After two years of huddling in the local area, if not battened down at home, we’re finally traveling again. Last month I told you about our trip to New Orleans. Now we’re at it again. As I write this, I have paused in my packing for Thrillerfest, in New York City, which will be in full swing when this blog comes out. We’re driving because it’s only three and half hours away. I’m looking forward to seeing my thriller-writer buddies, and on the Sunday afternoon after the conference, we are going to a Broadway play, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. I read a review in The Washington Post, and it sounded like fun. So we bought tickets. When it’s over, we’ll jump back in the car and drive home.
But this New York City trip isn’t even our first visit to New York. We’ve barely caught our breath from the trip last week. Our grandson graduated from Ithaca College, and we went to the graduation. His major is writing for film, television, and emerging media. Not only did he graduate magna cum laude, he got the faculty award for excellence in the major, and got into the communications honor society. That was a pretty exciting moment for us.
As you may have noticed, the weather has been a bit weird lately. Here’s a good illustration. When we went into the graduation ceremony, the temperature was in the upper 80s. When we got out, it was in the mid 50s. Actually, that was good for the next day, when we did some exploring of Ithaca. We started with a trip to the Cornell Botanic Gardens. The office was closed Monday, but we could still walk around the gardens. Here are a few pictures.
I am a hosta freak, and I’ve never seen this one before.
Here I am about to be swallowed up by a giant weeping spruce.
After the botanic gardens, we stopped for “lunch” at the Cornell Dairy Bar. I enjoyed something different-–black raspberry ice cream. Norman stuck with our usual strawberry.
Next we went to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They have interesting exhibits in the building, but the highlights are outside. There are a lot bird feeders. If you’d like to take a peek, they are at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N609loYkFJo The camera’s trained on only part of the setup. I’m sorry you can’t also see the finch feeder.
One of the staff told us we could see a mom goose sitting on her nest from one of the trails. She was on an island, where she was protected from predators.
We ended the day with wonderful sandwiches from the Ithaca Bakery.
I should also say, we stayed at the Statler Hotel on the Cornell campus. Because it’s the training hotel for the Cornell hospitality program, the service was wonderful. And I loved the way the dining room was decorated.
After Thrillerfest, we’ll be home until the end of the month, when we’re taking our traditional anniversary trip with my sister and brother-in-law.
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NY Times & USA Today best-seller, Rebecca York, is the author of over 150 books. She has written paranormal romantic thrillers for Berkley and romantic thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue. Her romantic-suspense series, Decorah Security, is set at a detective agency where agents have paranormal powers or work paranormal cases. She also writes an Off-World series where each story is a science fiction romance taking place on a distant planet in the far future. She also writes the Unbound series for Changeling Press.
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Congratulations to your grandson graduate. That is quite a group of honors. What type of media does he plan to go into? The field is wide open right now, with so many opportunities. Then there are always commercial jobs that can be done. One of my musical nephews made a successful career out of composing and playing “jingles”—short segments used at the beginning of shows, ads, newscasts, etc.
I’m glad you can make those trips. My impression of New York City (after being in Alaska all winter) is that it was very cold and always windy. But that was in March, I think, 60 years ago.