Start spreading the news...I'm leaving tomorrow...

This is where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live (April O'Neal told me).

Well, I will be leaving the Large Pear tomorrow to go back to the Evergreen state. My college career is over and now I am entering real life as my father would say. It's not quite sinking in because I missed commencement, but I'm sure it will hit me when I get back to Bellingham.

To celebrate, my roomies Mark and Sue took me out to dinner at Harvest on Hudson — we shared a wonderful tasty dinner together out on the restaurant's patio that overlooked the Hudson river. After drinking wine and eating, we came back to the apartment to indulge in the peach pie Sue and I baked for dessert (which I plan to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner before I leave). They have treated me so well here and I can't thank them enough for welcoming me into their lives so graciously.

As great as it's been to have the opportunity to live and work in New York, I just can hardly wait to get back. On Friday Tyler and I are flying up to Alaska where we will head on down to Anchor Point and Homer, so I'll be jumping states quite a bit here in the next few weeks. Until my next adventure, this is Sara signing off from the Bronx — I can't wait to see you all!!!

News and copy unite once more to tackle Manhattan

This is Jacob at the sketch Middle Eastern cuisine restaurant — we called this the murder room because it was tucked away in the back where you couldn't see the street and the floor was metal, which is perfect for hosing off any fluids that might spill on the ground.

So I get a call on Saturday and sure enough it's good ol' Buckenmeyer, my newsroom pal and reporting partner. You might as well call us Woodward and Bernstein. Turns out, he took the bus up from D.C. and was in the city for the day, so he thought we could meet up. We had a day full of adventures starting with lunch at a creepy restaurant (we were feeling adventurous but when you see multiple people walking in then leaving immediately, it's probably a bad sign). Then we went to the Empire State building, Bryant Park, mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral (my first time at mass ever), Ground Zero and Battery Park. Needless to say I was a little exhausted at the end of the day when we had a beer and said our goodbyes. He was heading to Philly that evening and he had no idea where he was going once he got there — he was equipped with some Chuck Norris moves so I'm sure he's OK.

And for today Mark, Sue and me (er, I mean "I") left the house early this morning so Mark could go golfing, and Sue and I could go to Cold Springs. We had breakfast at a cute cafe called The Founder and then began our Sunday adventure. We decided to hike part of the Appalachian Trail — if it weren't for our lack of supplies and hungry stomachs, we would have made it to Georgia by nightfall (next time Sue, next time). It was wonderful to get in the woods again and be away from the city.

Here are some more pictures from the weekend:


A view from Battery Park.


A boat sailing at sunset.


Smiling Sue at one of the many trail heads of the Appalachian Trail.

MTA let the beat mmmmmm....drop

The Manhattan skyline after the Beastie Boys performed in Central Park.

Imagine a world where there are tornados in Brooklyn, lighting at all hours of the night and a place where 2.5 inches of water can bring a city's transit system to a halt. This was the scene here on the East side this morning and why I walked almost 20 blocks to work today. The alphabet soup of subway lines not running was almost too much to comprehend — the MTA was scrambling to get everything running as quick as they could. It was bizarre. And for another weird aside, 50 cent was in the office today. Crazy.

But the day ended on a good note with some Beastie Boys in the park. One word can describe it: awesome. If you take their stage energy and top it off with a beer sitting on the lawn after a hectic day at work — you've got something close to sublime.

Asbury Park

Just a random beach bum catching a few Zs — I'm being nice by not posting pictures of sleepy Sue (but I won't be so charitable next time).

Ahhhhh the beach.....What more can be said? I'll I have to say is that it was EXTREMELY hard to go to work this morning. I wanted to crawl back into to bed and call in sick so I could spend one more lazy day at the beach.

I had a wonderful time hanging out with Sue, Mark, Liam, Melinda, Aine and little Caera. The whole weekend was full of good times; Aine made me realize how much negotiating my parents must of had to do with me when I was three, especially when it comes to bringing jellyfish home from the beach (don't worry, they weren't alive); Melinda and Liam were kind enough to let me crash their evenings of Harry Potter and a walk to downtown Asbury Park where Latin music was playing on the sidewalk; Sue and I were periodically left at the picnic table to entertain ourselves and Mark would disappear to play golf and would find his way back to us somehow (just as long as he didn't have to eat vegetables). There were no schedules involved with the weekend, which makes for a wonderful relaxing environment. Now all I want to do is take the next few weeks off and stay there — too bad I can't get credit for that.


Melinda and Aine playing in the sand.


Aine after I buried her in her sand bed.