Adventures in New Jersey/ New York!

We went to New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Cherry blossoms at their peek. Absolutely fairyland!

Peonies like I have never seen before!

Walking Aeri to school. A 5 minute walk. She really likes her 5th grade class.

Took the bus into Manhattan for the day and to see a terrific Broadway Musical. 'Operation Minsemeat". 

"It’s 1943, and the Allied Forces are on the ropes. Luckily, they’ve got a trick up their sleeve. Well, not up their sleeve, per se, but rather inside the pocket of a stolen corpse. Equal parts farce, thriller, and Ian Fleming-style spy caper (with an assist from Mr. Fleming himself), Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical tells the wildly improbable and hilarious true story of the covert operation that turned the tide of WWII"

We made a special effort to go to TimHoWan, a Cantonese Dim Sum Restaurant. We remembered eating here in Hong Kong 

Hanging out on Bryant Park

Bryant Park - notice automatic lawn mower!

Times Square

Day One

Lia practicing her Archery.

Riding with Doug in his "self driving car". Amazing!! You'd swear he was driving but the car is following it's program and driving itself! And to experience it parking itself is crazy!!

Lia had dance class in the city today and we met up with her when she was finished and went to lunch.

We came downtown to go to a Broadway show. We saw "Death Becomes Her" and it was fabulous. 

Travel Day --ALL DAY

Up at 2:30 for an early morning 5am flight to New Jersey. First leg to Dallas started out smoothly --then we hit bad weather coming into Dallas. Bad enough weather that they shut the whole terminal down while storm passed through. Consequencly. our flight was diverted to Austin. We stayed on the plane while they refueled--some passengers got off--after about an hour the plane took off and flew back to Dallas. By then planes were landing again but it took a while to get an open gate. 

 But while we were delayed so was every thing else --meaning our connecting flight was still delayed and waiting to take off. So we made our connection after all. 5 hours late but we made it. Just s lot of time waiting it out but actually could have been a whole lot worse. Just a very long day.

In the Lyft on the way from Newark Airport to Doug and Tammy's house.

Pretty nice sunset in New Jersey reflecting off New York skyline!

Irene

Lovely Irene came for lunch and spent a few hours with us! She was the first friend that reached out to us when we moved to Tucson some 23 years ago! Still a dear lady! 

Another cactus bloom. This is lowly Prickly Pear in my back yard.

Madera Canyon birding and hike

Day out in Madera Canyon. Got there early as clouds rising off peaks in the distance.

Great day for hiking. . .except the wind was blowing and down right cold!

Stoppef at the Lodge in the canyon because they have bird feeders out and a popular place to see some birds coming into feeders.

 We left Madera and drove the gravel road "over the mountain" and on to Sonoita for lunch. Home by was of Suguaro National Park East to take the park drive to find some blooming Suguaros.

Bloom

First bloom on my cactus.  Many more to come!

my pomegranate in bloom also.

Saturday

We went to the Reid Park Zoo this morning just got something to do. I could have watched the comical Mearcats  for hours. They just make me laugh.

Peacocks are everywhere, and so regal

How do those Flamingos do that?!

Great day to spend a few hours.

  Then over to downtown as the annual Folk Music Festival was going on.  More walkings around. Quite the event --6 stages of continuous Folk musicians presenting heritage Folk music to contemporary Folk Music.

This amazing mural on the side of a Church Street building dominates downtown and actually is awesome.

rainbow

Off our patio-- We actually had a shower of rain this morning!