Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Self Guided tour of Hart Island




Hart Island is just a dingy ride away from City Island. I heard that there are inmates who come there to dig graves for the John Does and other unclaimed bodies. Last week I went exploring when there was no one there. Weekends are the best time to go. I checked out a bunch of abandoned buildings. The building pictured above was like a huge dormitory. Multiple community shower bathrooms, rooms with old bed springs and mattresses, washing machines and a lot of other miscellaneous stuff.
You can hardly see it but there are a bunch of burial markers. Also, you cant see it in the picture but there were these vent type pipes coming out of the ground like they have at landfills. I have read a few different ways the buried the bodies. But the general idea is each body gets a coffin and they stack a few on top of each other.










Hart Island History Menu This website you should visit, a lot of this I can see from by boat.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Statue of Liberty




This past Sunday we (Dad, Mom, Carly and Maggie) took "Dances With Wind" for a trip to the Statue of liberty. Its a good way to see NYC. Its just a differant view and new perspective. Dad took the helm on the way out, we had a little lunch while puttering around the statue and headed back to City Island. It was a good trip.

















Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Walk Across George Washington Bridge


Last week I did a little site seeing/geocaching. I had been wanting to check out the George Washington Bridge which at one point I had anchored near while on the way to City Island. The GWB connects NJ and NY. It is a mile long and it sways when you walk on it. I took the camera, of course, since bridges are usually a good subject for photography.

This is looking south. NY on the left, Hudson River in the middle and NJ on the right.


While searching for caches there were some great views of NY along the trail/cliff I was following.

As I had my head buried in the GPS to find the cache I walked into a young dear who was
grazing about 10 ft from me right in the way of the cache! It was not startled at all. I got a few pics and then it trotted on its way as the sun was setting over the sky scrappers of NJ.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Self portrait


A walk across George Washington Bridge (on the way to do some Geocaching)

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

And the answer is....

Good guesses every one. I am so happy to have a few contestants!!! If you haven't figured it out yet from these new pictures...the answer is.....



My hammock!!! It was getting to windy and cold out to sit in it any more for the day. Before I took it down I noticed how cool it looked when it caught the wind.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Wet computer cord!!!

City Island Cemetary overlooking to Hart Island

So this past weekend was a wet and windy weekend. I made the mistake of 1) not closing up the companion way all the way and 2) leaving the computer cord on the table to get wet while I went away to work. So needless to say, the boat got wet and so did the computer cord. What am I trying to say? I haven't posted in a while because the computer has been out of commission due to wet and non functioning computer cord as evidenced by no blog posts. How do you like that fellow nurses? A nursing diagnosis for my computer. Stupid care plans. Ba!
The best news of all is my friend Carly brought me to this great big Goodwill thrift store. It even had carts and a dressing room you could fit the whole cart into! I found a nice coat/fleece, new pair of winter hiking boats which I needed to find sooner or later, and a few t-shirts and pants. That was the highlight of the week!! Heaven...

Any way, here are a few other updates. I decided to extend my contract for another 13 weeks. This will bring me into January. I will see from there. I will live on the boat weather permitting through November. We will see what December looks like. From there my friend Maggie has a room for me here on the Island for when ever I decide.
Bronx-Lebanon Hospital is still a crazy place to work. I really am not sure how these staff people actually can stay here and be sane. Oh, I forgot, that's why us traveler are there. Because they don't stay there and all the rest are insane. Saint Marys RULES!!!

I think I found a church for the short amount of time I am here. Its not so traditional like I have experienced but more relaxed and mostly young people 20-30 something. We meet in this coffee place type setting. http://www.gracenyc.org/.

Today I took a row in my dingy around the entire Island. It took about 4 hours. My arms are sore. I hope they are not too much worse tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon I will taking out the boat with some friends. It should be a nice time.