We just returned from our week-long trip to New York City. We spent an entire day in Central Park and only saw half of it. The kids did their homework to decide what parts of the park they wanted to explore. They settled on the area between 59th and 79th streets where the Belvedere Castle and Balto statue were (they wanted to see a "real" castle and they love the Balto story).

We also tried out the "Ramble" hiking trail in the park. It was hard to believe we were in the middle of a major city; it was a nice trail and we saw tons of birds there. We even had a nice picnic lunch near the pond.

And of course we had downloaded the coordinates for a virtual geocache in the park, which we had to find (and did) near 79th Street.

After walking more than 4 hours through the park and back to Grand Central Station, I was glad that the family was in such good shape from all the hiking we do here at home. We just have to get a little better at people-dodging. The kids have a habit of walking into people and/or poles on the sidewalk. At least this time neither of the kids were cussed-out by a semi-crazed, in-need-of-medication guy as L. was last year when we were there.

Now we're back to enjoy the less-traveled and mostly smog-free trails of Maine.