Chilltown Bears

On Labor Day we drove up to the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo NY, about an hour-ish north of here, way up on Route 17.  It was beautiful out and the Faire is a great way to spend the day with so much to see and do there. Inexpensive too, they had a downloadable coupon on their website for that weekend bringing it down to only $10 a person to get in. The $5 premium parking lot filled early, so we parked in one of the free lots and took the free shuttle bus to the Faire’s entrance, only about 1/2 mile apart.

Young suburban wenches with muddled fake Old English accents tended to our needs for not-too-historically-accurate grub and grog. My first snack was iced coffee and a huge hard churro that I think they used to use to herd sheep or beat carpets clean.  Joe took a loud crunching bite out of it and then coughed for 7 minutes and 22 seconds.  Death by Ye Olde Churro – what a way to go!   Read more »

The Memorial at Harbor View Park in Bayonne NJ remembers the victims of the September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center.  It was on our list of local things to see, and we finally got a chance to this past Sunday.  It was another beautiful day to spend along the Hudson River, albeit a melancholy one given where we were headed.

About a 20 minute drive south from home, the memorial is way at the end of the old Military Ocean Terminal, a two-and-a-half mile long man-made peninsula that juts out onto the river.  It’s been closed by the military and reacquired by the City of Bayonne for commercial redevelopment and is now known as the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.  As you drive down towards the memorial park, you can see new construction and the old military buildings as well.  The park seems out of place, but with a bird’s eye view of lower Manhattan, it’s easy to see why it was chosen as the site for it. Read more »

The closest thing to a Bear Run I’ve been to since last summer is pictured above, taken at an arcade on the boardwalk at Point Pleasant Beach about an hour’s drive from here on the Jersey Shore last Sunday.  No it wasn’t Sandy Hook (I mean lets face it, who hasn’t seen my ass and my privates at this point, LOL) and not Asbury Park (still not ready for prime time IMHO.)  Point Pleasant is, well, pleasant.  Not too far away, good food, lots to see and do on the boardwalk, fair share of cute homosexuals and muscley metrosexual guidos and their girlfriends, even a few bears. It was a beautiful summer day, and Joe, Ryan and I had a real nice time. CARLOS

When we realized the rain was letting up and we’d have a nice day after all, we decided to venture into Newark today for it’s Gay Pride.  I went to college at the Newark campus of Rutgers University a million years ago.  It’s the home of NJPAC, the Prudential Center, Riverfront Stadium where the Newark Bears play baseball, other colleges and universities like Seton Hall Law School and NJIT, museums, galleries, and much much more.  Joe and I go to Newark from time to time for the best Portuguese/Brazilian food around, in the Ironbound District.

With as much as there is to enjoy there, the event today made me sad. Read more »

Joe, Ryan, and I headed into Brooklyn on Saturday to visit the Brooklyn Museum, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Coney Island exhibit before it went away.  Ends up it officially closed the weekend before, yet when we got there it hadn’t been dismantled yet, so we got to see it.  On the way down Flatbush Avenue towards the museum, we stopped at Flatbush Farm for a wonderful brunch.  We spent a few hours at the museum.  Ryan and I hit all the floors.  Joe wasn’t feeling up to the whole shebang, so he people-watched (i.e. cruised) at a variety of locations with benches   Nice to get out, been going a bit stir crazy lately. CARLOS