Off-Highway (Second Leg of East Side Stroll - Fourth Chapter)

 A major housekeeping note.   Almost since I started blogging last year, I've not seen comments that people have tried to leave.   I think I have fixed the problem, so you may want to send a comment (either on the blog as a whole or on this new chapter).   If you do and I can read it, I promise to answer.

We seemed to be moving slower than usual up the trail...probably because of all the "rest stops" we took along the way.  We weren't particularly tired but I know that Nature Girl has had some issues with her foot and was probably grateful for every "sit down" along the way.  I also think we were trying to stop as much as possible to soak up all those warming rays of a waning summer sun -- feeling in our bones that we wouldn't have too many days left of  this glorious warmth.  

Still, it was time for us to forge north, with the FDR Drive whizzing by on our left and the East River (actually an estuary) rolling on its watery way to our right.  But, after only a few strides away from Buzzy O'Keefe's Water Club, we were thwarted in our efforts to keep walking along the riverside.

So, we followed this fence away from the river and towards the teeming traffic on the FDR.  

Was this the end of the trail?   Was this going to be the first time, since our quest began more than a year ago in Inwood Park at the tippy-top of Manhattan, that we'd have to walk more than a block away from a river? 

Were we going to meet our Waterloo on East 34th Street?

 We rounded the bend where the fence ended.  The situation did not look promising at all...

Parking lots...nothing but parking lots, and the UN tower cutting through the blue sky like an old-fashioned lighter, or a very fancy box-cutter.   I was about to throw in the proverbial towel but, as she has in the past, NG or Sacajawea (as she is often called -- mostly by me) was not going to let the obvious get in the way of her explorations.  She forged ahead, weaving around a Nissan here, and few Fords there.  Lo and behold, she guided us past the 34th Street Ferry Landing...

...and back onto the trail.   A valiant effort that put us back in touch with our "wet" side but, having spied the UN building in the nearing distance, I knew the end still loomed.   In the light of this, I found this little stretch of walkway all the more divine.

Once again, as we were closing in on the most Eastern part of 42nd Street, the warning signs of impending doom rose up in the form of waterside construction.

This looked even worse than before.  Cautiously we strode on, following a fence line, once more.

Miraculously, we were again rewarded with a "break in the fence" through which we scurried like Alice down the rabbit hole.  

And, what a delightful pocket of greenery and park-architecture awaited..

There was even one of those outdoor "fitness areas" which seemed particularly bizarre to find at this juncture.  

Have we talked about the lampposts on this East River walk?  Since this is the less renovated path, some extraordinary lamppost kept "popping up" as we trekked uptown, like these prime examples...

I never paid much attention to the design of light fixtures and signs until I was in Barcelona a few year's back and marveled at how the Spanish architects and building designers of the Arte Moderne Era (roughly straddling France's Belle Epoch to Art Deco decades).   Even the Gaudi-designed lampposts along one of the main boulevards was an object of great beauty and wonder.  Sad that the vast majority of outdoor lighting in our modern world looks so utilitarian and drab.  Not like these majestic survivors with white orbs proudly upright and unbroken by decades of weather abuse.  Well -- likely these have been replaced a few times over the past century that the lights have shined.  

But, unfortunately for the trek, another blocking fence came into view...and this one looked like the "real deal."   Yes, we'd hit the oft-cited "end of the road" at East 37th Street and had to exit to First Avenue walking underneath the FDR (nee East River Drive).

It was a relatively clean and classy exit -- a nice walkway from a (finally) dashed dream of circumnavigating Manhattan Island at it's shoreline.  Not to take away from the narrative drama, but I'd read enough to know that we were going to have to take to First Avenue around the UN, especially in these post 9/11 "terror alert" days.   Still, I was hoping for a few more blocks by the sea.   With  heavy feet and the FDR uncharacteristically on our right side, we started moving up to 38th Street, with all intentions of walking west to First Avenue.  

All of a sudden, I looked back towards the East River and I though I spied the bobbing heads of some bikers making their way up along the riverside north of where we were stopped...

Faster than a millipede, we were scrambling back under the FDR and along a dirt road not previously taken...

   We strode along it with great expectations of being among the few to find a way up along the East River on the riverside right past the UN.   Ha...that was certainly misplaced positive thinking!  We were locked out...and sent packing, for the third time, through the East 37th Street Underpass and now, without doubt, away from the river's edge.   Still, we were within the one block/view of river rule...

...for a little while, anyway!