New York City - Kenna's and My Road Trip

 

I had never been to New York City. I've always wanted to see it and even made plans once to go but it never came about, an unknown blessing at the time. 
I'd often hear the stories of my grandparents immigrating here from Italy and arriving in New York City, my grandfather a young man and my grandmother a mere child, and I was always fascinated with the narratives. I think those anecdotal tales helped spark my interest.

 

Kenna and I drove to Albany, pronounced  awl-buh-nee, to meet my husband at his now ex employer's office and from there we drove to "The Big Apple." His new company has him traveling more frequently and for longer periods of time along with expanding his territory, and as long as he doesn't have to board a plane, he's fine with it, for the moment.  He's been traveling the whole Northeast coast, a few Southern states and now they have added some Midwestern states.  Kenna and I have made the best of it, meeting him and spending a few days here and there with him.  I'm not one to spend long periods of time in a car driving but I have to admit, I have enjoyed our excursions. It is a little more difficult to plan due to me watching Cruz daily along with scheduling in my appointments but it's worked out pretty good so far. 

I mentioned in the last post I have tried to make our peregrinations fun for Kenna, stopping every once in awhile to find a letterbox on our journey. We've stopped at some interesting places to say the least but we always seem to find our way to at least one cemetery in our letterboxing endeavors. It's getting kind of eerie.

 

Call me odd, but I love walking through these burial grounds, especially the churchyards and paying homage to those who have come before us stopping and reading the old headstones and imagining what their life and existence was like. I often walk out of these sacred places with a head full of vociferous chatter scrambling for attention.  We actually stopped at three this trip, two of which were Revolutionary War cemeteries.

 

As we walked through the somber grounds, I came across a grave marker that caught my eye, the old worn stone façade lightly decorated with green algae. It brought me back to a moment in my childhood, back when I laid in a hospital bed my one companion open on my lap and I had found myself sketching my own headstone. That child-drawn headstone amazingly similar in shape and design to the one I now found myself standing in front of.  I remember thinking back then, if I had a bench as my headstone maybe those who loved me would come visit and talk to me.  I suppose that mindset has helped made me who I am today and is the reason why I find myself on occasion sitting at my father's last resting place talking to him.

 



On our long drives, Kenna and I make up games to occupy our time. She has quite the imagination and she comes up with some that makes me pause and think.  There's the old standby where you have to find the letters of the alphabet in order from the license plates as we drive by them, which she of course wins every single time only because it's a little difficult for me to spy the different letters because my main concern and attention has to be on my surroundings and the road.

 

 

When we finally arrived in Yonkers in Westchester County - In 1940 the first FM radio broadcast was transmitted from there, we unpacked and headed out for dinner. 

We found a beautiful waterfront establishment, Dolphin Restaurant-Bar-Lounge . The live music from the band playing by the waterfront made just the right atmosphere to sit, relax and enjoy the company, the food, and our surroundings.

 

 

And afterwards, we leisurely strolled along the waterfront taking in the gleaming lights of New York City and the view of the George Washington Bridge.

 



We spent the next day strolling the streets of New York City.  We searched for a couple letterboxes in Central Park and found another one on a busy New York City street using extreme stealthiness.(or should I have just used stealth there?)  And although I opted out of the bird poop facial - I've had my share of excrement thrown my way, the park benches looked marvelous!