Chase those winter blues away in New York!

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/travel/20weekend.html?8dpc

I was reading the highlights of the New York Times tonight and came across this wonderful article about the Botanical Gardens if you, as a tourist, are willing to get out of Manhattan for awhile.

The article is no better than our own authors on DG but this is a good idea........enjoy

DH and I spent a wonderful half-day at BBG last month during a site-seeing trip to NYC to celebrate our anniversary ;o)

If anyone has a chance to go, I highly recommend it. We found dozens of plants in their conservatory that don't have pictures in PlantFiles; ditto for their numerous deciduous trees, such as Cornus australis (neat-looking bark!)

(And yes - we did take lots of pictures, unfortunately our camera got left behind in the hotel lobby when we were preparing to return home.)

Oh you must have been so sad, Terry!! What a loss!

We went in May when my son was graduating from Columbia Law. We arrived after an hour long cab ride where the cabbie stayed on the phone trying to get directions and kept hitting his head and yelling every 10 minutes. We arrived in the sun, a bit poorer. Within minutes a storm came thru and we thought the conservatory was going to be blown away. It turned so dark.

My husband who was not keen to go in the first place insisted we leave immediately because we had to get a cab to meet his parents who were flying in that afternoon. Cabs in NYC disappear in the rain. We literally ran thru the conservatory. It was an exciting place!

An inddor display.

Then ran for our lives in the rain to the gate to try to get a cab. We waited for over an hour and finally the entry people felt so bad for us they got their security to take us to the subway on the other side of the Arboretum.

The subway ride back took less than 20 minutes and was so cheap!!! But once at Penn Station, there were absolutely no cabs so we took a bicycle rickshaw. LOL. OH MY!! We could have died. Huge trucks were within inches of our tiny ride. I kept waiting for the poor young man who was dragging us along behind him, to pull over and demand us 2 fatties out of his cab. Boy did we tip him big. Poor guy!
Anyway, I can't wait to go back to visit my son and drag my husband back there. But this time by subway!! They also gave us free tickets to get back in anytime that I so want to use.

They had great displays!

We used the subways almost everywhere we went during the day, including the trip to BBG. A cab from Manhattan to Brooklyn is definitely not cheap, but we arranged for a cab ride to and from Brooklyn for dinner one night, as we didn't feel quite brave enough to try the subway at night ;o)

Sounds fun. We are going to NYC in Feb. and will have to make a visit there.

Terry, So too bad about your camera. That would make me cry!

Kell. Congratulations on your son's graduation from C.L.S.-- is he in practice in NYC, too?

I agree Judy! It is bad enough to lose your camera but all the pictures of such a trip lost too as well as from your anniversary, so painful!!

Terry, I learned my lesson. I would use subways during the day too without hesitation now. I sure will never get in a rickshaw again. LOL! That is one fast way to get crunched.

Judy, you really get around!! I can tell you a great place for dinner in NYC too. LOL! We celebrated at Le Bernardine. The food was perfect!! But definitely a place for grand celebration not casual dining.

Yes, my baby boy stayed in NYC. Boo hoo. He just passed the NY bar. I wish he would take the bar for California before too long or he will never come back home. He works for a big international law firm. All grown up.

Here is a picture of a Uncarina grandidieri growing in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden. The Huntington has one too. I fell in love with this tree so of course I had to buy one. It came in a 2 inch pot but now is in a 6 inch one. I have a ways to go to get it to look like this. LOL I just entered it into the PF at Terry's nudging. I guess I should enter the few pics I managed to take.

Trust me, the tears rolled down my cheeks all the way from LaGuardia to Dulles, and intermittently the rest of the way into Nashville.

It was my fault: I pulled the camera out of a carry-on sack when I was sitting in the hotel lobby, for fear it would fall out when we went out to meet the car taking us to the airport. That's the last time it was seen. We frantically called the car service and the hotel as soon as we discovered it was missing (when I went through security and realized I didn't have it), but it was too late. It had over 300 pictures of our trip (which was really about the only keepsakes we had, since we didn't do much tourist shopping.) In hindsight, I'm glad we bought a few professional pictures at Rockefeller Center and Tavern-on-the-Green, so at least we have those to remember a very memorable trip ;o)

If anyone finds a photo chip containing a bunch of pictures of a middle-aged couple at all the usual NYC tourist sights, and over one hundred plant photos taken at BBG, please let me know!

LOL Terry. Maybe someone will see this who found your camera. Stranger things have happened!!

I would be crying too. I guess this means you just have to go back for your next anniversary!! Sounds like you had an excellent time though. I so want to go back also, preferably without my dear husband. I want to go thru slowly and really look at what they have. It is not as much fun when you are dragging a petulant man behind you and trying to make it fun for him without having a toddler bag of goodies. LOL I am in trouble now.

And here is another picture ad for the Arboretum. A plant that was so pretty and sadly I have been unable to ID it. I think it is an odd Medinilla. Anyone know?

Oh, so sad, Terry! Yes, you just have to go back...

Ha, ha, I like the 'toddler bag of goodies' only for men concept--maybe there is a new marketing idea in there somewhere--I have the same issues when travelling too--and we can't be alone in this!

Very unusual flower--I wonder if someone on the ID forum can name it...? And very, very pretty pictures of the Botanic Gardens, too, Kell.

The good news is, I have a husband who was perfectly happy to tag along to the BBG and he was even my official photographer for everything I wanted pictures of. He's a good sport, and a better photographer than I am ;o)

In return, I insisted we go to a Knicks game at Madison Square Gardens, which "evened the score" on the BBG daytrip. We both love the theatre, so doing Broadway was a given - the only dilemma was choosing what to see!

Awww must be true love!! Some ladies have all the luck, Terry! LOL

I have so many pictures of the back of Tom and in them he is always 10 to 20 feet ahead of me rushing in hopes it will all be over soon and he will be able to go back home. LOL Thankfully, he is only like that about plants exhibitions, for he figures at home he is so drowning in plants so why go look at others! Poor guy! He actually is a saint with what he puts up with my addiction. I am really so lucky.

Judy, you and I could travel together to Arboretums and just send the bill home to our guys. LOL

Here is Tom at the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco. Run Tom Run!

What a pretty picture. So bright and clear.

And so what did you see on Broadway, Terry? We went to see 'Curtains' in December and it was very cute. We went to see 'The Drowsy Chaperone', too, earlier in the fall.

Both were fun--and that's quite something for me to say since I am not so fond of theatre...(I know, that's awful-- my DH loves theatre though, so we do a bit of trade-off on that)

We saw Phantom; since neither of us had been to NYC before, it seemed the obvious choice. If I had known 'Young Frankenstein' was playing before we made reservations, it would have been more difficult to decide!

So sad you lost your pics, Terry.........I would still be crying!

Sorry I can join in on this discussion as I am on a laptop at my daughter;'s house and I can't see this laptop keyboard........bummer........