Friday night, I was in Central Park shooting this race, when I passed by the croquet garden near Sheep’s Meadow. There was this dude out there playing all by himself. Just practicing his shot, I guess. Anyway, I stopped and talked to him for a while (after sneaking a few shots of him). It turns out that the Parks Dept. gives out permits to play croquet on the lawn there. Apparently there is also a New York City Croquet club. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked to learn about that. Monday nights, the club hosts the garden for public entry. From what the guy said, they give lessons and everything.

Oh yeah, I got a new lense this week. It is a 30mm f/1.4. I used it pretty much all evening. I love it.  One more shot of the croquet garden:

Reagan and I had a blast in RI. I mean, we always do, when we visit the Truscotts.  So, it’s not exactly breaking news. We arrived in Newport on Thursday night, in time for 2 full days of playing in the pool croquet, barbeque, etc.. Mucho mas fotos here.

On the way home, we stopped by this crazy-huge antique store. Here was my favorite item.

Thanks again for being such great hosts, T and J!

When I first woke up today and saw the weather, I sort of panicked for a sec. All of these things were going through my head: ” I’m going skating, I’m going running, I’m going biking, I’m going to the park.” When I checked my phone, I had an email from the guys who run the Broadway Bomb, about a skateboard race in Central Park. I also had a note from my friend Jared about going golfing in the Bronx. It was a very tough decision. Ultimately, I decided that I should hold off on longboard racing until I have had a chance to get out and push around. I haven’t skated since last summer. Plus my friends Jared and Debi are super cool. I wish that Reagan could have come with us. But, being the popular girl that she is, her day was booked long before she got up and looked at her phone this morning.

I was a bit curious about what it was going to be like at the driving range. I mean, when I think of the Bronx, the first thing that naturally comes to mind is golfing (after gang shootouts, of course). It was actually a pretty nice course. Although, we didn’t actually end up playing the course this morning. Jared and I just hit some balls on the driving range, while Debi read magazines and took pictures of us (because we that good). But I think that we are going to try to make it back up there to play the course, now that we have seen what it is like, and that it is so easy to get to. The best part is that, right when we were getting toward the end of our session, the cart went out to gather the balls. This is fun on any driving range, because it is moving target practice. None of us were expecting what happened next. The driver parks off to the side, and gets out wearing a ball glove, smoking a cigarette and taunting all of the people hitting. Hahahahaha. It was the craziest thing ever. So there he was, running all over the range, like an outfielder on crack. I guess that is how they do it, at the muni-course in the Bronx. There is a shot of the guy below.

As if the driving range wasn’t enough fun for one day, we headed back down to the UWS for burgers, then spent the afternoon in Fort Tryon Park Hitting some Croquet. It was pretty packed, but we managed to find a spot of lawn large enough to set up. The lawn hadn’t been mowed for a while, so it was a little bit extra challenging. Thanks again, Jared and Debi for letting me be the third wheel.

With the weather warming up, I have been mentally planning out all of the outdoor activities that I would like to participate in, this summer. For the past few summers, we have managed to include a couple of decent croquet games. Most of them proved to be very memorable, including an entire day of croquet in Rhode Island, summer of 2007. Growing up, my family played croquet all of the time, and I loved it. We had several sets, and would play in our back yard. My grandparents also had a set, and we would often play in their back yard on certain Sunday afternoons.

At my grandparents house, the set was located in a type of yard-care utility shed, situated on their covered patio. In addition to croquet, badminton, lawn mowers and chainsaws, there were all sorts of awesome treasures kept in that shed. One of my favorites was Lawn Darts. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it is similar to horseshoes, in that there are two teams trying to score points based on accurately throwing objects through the air and across the yard. Unlike horseshoes, the object hurled through the air in Lawn Darts, is a giant weighted dart. This game rules.

In retrospect, I’m pretty surprised that there was never an incident like the one alluded to in the warning above, when we played. We would set up very complicated Lawn Dart ranges, with the target rings, to make the game more challenging and interesting. On several occasions, the targets were placed in a part of the back yard where it would have been impossible for the person lofting darts to see if someone was going to walk around the corner, right onto the target range. Anyway, I wish that I had a set of these babies to toss around this summer. Although, I can imagine liability being fairly high, throwing these things around in a public NYC Park. Ah well, I can always reminisce.

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