, charming name and a unique, brightly colored umbrella. I immediately became obsessed with all of the stripes and bright colors—everything from walkways to chairs was color-coded. Beach Wanda won the imaginary title of "Miss Beach" that my uncle and I invented, but they were all so wonderful it was hard to pick a favorite. Taken as a whole, the beaches were total sensory overload—not to mention the Italian bathing suits, or lack thereof—and I was constantly overwhelmed in the best possible way.

Away from the beaches, Pesaro was also architecturally different from the other places we'd been. The buildings felt more modern, but still had a decaying 70s vintage vibe. Compared to the ancient ruins and centuries-old churches we had grown used to seeing, the slightly abandoned, urban feel of Pesaro was a nice change of pace. With beach towns as charming as Pesaro, I finally understood why all the Italians were noticeably absent from the cities we had visited.

City Island 2015

I was obsessing so much over last year's visit to City Island (I wrote about it here and here) that I couldn't wait any longer to go back. Luckily, JMP was interested in going so we braved the heat and humidity on Sunday and headed up north. I already knew what to expect in terms of the travel involved, so the trip went by quickly and soon we were in the "Seaport of the Bronx" without much trouble at all.

I do wish that it hadn't been so insanely hot, but we made enough stops to make sure we cooled down. In some ways I even kind of enjoyed the heat—City Island just oozes summer to me, so the weather was right on par. However, I definitely want to visit in the off-season because I'm sure the slightly abandoned, strange feeling of the island is only heightened in the winter.

One of the things I love most about City Island is the lack of chain stores. We did notice a Dunkin' Donuts at the northern end and remarked to each other about how out of place it felt amongst all the local restaurants and shops. Sometimes New York can feel as if it's rapidly becoming one big strip mall as small businesses are squeezed out by high rents in favor of banks and Starbucks—it's refreshing to be in a place that feels so authentic.

At one point JMP said something to the effect of "you find the weirdest shit to take photos of..." which is definitely true, and thankfully not that difficult on City Island. I love how insular the island feels, like a true community where neighbors greet each other on the street and know everyone's business. The diner was filled with regulars, but we felt more than welcomed wherever we went, including the diner (the one where Jerry Seinfeld took Ricky Gervais on an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee), the antique shop, the Nautical Museum, the cemetery and the ice cream stand.

Speaking of weird shit, the Early Ruth antique shop was an excellent stop, even if the mannequin hands I wanted weren't for sale (ugh) and the anthropomorphic hot dog statue of my dreams was way out of my price range ($3,500). The sombrero does come with the hot dog, though, in case you're interested.

We didn't spend a large portion of this trip drinking with locals at the Alehouse or eating fried shrimp at Johnny's Reef like last time, but we did walk the entire island. We ended up at Johnny's but we weren't hungry, so we just watched the seagulls which were equal parts fascinating and terrifying. I've never seen so many birds in one place outside of The Birds and it's kind of miraculous that we managed to avoid getting pooped on. We decided to call it a day pretty early since we were both tired from the heat, but I think my second trip to City Island was a success—I'm already dreaming about my third.

Mets Game

When Jim asked if I'd like to go see a Mets game, I said "sure," and followed it with "I don't care a great deal about baseball, but I DO care a lot about hot dogs," which pretty much sums up my entire sports philosophy. I had never been to a Mets game, but I'd been by the stadium many times on my way to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. I do wish I had had the chance to see a game at the old Shea and Yankee's stadiums before they tore them down, but I have no complaints about Citi-Field.

We went to the game on Saturday and the weather was perfect—sunny and warm—and our seats were in the shade (left-field). Since no one we went with really cared much for sports, our seats in the very top section were totally fine, and I thought we had a great view.

What I do care a great deal about is the snacks—aka the entire reason sporting events exist—and the selection did not disappoint. They sell Nathan's hot dogs, which are always good, even if hot dogs are inherently gross and toxic and horrible (but really, really delicious, right?). There was even a separate "toppings" bar, filled with a lot more than just ketchup and mustard (stadium, but of course)—I loved being able to load my dog with more than my fair share of sauerkraut and pickles in peace and without judgement. We didn't partake in the nachos, popcorn or Mister Softee—all of which were served in plastic souvenir batting helmets, so you know they were good.

Saturday also happened to be free bobblehead day, although only two out of the six of us actually received them. Luckily six out of the six of us had no real interest in a Juan Lagares bobblehead (sorry, Juan) but that didn't stop us from enjoying them during the downtime.

The Mets ended up beating the Arizona Diamondbacks and hitting three home runs, one of which was contested when it looked like it had been erroneously snatched by a fan. Delicious hotdogs, souvenir cups filled with ice-cold beer, Cracker Jack, beautiful weather, great company, a mild controversy and a win for the home team—maybe I could care more about sports if all games were this perfect.

Kelder's Farm

When I first read that the world's (third) largest garden gnome was on a private farm, I assumed that it might be kind of difficult to visit. I couldn't have been more wrong—not only is Gnome Chomsky completely accessible, but he stands at the entrance to a really welcoming and adorable family-owned farm—no trespassing required.

Kelder's Farm has been around since 1836 and is the type of place where you can pick-your-own blueberries, kale, lettuce and various other types of produce. You can also play a round of mini-golf, feed (and pet!) the animals and (for $5) jump on the "jumping pillow," which was kind of weird and dirty-looking, but is probably awesome if you're 8 years old.

The animals were really adorable, and not something I get to see much of in the city. I grew up going to state fairs and petting zoos, so goats and pigs are not exactly novel to me, but they're still fun to watch (to smell—not so much). The goats were particularly animated and functioned like one, three-headed goat, following the hand with the most food. It cost us nothing to wander around Kelder's Farm, although we couldn't resist buying some blueberries and cherries from the shop, which took considerably less work than picking our own.

Kerhonkson, New York

As I mentioned, my dude and I spent the July 4th weekend upstate in Kerhonkson, NY. I've been upstate several times since I've moved to New York, for day and weekend trips, but this was definitely my favorite one yet. We arrived on Friday afternoon, after taking the Metro North to Poughkeepsie, where we picked up a Zipcar at Vassar College (Meryl Streep's alma mater,but of course).

On our way to gather supplies, we explored the town a little and that's when I fell in love with the abandoned diner and bowling alley—upstate New York is a total gold mine of abandoned roadside structures, handpainted signs, old neon, shady-looking motels and pretty much everything else I love to see on roadtrips.

Friday was pretty chill—we grilled steaks and corn (YUM) and just enjoyed doing things that I definitely took for granted when I lived in Ohio. Never underestimate the restorative powers of some grilled meats, a cold cocktail, wonderful company and a sky full of stars.

We had planned to go hiking on Saturday (the fourth), but it rained all morning. I actually didn't mind the slight change of plans and we ended up having a perfectly lazy day. After meeting Gnome Chomsky and exploring Kelder's Farm, we fulfilled our patriotic duties and had soft serve from a roadside stand, pulled over to investigate what my dude thought was a dead porcupine (he was 100% correct), grilled even more meats (kebabs!) and headed into town to watch the local fireworks.

As much as I adore the city, there are moments where I do slightly miss living somewhere much less competitive. We knew the fireworks were supposed to start at 9:30 pm—we arrived at 9:28 pm, pulled over to the side of the road, walked across the street, set down our blanket and a few minutes later we had a completely unobstructed view of the fireworks. Of course the display wasn't as spectacular as the Macy's show, but the whole night was perfect and totally stress-free.

On Sunday, we finally got the weather we had been wishing for and squeezed in a short hike before heading back to the city. We did a loop around Sam's Point Reserve Park, which took about an hour. The view from the overlook was so breathtaking that I think I even said "this is the best view I've ever had," because it was totally true. We were also surprised (and I, delighted) to find the ruins of a few abandoned shacks scattered along the path which made an already wonderful hike even better.

We saw diners, butterflies and bees, bought corn from a roadside farm stand, tried desperately to find sparklers (but failed), considered going into the shady-looking Tom's Taxidermy hoping he had a clearance bin (but chickened out), browsed a cluttered antique shop, touched a goat, talked to pigs, took a photo that looked like we were picking Gnome's nose, watched the stars, listened to the rain and ate two very delicious breakfast sandwiches. My only complaint is that it all went by much too fast.

City Island: Part Two

Lately I've been thinking a lot about our trip to City Island nearly a year ago. I recently revisited the photos I took and have since brought it up multiple times in conversation—I can't seem to get it out of my mind. I posted about the wonderful signage on the island last year, but never followed up with a full recap. Before I go again—real soon, hopefully—I wanted to make sure I fully documented my first trip.

City Island is an island on the western edge of the Long Island Sound, and is part of the Bronx. It's a weird and wonderful place that feels part New England seaside village, part New York City and part like nowhere I had ever been or have been since. The main industry on City Island used to be sail-making, but now its probably tourism, and most of the operating businesses we came across were seafood restaurants. There's also a diner, several bars, a Nautical museum, seaside cemetery and adorable New England-style houses alongside a lot of run-down, abandoned-looking places.

The City Island Diner is completely adorable, and was our first real destination after walking from the northern tip of the island. The food was excellent, although they do close in the middle of the day so go early. Right down the street from the diner is the Nautical Museum, which was a complete delight. The museum guides were all incredibly friendly and adorable—and if I'm remembering correctly, three out of the four people we encountered were named Barbara.

Down the street and around the corner from the museum is the Pelham Cemetery, which has a wonderful, arching iron gate that was—much to my disappointment—closed and locked. The cemetery is pretty small, though, so you can see a lot just by walking the perimeter. It looked very well-maintained and has beautiful views of the water.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the island—dreaming of owning a cedar-shingled home, drooling over vintage signage, trying to catch a glimpse of the water over the fences that line the shore and peeking into cluttered junk shops. We creeped on a house that appeared in the Royal Tenenbaums, and found out that City Island is a pretty popular filming location for television and movies (A Bronx Tale, Butterfield 8, Margot at the Wedding, Law & Order).

I saw a few adorable (stray?) cats wandering around, ate fried shrimp for the first time at Johnny's Reef, drank at a bar for free with true City Island locals, visited a diner, museum and a cemetery (the holy trinity)—it's no wonder that I want to go back so badly.

City Island: Part One

Prospect Park

All week long the weather forecast for Sunday called for "torrential" rain, so we didn't really make any outdoor plans. That forecast turned out to be nearly 100% wrong, however, so we ended up spending a large portion of the day in Prospect Park. It was muggy and hot but brilliantly sunny—something this Ohio girl has learned to cherish—and we made our way through the park slowly, without any real agenda.

Something I noticed right away was how green everything was, especially since it had rained the night before.

Like Central Park recently

, Prospect Park is filled with every imaginable shade of green—from the lightest mint to the darkest emerald, you can see the entire spectrum in just one scene.

I think I was most surprised/delighted, however, to find the portion of the lake by the Boathouse entirely covered in duckweed. The whole surface was moving ever-so-slightly, but mostly looked like a solid, bright green plane on which various bottles, sticks and one juice container had come to rest. It was a surreal scene and I had to poke the surface with a stick just to mentally confirm that the lake still existed underneath all that green.

The Boathouse is such a beautiful building—nearly torn down in 1964—and the adjacent bridge is my favorite in the entire park. We saw some really awesome-looking birds, one of which appeared to be, somewhat impossibly, standing on the surface of the lake, but as we got closer we realized it was actually just standing on a log that had obscured by the duckweed. It also seems impossible to me that I took very similar photos just a few months ago during our snow day—when the surface of the lake was similarly obscured, but by several inches of ice and snow.

Cypress Hill Cemetery

Two weekends ago, JMP and I decided to meet for diner breakfast (as we do) and I suggested that we explore a cemetery afterwards (as we also do). I had evening plans in Brooklyn and I'd been wanting to see more of the Queens/Brooklyn cemetery belt ever since I saw Houdini's grave almost a year ago. A quick look at the map shows more than 11 separate named cemeteries in the stretch between Bushwick and Kew Gardens.

I've always been easily overwhelmed by choice, but recently I found out that two of the Fox sisters are buried in Cypress Hills. There were actually three Fox sisters—the younger two convinced the older one that they were able to communicate with spirits and thus became instrumental in creating the Spritualism movement. Although they eventually confessed to making it all up, Spritualism had caught on and all modern-day psychics (and those that love them) have the Fox sisters to thank.

Margaret and Kate Fox are buried in section 3 of Cypress Hills and, along with a photo of their indistinctive headstone, that's all the information we had. Cypress Hills is a beautiful cemetery, but their signage is a bit lacking and we wandered for some time searching for section 3 before we broke down and asked a security guard for a map. The sections are pretty large, but JMP spotted the Fox sisters' grave with barely any trouble at all, like a total rockstar. The headstone is really difficult to read, and even harder to photograph but it says "Fox Sisters, Mediums of the Advent of Modern Spiritualism," followed by their names and dates of death.

Cypress Hills is very large—we only covered about a fourth of it before it was closing time. It's a really beautiful place and is very well-maintained. There are a lot of new plots mixed in with the old and a lot of people were tending to graves while we were there.

Although we felt perfectly safe, we got the impression that Cypress Hills might not have always been in such good shape. A lot of the mausoleums had been bricked- or cinder blocked-shut, which I don't think I've really seen before. One of my favorite parts of any cemetery is finding headless/limbless statues, and there were some great ones at Cypress Hills. At one point I spotted one and ran over to it as I exclaimed "OooOoh! Something headless!" which if you know me, probably doesn't seem odd at all.

Cypress Hills has some really excellent directional signage (excellent in design, not necessarily usefulness), as well as some really great examples of tombstone typography. There were so many great examples of "Rest in Peace" stones that I lost count, which stood out to me since I've often wondered how that phrase became so synonymous with tombstones when I rarely see it used. A part of Cypress Hills is also a National Cemetery that looks like a little Arlington—rows and rows of identical white stones laid out like dominoes.

I would definitely go back and explore more of Cypress Hills, and the rest of the cemetery belt. It was fun searching for a specific stone, and even more rewarding that we found it—maybe we had a little bit of help from Margaret and Kate Fox.

Outdoor Art

Sometimes I don't really "get" large-scale installation art, and sometimes I find it downright annoying—but there's something about actually living in New York that has softened my view on public art installations. Maybe it's the novelty of seeing a familiar space in a different way, or maybe it's just fun for me to have new things to photograph. I still think Kolonihavehus is still my favorite piece that I've seen this year, but I've found myself enjoying similar exhibits around the city more and more.

Recently I had some time to kill so I walked around Madison Square Park, where the new Teresita Fernández installation, Fata Morgana had just opened. Described as "the Conservancy’s largest and most ambitious outdoor sculpture to date," the sculpture consists "of 500 running feet of golden, mirror-polished discs that create canopies above the pathways around the Park’s central Oval Lawn."

At first glance they are deceptively simple and kind of underwhelming. Taken individually, they're just oddly-shaped, overhead mirrors. The joy comes in taking in the installation as a whole—when layered and stacked, they're quite beautiful and surprisingly mesmerizing. I recommend walking the entire oval—the effect changes dramatically with every angle, and I would imagine, time of day.

Every summer, Governors Island has different art pieces scattered throughout the lawns. My first time on the island there was a hut made from milk jugs and I'll always be sad I missed out on the Planet of the Apes-like Statue of Liberty sculpture. However, this year's umbrella-and-hubcap-and-bicycle-wheel piece might be my favorite one yet. The bright colors were really incredible with the midday sun shining through and I love anything that grants me a perfectly-framed peek of skyline—just don't ask me what its all supposed to mean.