It's a gorgeous stretch of country, along a bog in a valley...
It's a great place to get Miles in shape for off-lead walking...lots of space in combination with lots of tempting smells...he's been great so far...
The weather has been pretty civilized, which makes it nice for walking, after a long winter inside...
Ben and I fueling up partway through one of the walks...
We could see a snowstorm sweeping across the valley towards us as Gail and Ben and Miles posed for this professional-grade photo...it arrived a couple of seconds later...huge wet flakes that covered, for a brief time, the ground and trees on our walk back to the car...
Beautiful swamp off to one side of the trail on our walk home...
Miles likes our bologna training method...
Ben and I headed down to Cornwall, CT (and subsequently into NYC) for the 1st week of our spring break...one of the treats of getting to CT was meeting Allie, this chihuahua/dachshund mix...
We babysat her a couple of time over the weekend, and she liked watching movies and running around outside with Ben...
She's a serious cutie...
Once in NYC, we made tracks to the nearby playground in Madison Square Park, which was curiously deserted (raining and 40 degrees...go figure)...Ben and I had fun in the park...
I love these manhole covers...
A recent placement of artwork around the park has placed a couple dozen of these eerie watchers on buildings surrounding the park...my deep-brain (unconscious) pattern recognition kept pointing them out to me as I played with Ben...
I may not know art, but I know what I find slightly creepy and offputting...
On the way back to the apartment, Ben and I were cold and wet, so we picked up some cannoli and sushi on the way home...we like NYC!
Later int he afternoon, we headed over to Madison Square Garden to see the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus...we got there early, and were able to go down onto the floor and mix it up with some of the animals and performers before the circus got started...
We had a great time...
It was a great show, a spectacle really, with amazing animals and acrobats and such...
We got home for some pizza and Ben read to the Anti-Sarah for awhile before bedtime...it was a full day...
Yesterday, as the Ark-inducing deluge continued, we went to an indoor playground, which featured a series of highly interactive water tables and some climbing opportunities...Ben had a blast for 2 full hours...
He was very excited about learning/understanding/hacking the systems of water-flow in the water tables, and it was a good thing that I brought a full change of clothes...
After the play-space, we headed uptown for a couple of hours in the American Museum of Natural History...mostly on the 1st floor, which contains the North American Mammals, meteorites and minerals, ocean life, and Rose Space Center, among other great exhibits...
The Ocean life exhiibit, with the life-sized blue whale hanging over everything is still a favorite of Ben's...it's a bit bizarre to see all of the people laying down on the floor, napping and resting, below the whale, like a cult waiting for the crushing end of days under the giant sea-mammal...
The space center was really fun for Ben...he was amazed at this materially enclosed ecosystem, nothing goes in or out (except light/heat)...shrimp eat the algae, and poop to feed it, and various microorganisms work to keep the system running smoothly...
He also loved the various scales all over the floor which told your weight on various celestial bodies...apparently, on a red giant star, Ben would weigh 0.026 pounds...
So far it has been a wonderful first few days of spring break, and we have lots of plans for the day to come...
