Here we are, Hubby and I, in cloudy, chilly, rainy Forest Hills in Queens NYC. After several days of 3 mile and more walking, we’re taking a day off to catch up our laundry and rest for a busy day tomorrow. This is “open house” week in NYC and many famous landmarks are opening for special programs all week, so we’re planning to visit Louis Armstrong’s home and museum. He and Lucille moved there in 1943 and lived there for the rest of their lives. As a lifelong Louie Armstrong fan, I’m looking forward to that.

Last weekend we visited the Cloisters, a medieval castle built with architecture and artifacts from all over medieval Europe as part of the Metropolitan. The beautiful castle overlooks the Hudson River from Fort Tyron Park and contains elements of five medieval French cloisters and other monastic sites in southern France. I think I have a snapshot of that famous Unicorn tapestry somewhere in my collection that I hope to share in future writing. At the Met we also saw the special exhibit of Vermeer’s masterpiece, The Milkmaid.

Wednesday we’re off the North Carolina for a few days before returning to SLC. Hubby’s niece and her husband have planned an excursion from their home in Raleigh to Ashville where we’ll tour the famous Biltmore Mansion. Talk about second chances! We lived in Knoxville, Tn for five years and it was one of those “someday I’ll get over there” places. Now it looks like I’ll finally see it and see how American royalty lived then.

The re-visiting of Connecticut where we lived when our youngest was born. It’s really weird having the images of wrinkle-free friends barely in their 30’s when we left now replaced by people with white–in some cases, bald–hair, few remaining free of one chronic illness or another. I must say I would never have chosen to have reumatoid arthritis, but having seen far worse afflictions I think it’s better to have something that can be treated, in my case, very successfully, than others like Parkinsons. More on that later.

Didn’t quite realise how spoiled I was having my own computer to use exclusively at home all these years. On this trip Hubby controls the laptop, so I haven’t written anything, or checked my Wintersong until now. I hope I’ll have time today while we rest to visit some of you today, but if it doesn’t happen, I expect to be back very soon with lots of stories to tell you about then and now. Happy blogging meanwhile to all!