Reptiles, Amphibians, and Fine Dining

On our last day in New York, Joan and I left the apartment early and navigated the subways like pros and ended up at the Strawberry Fields in Central Park and the memorial to John Lennon. Joan got a few pictures and we had a quiet moment and then we walked a bit through Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History. I took a few pictures.
We went to the gold exhibit and a show in the amazing planetarium and an Imax film about dinosaurs, saw galleries and galleries of preserved insects and animals and primitive masks and boats and a life-size replica of a whale, but the most wonderful bits to me were the huge dinosaur fossils and the frogs. As you will see.
I did not pay much attention to the dinosaur names or eras or the sciency stuff, because I was in such a hurry to see all the artifacts, so the captions will be what I think the dinosaur might have said to us.
Yum, this lightbulb looks tasty. I wonder if it tastes like gelato.

Well, if you hog all the lightbulbs, I’m eating the flag.

I am insecure about my tiny arms so compensate with giant teeth.

Check out my front-end spoiler. It comes standard. No need to pimp my ride.

This one I do know and love, the archaeopteryx. I researched and learned about it in first grade and have loved it ever since. It has feathers, and is considered the link between dinosaurs and birds.

Spine

Next, frogs!
Camouflaged.

This one has Kermie’s eyes.

Highly poisonous frogs are so dang cute.

Tiny!

Lookout.

Posing for Audubon.

Chinese Gliding Frog, or Rhracaphorous dennysi. It grows up to four inches long, is found in Southeastern China, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos, and it creates a nest be beating a frothy secretion with its hind legs into foam. (I took a picture of the sign.)

We spent all day at the museum, so missed out on Williepie‘s generous offer of cupcakes, but I hope to take him and Katina up on that another time. I hated that I missed seeing them, and Elissa and Mike and their boys, and I forgot that Wes, the brother of one of my cousin-in-laws, lives there now too. I just have to go back soon.
That night we wanted to treat our very gracious hosts, so we went to Otto, another Mario Batali restaurant, where we drank delicious wine, ate fantastic cheeses with cherries soaked in rum, apricots and hot pepper, and honey with truffles, and took a few pictures. Here are Billy and Becky and what’s left of the cherries.

Joan and I will drink to that! Check out me sporting my flashy “pearl” necklace from Chinatown. Classy bling. Oh yeah.

After that, we ate a selection of delectable meats, a mushroom pizza and another type of pizza I forget now–both divine–and we finished up with gelato. If I remember right, I sampled butterscotch, olive oil, ricotta, and coconut. They were all heavenly. I think ricotta was my favorite.
We drove back to the apartment and took pictures of the happy family: Billy, Chili, Becky, and the new Austin-to-be.

We had such an amazing time–I’ll never forget the sites, sounds, tastes, the great company, and the wonderful time with family. Thanks Billy and Becky and Chili! Thanks Bill and Jane and Kim and Dave! Thanks strangers who offered to take our picture for us and who gave us directions and who kindly tolerated us standing in the middle of the sidewalk to stare at something or take pictures. And thank you, Joan, for putting up with me the whole time. Wow.