That's It for This Trip

We had a great time in Las Vegas - very busy, and a great time in NYC seeing some of the less touristy parts and just enjoying the more quiet parts of the city - Yes Virginia, there are quiet areas in the city.

Our next trip is to Florida to photography a 4 day wedding . We will be leaving around October 15th. And then, after that, on to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a little R&R.

See you then, Dave and LaDawn

A Quick Hit of Brooklyn Heights One More Time

Thursday in Brooklyn Heights and Broadway.

What a nice day today. It began with beautiful weather and a great visit to Brooklyn Heights, America's first suburb. Getting there was quite an experience, too. We decided to take the subway, and upon our getting settled in for a fairly short trip, 5 "performers" jumped on too and serenaded all the passengers with some great 5 part barbershop harmonies, asking for a little "support" for their services. They were pretty good, so we made the donation to the future performers of America fund.

What a wonderful little detour from the hustle and bustle of the big city. Quiet streets, nice restaurants, and great views of the Financial District of New York City from the Promenade. We just relaxed here for a few hours before heading back to our hotel. Check out some of the images in the slide show below.


After getting back to the hotel, we changed for dinner and headed off to Trattoria dell' Arte for a wonderful Italian dinner. Turns out we were seated in the booth seat John Travolta was recently in. David Letterman and Paul Shafer, we find out, are also frequent guests. This was one of our best dining experiences for the week.

After dinner we headed over to see "Hairspray" at the Neil Simon theater. WOW! What a show! This is one not to be missed if you ever make it up to the city. It was truly a non stop performance. Great songs, great staging, terrific cast. Hey, a play that wins 8 Tonys has to be one of the "must sees" when you hit the big Apple. Here is a clip of one of the performances from the today Show.

LaDawn's daughter, Lindsay, had suggested we check out P.J. Clark's Bar on 3rd and 55th Street. We grabbed a bicycle surrey ride to travel the 7 or 8 blocks only to find upon arrival the place was jam packed. Standing room even spilling out onto the sidewalks. Looks like a fun location that we will check-out our next visit to New York City.

That's about it everyone. We will recap over the weekend. We are heading back to Cincy in a few hours. Got to get the bags packed. --Dave and LaDawn

A Walk in the Park - Central Park

We started out at 57th and ended up at 97th and then back again. Add to that a few more blocks back and forth and an additional 10 block walk to the theater later that eveningt evening and you can be sure... "my dogs were barking." - about 120 blocks in all. OK, so stop griping you say, you're right, because what a great what walk is was. We covered just about all of Central Park. I personally had only seen small pieces of the park in years past and LaDawn, only slightly more. But today, we took it all in.

There is only one way to describe the Central Park experience. It is a wonderful island of beauty and tranquility in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. But once inside the park, the entire city drifted away - no horns, sirens, no road noise in general. Just a slight breeze, kids running, playing and laughing, people walking their dogs, reading, skating, biking - or just relaxing. Can New York City and "relaxing" exist in the same sentence? In Central Park - an emphatic Yes! All the park info is right here.

The park is big which makes for all kind of activities going on - including softball, soccer, carousels, amusement parks, row boating, hiking, biking, jogging, picnicking, gift shops - the list continues to go on. The weather was a perfect 75 degrees with white clouds and blue skies - A Perfect Day! Check out the slide show which shows the many face of the park. Enjoy!



We wrapped the day by seeing "Legally Blond" - the movie made play. Great light entertainment with some wonderful singing voices and a fun story. Sorry no pics here but check out the play's website right here. That's it for today. We plan to head to Brooklyn Heights tomorrow.

See you then, --Dave and LaDawn

Tuesday in the City

This is suppose to be a week devoted to some R&R for David so again we are slow to get the day started.
Tuesday in New York City started with rain in the morning that decided to continue throughout the rest of the day. It stopped later in the afternoon .

All day you couldn't help but think back to six years ago and the terror our country felt on this day. From Kentucky we lived through 9-11 via TV. In New York City they lived the horror first hand. The memories still remain so raw and vivid in our lives. We feel the changes every time we board the airlines. May we never forget but learn to forgive!!

We have been blessed to have spent several vacations trips to the city and have already visited many of the “touristy” locations. On this visit we decided to check out some of the other areas of the city. So off we went cabbing it down to China Town. Even in the rain the streets were filled with visitors from around the world. The street fare atmosphere is fun. Very colorful with booth style store fronts filled with handbags, watches, scarves, jewelry, oriental fans……just to name a few items. Fresh fish stales fills the air with aromas that can’t be found anywhere else in the city.

From China Town.we walked through Little Italy. They are preparing for a large street fair this weekend so the streets were full of trucks and construction teams assembling booths for wonderful Italian dining treats.

From Little Italy we walked through several streets of Greenwich Village. The small little trendy shops and "free spirit" feel of the area transcends you back to the sixties only updated. We ended up taking in dinner at one of Dave's favorite Mexican restaurants, Panchitos. The rain had subsided to just an occasional sprinkle so we were able to enjoy our killer pitcher of Margaritas from the sidewalk seating area as we people watched. We had walked several miles and the much needed rest felt great.

We headed back to Mid Town and our hotel to veg-out in front of the TV before turning in. A nice easy day. Play the slide show to see a few of the sights. --LaDawn

Monday in NYC

We had another easy day today. After taking care of a few things back home we headed out to the Museum of Modern Art. Again, we were only blocks away. It looked a bit like rain so we ducked into a little gourmet shop that had all kinds of good things on the menu for lunch. We made a couple of quick choices, settled on a nice table outside, and watched the newly arrived rain splash the street. The rain quickly let up lowering the temperature to a very comfortable level, and we continued on to the MoMA.

This was the first time either LaDawn or I had been to this MoMA - and we are museum "nuts" to some extent. I had just read about this unbelievable exhibition by Richard Serra. He is a sculpture who works in really BIG spaces. This exhibit included pieces that weigh upwards of 200 Tons! Unbelievable! Check out the link here for his exhibition. This was the last day of the show so the link won't last long.

We continued visiting all the displays, but I was particularly fascinated by the work of photographer Josef Koudelka. Every one of his photo journalistic images was a beautiful study in composition. I plan to check out his books on Amazon.

That's about it for today. We walked the city a bit, and headed back. Enjoy the slide show of NYC and MoMA views below.

Sunday at St. Patrick's

We slept in a bit on Sunday morning and felt quite a bit more refreshed after our non stop stint in Las Vegas. We were only abut 6 blocks away from the world famous St. Patrick's Cathedral, so we headed there for Sunday services - what a magnificently beautiful church. The sanctuary was full as expected, but we found a seat, after a very long walk up the center aisle, in the fourth row. The singing was just beautiful, and the thunderous and beautiful sound of the pipe organ gave you "goose bumps" as you listened.

After leaving St. Pat's, we found a street fare just a block or two away. These are pretty popular in New York. You can find an amazing eclectic collection of goodies - from falafel to underwear - colors and delicious food smells everywhere.

Check out the slide show of our walk through the street fair. We didn't want to rush into our New York experience to quickly though, so we headed back to our hotel, caught up on about three days of emails, enjoyed a nice Chardonnay, and called it a day.

Across to Country to NYC

We were up way to early on Saturday - 4 A.M. - to catch the flight to New York. We had to fly through Cincinnati, Ohio - our home town - on the way east. The down side of the flight was that we had to take all our convention gear with us - and extra 3 bags at about 60 pounds each - whew! The good news - we got upgraded to first class - the only way to travel.

We arrived at our hotel - the Manhattan Club - about 7:30 P. M. The Manhattan Club is right around the corner from the world famous Carnegie Deli on 7th Avenue, named after Carnegie Hall which is also right across the street on 56th Street. We are right in the middle of everything. We had a great dinner at Red Eye Grill and then "hit the sack."

Off to Las Vegas

Yep, LaDawn and I are on the road again - this time to Las Vegas, NV for the huge Photoshop convention. We are two people who happen to love to visit the city though. It's not the bright lights, the whirlwind activity, the gambling - it's the great restaurants (yes, we are both motivated by food), wonderful shows, but most importantly, the majestic, beautiful quiet areas around the area.

That would include the Valley of Fire - our favorite; Mt. Charelston area - our second favorite, and many other beautiful sites that make for wonderful day trips.

This trip had no time for any such casual site-seeing pleasures. We hit the Luxor and it was non-stop till we left on Saturday. We did have a chance to catch up with our friend Kent Smith of Kent Smith Photography and also Jason and Julie, his assistants. We spent the last night in the city at one our favorite restaurants, Piero's - best Osso Bucca in the world.

Please head over to our sister blog Digital ProTalk and check last week's posts for more info and pics on our activities at Photoshop World.

Off to New York. --Dave and LaDawn