Central Park on a Saturday

Saturday and the weekend is here! No appointments or commitments. We can do as we want, within limitations that is. This morning Jim had a big breakfast of cereal, three waffles and 2 pieces of veggie bacon. We hurried to catch the 9:30 shuttle to bring us to the hospital so that we could walk to Central Park. We poured our coffee and tea into our Yeti tumblers and dashed to catch the shuttle. Sometimes you never know which shuttle it will be, how many people will be waiting for it or who will be the driver. It was the smallest van so far. We got the last two seats of the 7-seater vehicle. Stunt man Lou was behind the drivers seat with the heat blaring. The minute I sat down I asked if he could turn the air on. One of the ladies turned around at me and smiled. I could tell she was hot too by the way she pulled her hair into a bun on the top of her head. Lou took off and we swayed and bounced our way to the hospital. Jimmy said to me he felt like his breakfast was just put into a blender and turned on high. We made it to MSK safely.

After stopping by the post office to collect our mail we headed to the Park. It was crowded but not in a bad way. There are plenty of pathways to walk to avoid a lot of people. At first we were drawn towards a crowd of people and loud music playing. It was a large gathering of people supporting an organization that offers programs to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. There was a 5K run and music and games. We observed for a moment then moved on.

The next couple of hours we walked through the Park, stopping to take breaks along the way. We ate a little lunch I had packed and enjoyed people watching and there were a lot of people to watch. It is hard to see my pictures in the collage above but we saw a robin happily bathing in a little stream, a very interesting hairdo on a man walking into Tavern on the Green restaurant and two geese with their goslings. On one path we heard the sound of a saxophone and looked around to see who was playing it. Finally we saw a man kind of hidden in a brush area playing. He was getting a kick out of watching passersby trying to decipher where the sound was coming from.

All throughout the Park there are green benches to sit on. Many have engraved plaques. An Adopt-a-Bench program was established in 1986 and has led to the adoption of 4,100 of the Park's 9,000 benches. For a small fee of $10,000. one can adopt a bench and the Central Park Conservancy will personalize a plaque for it. We took a cab back to the Lodge and called it a day.