Van Cortland Hike

Bronx, New York, USA

From Van Cortland Park Hike

One of the things I love best about New York City is the abundance of public parks and green spaces, a wealth that is growing in quantity and quality as I live here. For the third summer in a row, it is my intention to see some parks this year that I haven't visited.

It's also my goal to do some Saturday hiking this year, to get in slightly better shape, but more for the renewal of a little time in green and nature. While I love New York, I'm not actually a city person by nature.

So when I saw that the Friends of Van Cortland Park was doing a highlights hike of the park on my day off, I jumped at the chance. Van Cortland is a huge park up in the Bronx with lots of more or less untouched woods, cross country and bridle trails, cricket and soccer fields, and some historic buildings.

There's a couple of golf courses with a swamp in between that I'd love to come back and spend more time exploring the edges of.

All in all, it was a nice little hike in the big city.

From Van Cortland Park Hike

Beacon Mountain

Beacon, NY, USA

From Beacon Mountain

Wow. Am I ever sore! At the top of the first switchback, David said, "Is everyone okay? Does anyone think they're not going to make it?" I almost raised my hand and said I'd meet them back in town after. Call it pride, chutzpah or the "stoic Maryah act," I couldn't bring myself to raise my hand. And I would have regretted it.

The views were spectacular, the clouds perfectly fluffy and just the right amount, the company delightful, and we stopped often to drink it all in.


After we had rested a bit at the top, we hiked across to that fire tower, which looks pretty far away in this photo, but was a pleasant walk, mostly fairly flat. It was worth it for the misty view of the New York City skyline over sixty miles away.

From Beacon Mountain

New Goal
I started using the step counter on my phone again on the first. My commute plus lunch averages out to about 3.5 miles of walking all told (home to subway, subway to subway, subway to work). My new fitness goal is to walk 5 miles a day, even on Fridays and Saturdays when I'm not working. Today I gave my average a good head start with 14.1 miles, doorstep to doorstep (by which I mean the apartment doorstep in my third floor walkup!)

Prodigal Magnolia

New York, NY, USA

From Finding Magnolia

I'm delighted to have my friend Magnolia back in New York, even for a brief visit. We are, as Anne Shirley would say, "kindred spirits." Between our Unitarian Universalist roots, and our crazy travel histories, we have such similar stories that we understand the parts of each other's lives that are hardest for some of our other friends to really empathize with in the same way.

Not everyone wants to hear the details when you come back from Somewhere. I've been fortunate to have a lot of friends and family who are not only willing but eager to hear all my long, sometimes rambling, often mundane stories about living abroad. What is much harder for many of my friends and family to understand is the emotional underpinnings of this addiction to multiculturalism. Maggie gets that, too.

While I was looking for Maggie, I took a nice stroll through Central Park. I've started using the step counter on my phone again with the hope of walking 5 miles per day (my average is 3.5 at this time). I also got some nice photos of the new set of flowers in bloom this week.

From Finding Magnolia