NEW YORK : STORM KING ART CENTER

 July 24, 2021

On our third day in New York, we picked up a car at JFK, thinking that would make it easy to turn it in when it was time to go back to California (oh, we were so wrong, but more on that later), and we got on the road to go "upstate." ("Upstate" refers to almost all of the geographical region of New York--everything but the metropolitan area of New York City.) It was a Saturday morning and traffic was fairly light, especially by NYC standards.

 We were amazed by how quickly we left the city behind. Within an hour, we were traveling on forest-lined highways with big breaks between cities.

Our first destination was Storm King Art Center (marked by the red ballooon), about 70 miles upstate from JFK Airport (marked by a red star).

Wow, if you haven't heard of this place (as I had not), pay attention and get yourself there on your next trip to New York. It is amazing! This outdoor art museum, containing perhaps the largest collection of contemporary outdoor sculptures in the United States, was founded in 1960 and covers 500 acres. We're not talking minor artists no one has heard of. The most prominent sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries are represented.

The Arch (1975) was created by Alexander Calder just one year before his death. There is an open arch you can walk through on the other side, but apparently I liked this view better! It is one of the first things we saw after driving into the grounds.

DENMARK: PASSING THROUGH COPENHAGEN

June 18, 2019

As noted earlier, there are only two ways to fly into or out of Greenland: via Iceland (Reykjavik) or Denmark (Copenhagen). As we had entered via Iceland, we decided to exit via Denmark. We had a direct, uneventful 4 1/2 hour flight that included a 4-hour time change:

When we arrived, everyone's bags came out but ours. We waited and waited, and finally sent the rest of the group to catch the shuttle to the hotel. Just as we started to head towards the missing baggage reporting station, our luggage rolled down the ramp. We grabbed our suitcases and were able to catch up with the group.

When we got to our hotel, the Marriott Bella Sky, we learned that the regular rooms were all gone, so they gave us upgraded rooms. We had a little more space, including a seating area, but everything still had very minimalist, monochromatic Danish design:

On our way to the hotel I got an IG message from a good friend from my home city who was also traveling. She said they were in the same hotel we were in.  What are the chances of that? We were 5,600 miles from home in a city with hundreds of hotels and yet found ourselves in the same city in the same hotel on the same night. It was a truly cosmic experience. We met up later in the hotel lobby for a photo:

After a good night's sleep, the ten of us walked to the metro station just a few blocks from our hotel. We got a good look at the architecture of the Marriott Bella Sky for the first time. It is pretty funky:

Somehow, someone in our group figured out how to buy ten metro tickets using only Danish instructions, and then someone figured out how to get to our stop. With just a single day in Copenhagen, we had decided to use a local tour guide to maximize our experience. We met up with her at a downtown bakery next to this American icon. (Why aren't our 7-Elevens in such gorgeous buildings?)

Our guide was a 51-year-old Israeli woman who had been living in Denmark for eleven years and had been guiding for two. She knew the city well and was full of good information, but she struggled a bit with the large size of our group and was often hard to hear.