Well, here are some of the photos from our first day – we were busy and of course I took more than one million pictures. Even though I’ve whittled them down to way less than a million, I still have to break up our first day into two segments. So this should really be titled “The First Part of our First Full Day in NYC.”

The day started in an exciting way with a whole lot of ironing. Amy had graciously helped me buy many lovely new outfits to take on our trip, plus it’s nice to have them because I was so sick of most of my clothes.

Even though my new clothes are all lovely, most of them have to be ironed, so I pulled the ironing board out of the roomy hall closet and got to work. I’d bought a gallon of distilled water for my CPAP machine the night before so i could even fill up the iron.

Upon reflection, I’m pretty sure I’ve never ironed in such fancy digs. Our ironing board at home is down in the basement and it’s not exactly picturesque down there, and lots of cobwebs and stuff. Anyway, I also ironed a few things for Mom, and then we finally, finally set out.

We headed over to the Astro Diner, catty-corner from the hotel, where we’d eaten way back in 2009 after Kevin and I’d arrived back in New York after taking the Queen Mary 2 home from the UK, where we’d been biking in Scotland.

We’d met Mom and our friend Sandy in New York and all stayed at the Warwick and enjoyed breakfasting at the Astro Diner, and I went there again a few years ago with Randy, and I’m happy to say that it’s still thriving. I fervently hope that Kevin and I will go there again someday. So many cats, so little chance to take trips together…but I digress. Astro Diner, yay!

We had a delicious breakfast at the crack of 12:30.

On previous trips I’d made Mom take the subway with me most places, but this time we decided to take the bus, instead. That way you can see stuff on the journey to your destination, plus there aren’t six million steps to climb up and down. It’s slower on the bus, but like I said, all those subway stairs…

It didn’t really take that long on the bus and we arrived downtown a little before two, our destination being the Little Island. It’s a cool new park, and this is a little bit of what it says on their website:

Little Island opened on May 21, 2021 as an oasis for New Yorkers, with more than two acres of magnificent landscape, distinctive architecture, dazzling views and an abundance of free education programs and performances.

After a year of isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, visitors embraced the essential need for a connection to nature, art and community — we hosted more than 1M visitors in our inaugural year!

Little Island continues to benefit from the generosity and commitment of the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation.

I’d seen pictures of these cool structures and wanted to see them for myself. They didn’t disappoint.

Maybe because it’s brand new, or maybe because it’s New York and there are many people everywhere pretty much all the time, it was pretty busy. Mom and found a table in the shade and I got us some delicious gelato.

After fortifying ourselves we walked up a path and there were so many photo opportunities. There’s the Empire State building in the background.

Many flowers were planted all over the place.

Here’s looking all the way to the tip of Manhattan and I’m pretty sure the Statue of Liberty was somewhere back there but once again, no good photo.

It was kind of warm that day and Mom got tired of walking so she sat on a bench while I continued to buzz around. And here’s the Statue!

They also have an amphitheater where they do shows in the summer.

And here’s a much better view of the Empire State building.

Mom sat way down at the bottom of the hill…

…And it was a “Where’s Waldo” kind of moment. I called her and told her to look up and wave, so she did.

The Little Island is pretty and fun, but it’s no Central Park, my favorite New York park. We walked over to the High Line, which was really full of people, and decided we’d had enough.

We found another bus back to the hotel and it dropped us almost at the door. Nice. Even though I’ve almost always taken subways in New York, it was pretty easy and simple to take the bus, and we never got on them in rush hour so they were never very crowded. And you just tap your credit card on the card reader and your three bucks is paid, easy peasy.

And that’s it for the daytime; we rested up in our room and got ready for the first of four Broadway shows were we to see.

Ok then,

Mrs. First Part of First Day Down Hughes.