Location | New York City

One thing I’m always thankful for is that I live in a city where there’s plenty to explore. My cousins are currently visiting from Michigan, so I took them on a mini tour of New York. We went up to Central Park to walk around. The lighting was perfect, but I wish I had someone who enjoyed shooting as much as me there. The weather was beautiful, it was around 50 degrees, beautiful clear blue skies and sunny.

We strolled through the section of the park known as “The Mall” over to where the Bethesda Terrance & Fountain, where we found that the fountain had been drained. We walked up to where the sailboat pond (known as The Conservatory Water) is and found that it too had been drained! Earlier in the summer Greg and I had visited to go inside the Kerbs Memorial Boathouse where the Central Park Model Yacht Club houses their boats.

We walked upwards toward the Met and over to Belvedere Castle. I’d never gone there before and this was a treat. The view is pretty breathtaking up there. Although when you look south, you can only see treetops, but when you look north you get an amazing view of the Turtle Pond below, then over the Great Lawn and into the Upper East Side.

After spending some time there, we walked through The Ramble over to Strawberry Fields near the Upper West Side. I’d never seen the Imagine memorial (for John Lennon) and stopped a second to take a picture.

After that we exited the park and took the train down to Midtown and walked over to Rockefeller Center to see the big tree. The crowd was insane. They blocked off the roads because there were just too many people flocking to see the tree. It took us about half an hour just to get through the crowd.

We walked down Fifth Avenue (a bad idea during the holiday season) toward the New York Public Library on 42nd street. We sat in front of the library for a bit to rest before we went around to Bryant Park. They had their holiday shops up and their lovely little tree and ice skating rink. They rename the winter version “The Pond.” We took a bunch of pictures around the tree and watch the Zamboni go round and round on the rink.

After that we walked over to Grand Central where I showed them the inside and then we went our separate ways.