Central Park NYC

"So which central park did you go to?"
"Uh, I thought there was only one Central Park."

Apparently there is more than one.  But I went to the one in NYC.

As an experiment, because my job is somewhat mind-numbing (I love it though), I joined a camera club in my area. I discovered it through Google and it seemed pretty legit.  It includes "lectures," optional outings, and competitions.  I put lectures in quotes because it depends on your definition of a lecture.  I rarely take notes because they are either too stat-heavy or too opinion based, but I still find them valuable.

Mom makes fun of me because I often say "It was good/fine/valuable but I was bored out of my MIND." Such is the case of camera club meetings.

This outing to NYC, however, fit into my work schedule and sounded not boring, so I signed up.  It was a bus trip so someone else would have to worry about parking and traffic, and all I had to do was show up for the time allotted with a camera in order to probably get decent pictures.

That's another reason I joined the club.  As an artist no longer in school, it's not easy to tell myself, "You're going to take photographs today." - With someone else organizing my outings, a club fee is a small price to pay.  It sucks that a bunch of midlife-crisis club members with huge lenses will also be there and will be be taking almost exactly the same pictures as me, but once again - a small price.  I joined the club so that I would take my camera out more.

Actually, the midlifers warmed to me throughout the duration of our stay at the park.  It was nice.

The organizer of our trip (you could refer to him as our "man with a plan" - like that guy from the commercial) had a pre-planned route for us, highlighted in blue on a perfectly sized map laminated in, he confided, just the right kind of plastic for our kind of outing.  Most of us followed him exactly since his route was undeniably perfect, even though I tried to be cool a couple of times and stay on the other side of the street.

When it was time to get back on the bus again, someone looked around and commented, "We all made it! It's almost like we're a bunch of adults!" I felt so adult-y.  I thought about how people like to say "high school never ends" - and compared it with his statement, and thought, well, maybe for some people it does.  This group of people included a lot who reached out to me instead of sticking with their old friends (like highschoolers would), and they also all made it to the bus meeting place early - without chaperones.

The trip was great.  I might even blog about it again.  I took lots of pictures of trees, which are everywhere, but when I'm around "everywhere trees" my camera isn't usually out. I also got great pictures of the nighttime NYC skyline, thanks to our ever-prepared, surprise-filled, man-with-a-plan trip organizer.

That's it!