One Fine Day

We found us on a lazy Sunday in the city and planned to have the usual run around the Resevoir. But on the way out, I decided to bring the camera and that was enough to have us find new routes to discover. We ended up taking the runner's route southward from the 97th Street entrance. From there we passed by the 70 foot high Obelisk behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Then we turned west toward the Turtle Pond, also known as the Belvedere Lake, now covered with green (moss? algae? but sure, it looked good). On the way up to the castle, we also passed by the Delacorte Theatre which was highlighting "Free Love in New York" and a long line of people waited for their turn to enter. A Swedish cottage comes into view, also known as the Marionette Theatre and behind it is a dreamy garden tucked away from the rest of the world. The Shakespeare Garden, it is called overflows with colorful flowers, butterflies, dragonflies and definitely a slice of heaven in the middle of urbanity.

We went around the lake, found ourselves in the refreshing oases of the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain and the lake behind it. And further east, we found ourselves in what I have always called the Boat Pond actually the Conservatory Lake but because it is always where remote control boats seem to find themselves, it is appropriately named so. Around the pond, statues of uber storyteller Hans Chritian Andersen flanks the west side and Alice in Wonderland on the north end. Saturday mornings from June to September, children gather near the statue of Andersen for a free reading of his works.

Two hours later, we exit on the east side of the park on 72nd Street.

I've lived in the city for the past 5 years, always making the park a stop during the weekends. No matter how often I come and visit, however, seems there is always something new in it, something that makes it personally mine, as it is to the million other Manhattanites who feel they own a piece of it. It is our backyard, our park, our own little refuge. All 843 acres of its land, hills, lakes and flora and fauna.