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Category: Beautiful Places Close By

Signs of Spring, Part II: Time Outside And With Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry’s has gone vegan. Here are two of the four non-dairy flavors. Both flavors were delicious. Now I must find the vegan Chunky Monkey and the Chocolate Fudge Brownie. On my neighborhood walk, I saw these plush nests and their exotic inhabitants. Parrots! Bisecting contrails Holding on to Read more…


::February Photo Purge::

Another school recess has started! So I must clear my plate for new offerings and doings. 2016 is moving fast. Let’s stop and look for a moment. Green means go. Flat iron. Building Brooklyn buildings Open-faced beet and tahini Switching buttons Trial for classroom Valentine activity Success! Life merging has Read more…


January Recap

2016 is 1/12 complete. January is new routines inside old comforts, like the best vegan chocolate chip cookies: your own. It’s taking care… with a Long Island rec. center membership bonus: nobody in the sauna with you. It is having fire with the snow… with tempeh. It’s inspiration from the ground; the potato plays nicely Read more…


Draft Outtakes (from Summer)

Flashback to summer & the butterfly bush. Monarchy. “And the one big eye just blinked…” Oreo pancakes were a bit of a fail… Morning pink.


Ponyboy

Falling back, the glorious autumn sunset coincides with my drive home from the train station. This sky had me snapping pictures towards my neighbor’s house in creepy fashion. It made me think of Ponyboy Curtis. {Then I thought about how lucky I was to come of age in a time Read more…


Yellow-Orange

Sunrise on the train station. Vegetable Mofongo and yucca fries from Mi Casa Restaurant, unlikely vegan options are my favorite. Stripes and dots.  Pumpkin Dandies really taste like pumpkin.  Kitchen color.  Quickly go the days.


Bday 1: i do what i want

For as long as I have worked, I have always taken off my birthday. It’s a gift I give myself–to be under no obligations but my own. So I do the things I enjoy… driving and finding new places to take pictures of. Shrine of Our Lady of the Island in Manorville Read more…


Autumn Beauty, Vegan Oneonta/Cooperstown

Before setting out on a road trip, a vegan has to consider how long it may be until a proper meal is available. Like a marathoner, it may be appropriate to load up on carbs to anchor the behind in for hours driving (not running). This is why I love Read more…


In the Passenger Seat, In Autumn

Smudgy window pictures of peaking foliage look like paintings. The power, phone and cable lines bisect the beautiful scenery, designating layers. And the rolling Catskills, blotted with orange, carry the cloud’s shadow spots. I love autumn in the east, where the trees give up for the winter. But not before saying goodbye Read more…


Grape Stomp / Lagusta’s Luscious / New World Home Cooking
{Upstate Adventures}

Robibero Family Vinyards in New Paltz, New York had its annual grape-stomping festival this weekend, the first weekend of autumn. It was the perfect excuse to run north for the day with CP. After managed expectations, I was delighted by the peaceful, bucolic property and the opportunity to check another item off my bucket Read more…


Exploring Abandoned Nassau County Sanitorium, abandoned Tuberculosis Hospital

**Updated for 2020** This post has received a lot of traffic since I first posted it in 2015, but more so recently. I have since discovered that it is now a retail “community center.” Considering the continued interest, I unearthed more shots from my visit in honor of the now Read more…


The Gorge and Vegan Cheese Boards

Besides being beautiful, New York’s Finger Lakes Region has some spectacular vegan options. Like Veraisons, the restaurant located on Glenora Winery in Dundee. Honestly, this place was our main reason for this trip. After discovering the vegan options on its seasonal menus, I have been watching them change. With an exciting summer Read more…


Farm Sanctuary / Watkins Glen Vegan Ops

Maywood Pancake House, in Maywood, New Jersey, is kind of a second location of Rutherford Pancake House (blog report on their vegan challah French toast is here). Both locations feature vegan breakfast options, which is far more a special than lunch or dinner options.  I was delighted to arrive here pretty Read more…


18 Hours: Upstate / Connecticut Loop {Day Trips, 101}

Travel tucks you into new environments, which facilitate different experiences. And experience is the basis of all learning, all growth. So, travel is enlightenment…. Luckily, there is no need to head to an ancient Buddhist temple to derive this wisdom. There is plenty of beauty, adventure, inspiration, oddity (and vegan eats) just a couple of hours away. Read more…


Summer Delights & Sites

The coconut oil tells me it’s sweltering out… So happy to report on vegan soft serve in Freeport! Sunrise Vitamin and Health has Tofutti soft serve. Tofutti was been around since my early vegan days in the 90’s. I remember feasting on their now-discontinued Chipwich-like ice cream sandwiches. These early vegan Read more…


NYC Staycation Road Trip

Dear New York City, I know I’d sooner drive hundreds of miles to a remote vegan option over state lines than hit your streets sometimes. The unfortunate truth is: you’re not who you used to be to me: escape, inspiration, excitement. Now, you are diluted, castrated even. I resent you Read more…


{More} Freshwater Life / Vegan in the Poconos

Hawley, Pennsylvania is a resort town in the Poconos Mountains Lake Region located just far enough from the thriving metropolis New York City to feel like you’ve entered an entirely different habitat. Though most of the area resorts are for various outdoor adventuring, The Lodge at Woodlach, the area’s high-end Read more…


Freshwater Life

Not too far from the New York-Pennsylvania border is a small vacation town of Hawley, on the Lackawaxen River and close to better-known Delaware river. Though this is a summer haven for campers and other nature enthusiasts (and hunters), a friend of mine had year-round residence here as a growing gal as Read more…


Photo Purge

Dad & Sister coconut whip, blueberry, strawberry chocolate cake parfaits. Happy July Birthdays! Fluff keeping cool in the shade.  Collaborative craft for a special Momma. 5 people are better than 1! Symmetry is a kind of beauty. This salad is from The Purple Elephant in Northport, Long Island. This Buffalo Read more…


NYC Exploration: Dead Horse Bay Beach

Despite the rampant loss of character New York City has been undergoing for decades now, there are still lightly treaded, special places in the corners and underneath the rocks–or in this case, underneath a layer of broken glass. Dead Horse Beach–part of Floyd Bennett Field, a park in the broader Read more…


V.V.V. Day 2

We were not the only folks looking to doorbust for one of the all-vegan breakfast options at Pingala Cafe & Eatery in Burlington, an Earthy spot for simple vegan fare. Two minutes after opening time, there was a line at the counter. Perhaps if this sculpture and the wild flow of the Winooski river Read more…


Another Long Island

A visit to Elizabeth A. Morton National Wildlife Refuge in Sag Harbor is a walk back in time.  Trusting chipmunks eat from your hand.  Swans are shy and evade your camera. The tickling feet of bold songbirds perch your hand’s branch to select the best seeds.  But not without a quick Read more…


Colorful

Push aside winter grey, summer is unofficially here. The irises are blooming at the zombie house next door, triggered by nature. There Will Come Soft Rains-style.  The backyard, once a bland backdrop along the walk to the back door, invites entry, holds glistening fruits and color in its open palm. Asks Read more…


Spring, Finally {Pictorial}

Frosty morning tulips in the backyard Later, sun-funned tulips in the afternoon The bulbs I planted in my parents’ backyard in September, all grown up Our lips are sealed. Spring means figs, one of my top 5 favorite fruits. Simpler Spring lunch: smashed avocado toast with this jimmy-rigged Hollandaise-ish sauce I concocted. It Read more…


Jersey Day Trip

Treating my home, and its surrounding cities, like I would an unknown city—subject to the same fine tooth comb in search of vegan options—my list of vegan leads in the neighbor state New Jersey was growing. And preferring a random and mysterious lone vegan option to a well-worn, all-vegan establishment Read more…


Beautiful Things & Cupcakes

Sometimes the sky blazes. And it makes even a suburban street beautiful. A beautiful birthday orchid. Spider art. The new dining room. And Frank. Cupcake Monster prep. Dandies + edible markers = Weird monster cupcakes. You lookin’ at me?