biking along the hudson river greenway

I finally biked up the Hudson River Greenway the other day! I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now. I’ve ridden on it briefly before, but only to get to my local park when I lived in Hell’s Kitchen, or to catch the ferry. This time, I biked all the way from Chambers Street to the red clay tennis courts on 96th street. I was visiting a friend on the Upper West Side for a night of Spades, and thought it was a great opportunity to bike there. It’s wonderful seeing the world and the city come to life in the spring. I saw bright red tulips, weeping willows, and plenty of fellow bikers out enjoying the weather. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the journey:

Spades night was really lovely too. My family used to play Spades (and many other games, pretty competitively) when I was growing up, and I’ve always hoped to find some friends to play it with. This group is really nice, and everyone takes the game seriously, which I appreciate. We’ve been taking turns hosting at each of our houses. This week’s host made a beautiful focaccia with homemade ramp pesto! Ramps are only in season for a few weeks each year, and can’t be cultivated, so the pesto was a special treat. It tasted garlicky, which worked well for pesto, and the focaccia had a nice crunch.

Here’s a gif my phone made of the view from the park I went through at the beginning of the journey. Something about the benches and the wall kind of reminded me of standing by the Seine. I like the little sailboat too.

The view from Roosevelt Park’s North Esplanade, New York City - 5.1. 24