The weather forecast for today called for warmer temperatures than what we had been experiencing lately, but with the trade off of receiving rain. The good news was we received the humidity without the rainfall, it was almost a Spring day in the middle of Fall. Initially, I was only going to use the nice weather to have a bike ride, but with consideration of the leaves changing colors this time of the year and the fact it was quite warm, a long walk through Central Park was too good to pass up.
I've visited the park on many occasions, but never actually spent a long period of time combing over the entire area at one time. The park is quite large, so I wasn't expecting to be able to see everything at once, but was hoping to at least cover a large percentage of the area. In addition to brining my camera, I also bought a book with me to have a chance to sit down and read on a bench for a while, but as it turns out there were so many great sites that I was never able to put my camera down. I took the subway over and as soon as I pop out of the station I see all the horse and carriages lined up waiting to take couples for a nice ride through the park. The section where I entered the park immediately brought me to a small pond that had a number of ducks swimming around and peeking their heads underwater in search of food/fish. There turned out to be more ducks there than I anticipated and I felt they were the highlight of the afternoon for me. Also walking around were a large number of tourists and on the benches it looked like many people who worked nearby were taking advantage of the special day, probably extending their lunch breaks a little further than usual.
After a while I began to feel hungry and had to settle for a churro stick from a cart vendor. It was quite stale, so I was only able to have a few bites before throwing it out prematurly. Good thing I only paid two dollars for it. As I strolled down the path a came upon a carousel, but what really caught my attention was a lady letting her dog jump up to drink from the water fountain which I found gross. Soon enough, a park's department worker noticed and had to direct her to use the bottom of the fountain which has a option for water to eject out for dogs low to the ground. I never knew the fountains had that, this lady certainly didn't either. Next I came upon a group of street performers, I missed most of their segment, but was able to catch the last trick in which one of them ran and did a sequence of gymnastic flips. It was quite impressive so I was willing to drop a dollar in their bucket afterwards went they asked for donations.
To the left of them I walked down a flight of stairs which leads to a short tunnel, and in that tunnel was a small choir taking advantage of the echoing effect by singing "Ave Maria", at least that's what it sounded like to me. Beyond them was a large fountain many people were sitting along, including some newly weds who were taking pictures with the rest of their party. There's also another small pond next to the fountain and right at the edge was a goose who seemed to be unafraid of any people. It wouldn't budge at all when people would go near it to take pictures. In fact, I thought it must have been a statue the way it stood so still, but once it would blink or move slightly then I realized it wasn't. It was the only goose I saw that day, typically they travel in packs or with a mate, I guess this one just stays by the fountain all day and yucks it up for the cameras.
As I walked alongside the ponds, with people in rowboats, and the numerous great lawns, it seemed like everyone was having a fun time, one guy was even doing his tai-chi in public. Speaking of fun times, back in elementary school we used to have class trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art(The Met) all the time. I remember in 5th grade we had this art program they got us in that allowed us to have a trip there at least once every few months. The students could've cared less about the museum, although I always enjoyed it, but the real prize was next to the museum in small public playground. What made this particular playground special was that it featured a mini-pyramid we were able to crawl through, which I guess felt spectacular to us 5th graders, and in addition two ropes that would swing from one plank to another, like a pirate or Tarzan. Since the Met is connected to the park, I figured it would be a good idea to walk by to see if that playground was intact. As it turns out it was still there along with it's pyramid, but I didn't notice the ropes anymore. Those things were quite dangerous as I remembered one time I missed a landing and fell down hard onto the sand, knocking the wind out of me. I'm sure the ropes were probably removed at some point as those were the perfect ingrediant for a lawsuit against the city.
The last main attraction for me was the circular jogging course that wraps around a reservior that lies within the park. For many years I've always wondered where this part was located as it was highlighted in one of my favorite movies, "Marathon Man". The final scene of the movie actually takes place at one of the small buildings that lie around the reservior, so I was happy to pass those as well. The sun started to set for the evening and I snapped my last rounds of pictures, it was just about time to call it a day. I don't know why I bothered bringing my book...
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