Vacation recap!

Hey folks!

I meant to have this post done Friday, but I didn’t so here we are. As previously mentioned here, I went on vacation for two weeks in June. I’ve been back at work for a little over a week now and things are finally starting to settle enough for me to find time for writing things again.

Anyway, I’m stopping in quickly to share some photos from my adventures!

We started our vacation with a trip to the beach to celebrate my mom’s 60th birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!) and it was awesome. My brother flew in from Texas with his fiance and we all rented a house together in the Outer Banks. The week absolutely flew by for me.

The highlight of this part of the trip was definitely the catamaran we got spots on the second to last day we were there. We saw so many dolphins and wildlife touring around the barrier islands, and we also got to swim and look for shells.

You can see the catamaran off there in the distance, and just how beautiful this place was. I’ve been thinking about taking up some kind of visual artform lately for meditative purposes, and this trip made me want to learn to paint desperately. There’s something about the ocean and its colors that makes me want to play with paints.

Next the S.O. and I headed to the big city – New York, specifically. Our first stop was the High Line, of course, which is a super awesome linear park that extends over the streets. It was full of native plantings of all kinds.

It was pretty rainy the whole time we were in NYC, which was kind of a blessing. The humidity was so high that the one time the sun did come out I thought I was going to melt. It did mean that when we tried to go to the top of the Empire State Building during a break in the rain, we ended up with this view. It’s crazy how high up we were to be in a cloud the whole time, but lesson learned!

Next we took a break from the city and went to the Botanical Garden. We love Botanical Gardens, as you may have gathered if you’ve been following this blog for a while. This is the rose garden at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It was amazing, even with the rain.

They also had this pretty little Japanese-style garden. The S.O. loves Japanese gardens. I really want to take him to Japan with me one day. I’m not sure when we will get to it, but I imagine it may be a few years. I’m totally ready for the adventure though.

Next we went back to the city for the Natural History Museum, where I made friends with this awesome dude. Turtle skulls just look so happy, you know? This guy stood about four foot tall. He was some kind of prehistoric tortoise – way bigger than the Galapagos tortoises – and I’m sad I never got to meet a live one, honestly.

A brief moment of sunshine yielded this photo in Central Park! We found a cool little ramen place called Ivan Ramen that my brother had recommended after this back over in the Chelsea area, and got two different vegan dishes there! Well, I added an egg to them, but they could have been vegan! Anyway, I caught this lovely photo and had to share.

Our last night in NYC we went down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park and I managed to capture this photo. This one makes me want to take up painting, too.

I loved NYC, which was surprising in some ways because I have previously hated it before. But I felt very inspired by this trip, even though I’m not sure that’s translated into new words over the past week. It is a totally different way of living, to be in a big city, and it made me think a lot about the assumptions I make about travel and culture in my daily life. No doubt many of those assumptions reflect in my writing, so it was a really helpful experience to make this trip.

NYC reminds me a lot of Tokyo, which I guess isn’t a big surprise. It’s fast-paced and full of stimulus all the time, and I was exhausted by the time I got back. But I would totally visit the city again.

Anyway, hopefully we’ll be back to our regular programming shortly! I hope you enjoy the pictures!

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