Coney Island trip, Sun., Aug. 29, 2010

Merry-go-round in Luna Park, Coney Island

Boardwalk, beach, and Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island

Fishing and boating in the Atlantic

The "Parachute Jump," from Steeplechase Pier

Land and sea, from Steeplechase Pier

We've been trying to get to Coney Island ever since my husband recovered from his June hernia surgery, but every single Sunday has been either over 90 degrees--and I have poor heat tolerance--raining, or threatening to rain. We spent the threatening-to-rain Sunday in Central Park at an international folk dancing session, figuring that we could always duck into the Metropolitan Museum of Art if the dance session got washed out, and the Sunday before last, we just stayed home and tried to work on putting our recently-painted apartment back together during the downpour. But this past week, I just decided that it was now or never, so we got out early, hoping to beat the heat. We enjoyed seeing the amusement rides in the new Luna Park, but concluded that we're both either too ancient to be interested and/or not healthy enough (given the compressed disks in the neck area of my spine) to ride any of them safely. So we went for a walk on the boardwalk, instead, thankful for the breeze, and got out of the heat by going to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey, er, mini-Circus (one ring instead of their usual three). Honestly, I could have lived without the lion-tamer act, but the rest was fun. We hit the subway just as I was starting to fade from the heat, but not until a taking a walk on the beach down to the ocean's edge, for a dip of the hands in the Atlantic. Boy, were our sneakers sand-coated!

Blogger's misbehaving again: I can't rearrange the photos to put them in my preferred order.