Never Enuff Hyde Park ART PHOTO Ops!

Spent the night in a complete panic because the car was going into the shop.

In consequence, I only got four and a half hours sleep, so I decided to walk to the garden from the Last Honest Auto Mechanics’ and thence to walk home, a round trip of approximately eight miles: That would wear me out, I reckoned!

(As a sidebar, I will note here that one of the reasons that astrology appeals to me so much as an autological discipline is because it’s the only system of self-analysis that’s ever been able to satisfactorily explain this absolute phobia I have about maintenance and upkeep. In my universe, things cannot be fixed! If something breaks down, you are in deep shit!

This is because I have no earth signs in my chart. In both a literal and a figurative sense, I am not well grounded.)

Of course, there are two ways of looking at the fact that I have no car and (deep in my soul I firmly believe) will never have a car again!

A) I can whine about it.

B) I can recontexturalize it as a wonderful opportunity to take endless numbers of Art Photos of fabulous Hyde Park! And enjoy the exercise.

I’ll take Hyde Park Photo Ops for $200, Alex!



This is the William Stoutenburgh house, built in 1765. Two hundred and fifty years is very, very old in these parts. Stone and wattle is the characteristic Dutch construction style.



This is Crum Elbow Creek, which runs just north of my house! Altogether now: WHO. KNEW.

In another mile and a half, the Crum Elbow will run into the Hudson River, which isn’t really a river at all but an estuary, so during full moons when the tides are strong, the water in this creek is actually brackish.

Before it could run into the Hudson, the Vanderbilts dammed it and did a little Bridge of Sighs folly with it. Lovely in every season, but particularly in the fall:



The picture at the top is that weird art installation on Main Street. Main Street usually runs through the center of town in most rural backwaters, but in Hyde Park, Main Street is actually a country road with almost no buildings. Named for the hubris of some 19th century founding father? Who knows? The occupant of one of Main Street’s few houses has posed these cheerful skeletons in front:







There’s a pre-Revolutionary War cemetery in the Hyde Park post office!



And I wouldn’t buy real estate from this person. Would you?