![Beautiful trees guard the Performing Arts Center of Albany.](http://www.cracksinsidewalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/p1010012_1egg1.jpg "The \")
Friday:
I’m in anticipation of the fall foliage. I know it’s all around me, but all of it I’ve seen so far, are the vines that surround the window of my apartment. They are beginning to change color. I know this sounds sad and in a way it is. You don’t get much of a fall in Manhattan. You know it’s fall because the energy in the city changes and everything becomes more alive. There’s an excitement in the crisp air and you know things are happening. But if I’m going to live on the east coast and deal with all four seasons, I at least want to be able to appreciate the most beautiful one we have. All outside Manhattan surrounding us fall is everywhere and I almost missed it this year. But happily a friend of mine is renting a car and has asked me to go upstate and experience the season. Tomorrow perhaps I’ll see my first red tree!
Saturday:
My friend got to my apartment around 10am and we started heading outside of the city. We had an idea of what we wanted to do but nothing was set in stone. As soon as we got out of the city color started to float past us. It looked like a package of flavored lollypops were on either side of us as we drove. Since I had never been to Albany and it’s in a pretty region and it’s New York’s state capital, we decided to start our trip with a quick glimpse of the city and a nice lunch; after all it is the home of my state representatives and governor.
It was different then I had imagined. It was much prettier and more impressive, old married to the new, quaint and bold, a combination of opposites that somehow together work. We walked around some beautiful older buildings and visited the Empire State Plaza (seen in photo) a series of modern state buildings, now referred to as Rockefeller Plaza. In the middle of this complex sits a funny egg shaped building, that’s a performing arts complex. I’m told, and I don’t know that it’s true, that when Rockefeller, who oversaw the construction of the plaza, viewed the initial drawings he thought the buildings all of the same design, needed something to break them up. He was eating his breakfast, and supposedly he had a grapefruit in front of him. My friend said story has it that he picked up his grapefruit, slammed it down on the table, and said to the people attending the meeting, “something like this!â€Â And so the “Egg Building,†(seen pictured above) was born. An Albany landmark like Rockefeller imagined, it sits proudly in the middle of the Plaza breaking up the scene of the other buildings that all look much the same, viewing itself with the others in the reflecting pool that sits in the middle. After a good lunch we decided to head up towards Lake George, where we would get a nice room, relax, see more leaves and trees, commune with nature and spend the night.
To Be Continued in Tuesdays “Daily Crackâ€
