Now off to Photograph at the Volusia Speedway.

Enjoy & Thank You!

I was listening to NPR a couple weeks before we embarked on this super tourist spree to New York City.  And they were talking about a new book by Amy Stewart called “Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities”, but the true excitement came when they announced that the Brooklyn Botanical Garden was going to altering there very own botanics to correspond with those in the book. I here I am a couple weeks later strolling through that very place.
Let me say the only thing wicked about this garden is how wickedly amazing and mesmerizing it was. They had every type of garden you could imagine, from a Japanese Hill & Pond Garden to a replica of Shakespeare’s Garden, where most of the “wicked plants” lived.  It was a great start for my Birthday.

Enjoy & Thank You!

After landing and finding a MTA vending machine we boarded a bus to travel to the upper Westside where our hostel was located. Since my last visit to the big city I had forgotten how annoying it is to go anywhere with large luggage in New York beside in a taxi. Up and down, on and off, push and shove, on again, off again, and 1 hour later we made it to the hostel. It was 200% better than the Bowery White House Hostel that I stayed in 3 years ago; in the aspect that it looked nothing like floors of bathroom stales with tiny cots and dilapidated cubbies instead of toilets & sinks. We had a Queen size bed, closet, dresser, TV, A/C unite, and mirror with one bright neon green wall. But we didn’t stay long.

Instantly we were on a subway car blazing our way to the Bronx. When we reach our stop as sea of New York Yankees fans plagued us. After fighting the hordes of fans to get out of the station and walking a couple blocks to the Bronx Museum of Art, we were kindly confronted by a man in a suite telling us the museum was closed on Wednesdays. So we boarded a bus to what we thought was the right direction but inevitably after 10 stops we realized our folly and disembark the bus. Fortunately the misfortune took us to a fire hydrant with kids frolicking in its overflow, it was a scene right out of a movie.

After hoping on the next bus back to where we had just come from, we gave up looking for our second destination, the Cloisters.  And decided to make a b-line to our final target of the day, Wave Hill.

Getting off the bus you wouldn’t even think you where in NYC, let alone the Bronx. The houses were of those in a picturesque small northern town with white picket fences and lots of extra green grass. After strolling down a couple of streets and pass a movie set, we made it to the gates of Wave Hill, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Who knew that the Bronx was home to such a lovely oasis of plants, vistas and woodsy trails? We spent the late afternoon enjoying breathtaking visions of the Hudson, stunning greenhouses, a quaint cafe, dazzling little ponds with bullfrogs and coy fish and the innumerable concealed areas equipped with chairs, lounges, and gazebos. It was a perfect end to a grueling day of travel.

Enjoy & Thank You for Reading!

I covered “Pride-O-Nine” for a local entertainment site that I have been doing freelance work for called three8six.com. The celebration marked the 40th anniversary of a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York City. The raid was met with resistance by some of the bar’s performers and patrons, and is regarded by many gay activists as the catalyst of America’s gay pride movement.

These photographs to follow where taking on the roof top of the Streamline Hotel, 140 S. Atlantic Ave. (A1A), Daytona Beach, on Saturday June 27^th.

And it was truly a great time

“Thank you for viewing!”