New York State of Mind

New York City. Oh the times! Nowhere else does the current of life ebb and flow in exactly the same way as it does in NYC. From our second story headquarters on 14^th street in Manhattan, where the stamens fill the air with pollen and the subway trains vibrate up the pipes and through the toilet against one’s tender cheeks, we headed off each day into a land of merriment and mirth. “It’s a concrete jungle out there, kids,” Hoyle and I’s (of Hoyle,Tanner) fathers used to tell us. We belittle them no longer for what seemed like wise folly. Their lessons have been learned. In the days that followed our trip from Hoboken underneath the Hudson River, dear Hoyle and I sampled that concrete jungle/good times life.

Cedars entertained the ladies over at the Chester Animal Boarding facility in New Jersey while we were wined and dined by the Big Apple herself, as well as our wonderful friends who call her home. Following are some points along the adventure well worth mentioning…

- We ate the red meat pink stink absolutely delicious hamburgers and drank the light and dark beers (the only options) of an old wood-lined little bar called Corner Bistro. It doesn’t matter how you order the boigies – they always come out bloody. Just get your vampire fangs ready. We also dined at Los Hermanos – the most quintessential real-to-life Mexican food I have ever eaten and heralded by Anthony Bourdain as one of New York’s best-kept secrets. Can’t forget about Two Boots either – a pizza joint boasting a mixed recipe combination from Louisiana and Italy.

- We spent five hours wandering the halls of the New York City Natural History Museum, not nearly seeing it all or studying all of the collections or reading all of those interesting historical facts; but still there’s no beating the life-sized full fossil skeletal displays of a bus-long diplodocus and the king of all carnivores, the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex. Those old bones make you feel really small and stir up a sense of wonder parallel to no other awe-inspired feelings.

- We played pool in an underground gaming tavern alongside scores of ping-pong tables, shuffleboards, chess games, really cheap PBR and a live jazz band.

- We ran what was supposed to be a 5k corporate sponsored race in Central Park. The 5k turned into 6, 7 and 8k because we decided to sprint from the apartment to the park, not recognizing that the distance was over three miles until we stopped a stranger and got the disheartening news (the race was starting in ten minutes). A cab ride got us to the park, where we ran its length searching for the event grounds. But when we arrived the race had already started, and the five thousand runners, including our Virginia who was legitimately running with her team, were nowhere to be found. So what to do but to run the course backwards until we met up with the throng. But then of course we had to search that said throng of thousands, face by face, until we found her. Unfortunately, a text told us that we had missed her and so, turning around, we filed in with those corporate athletes and powered past them all until Virginia’s backside appeared, where then we all three finished proudly. Afterwards, we appropriately partied down at her company’s food tent.

- We sipped aged absinthe topped with blue flames at a tiny little hole-in-the-wall bar while listening to Mick Jagger sing the blues from his retirement home in the juke box. Hoyle then proceeded to find a best friend, a pantsuit friend, two regular friends and a best bartender. Hoyle was on fire.

- We trekked along a new park in the city – an elevated footpath that was once a rail system ferrying New Yorkers by train in and around the convoluted maze of concrete spires.

- We walked endlessly, always. Other than the subway system and the occasional cab, your feet are your main source of transportation. The city that never sleeps is always on the move, its denizens always in transit, to the next bar, to the next restaurant, to the next slice of pizza. While walking one has the chance to encounter motorcycle gangs on matching cross-bikes doing tricks in the streets, police cars disguised as taxi cabs and streets that have been cut out of buildings, leaving them misshapen and crooked and oddly interesting. We walked through Columbia’s campus, Brownie’s Café, Washington Square, to Magnolia Bakery and through St. John the Divine Cathedral – one of the most inspiring and magnificent structures in the city. We even walked past the diner which boasts the façade of the show Seinfeld.

- We watched several episodes of King of Queens and got valuable tips on how to both live the simple New York life and be a great and humorous working-class husband.

- We ate and drank and showered more in these last five days than we did in the length of this whole road trip. Those New Yorkers don’t sleep. They live like kings and queens. In New York City, there is no other way. You either live, or you get washed out of the city like the gutter trash that collects in the corners of the streets every night.

In the end, we’re both happy and sad to leave the city. Our friends there are priceless and the absolute best in the world; however, all those car horns and bus brakes and nonstop ultra city sounds have Hoyle and I longing for some peace and quiet, for the soft crunch of a forest trail underneath our hiking boots. Tonight we’re bound for upstate New York, where we’ll spend some time in the Adirondacks – again under the stars and on the ground. Our budgets seem to be holding up. So far so good. No need to spend the compass and point the Jeep south just yet. For now, we push on.

Sorry for the lack of pictures along this part of the journey. New York kept us too spellbound, and often a little too tipsy, for us to find the time to pull the camera out and snap some quality pics. (This is why we have been forced to make this particular blog entry more literary instead of visual) Maybe next time. In compensation, dear sweet Hoyle and I offer the following road trip factoids:

1. Cedars’ namesake, our friend Stephen, forcefully pushed an elderly woman down on top of some other patrons on a city bus.

2. Virginia earned herself a trail name for her spectacular ability as a New York City host. From now on, we shall call her “The Nards”. She is also a hotshot pool shark and should be invited to join your team. But be weary of playing against her unless you’re looking for one helluva challenge.