8r4d Stuffed after a full afternoon and evening out celebrating the wedding of one of my running crew and his new bride, followed by a full multi-course Chinese dinner with every kind of seafood imaginable. None of us will need to eat for a week!

If you enjoy reading accounts of travel then it's really too bad that I'm not going to post scans of my paper travel journal anywhere anytime soon. On the other hand, I started jotting down some thoughts over at my adventures blog, starting with a post I wrote literally from my phone while on layover at the Toronto airport on our way home:

See those stars? They're new here and work a bit like hearts or likes or kudos, except every post can have a maximum of just 10 before it fills up with love, and there's nothing stopping you from giving all ten of those stars yourself because it's all anonymous and no one, not even me, will know. (One is fine, too tho!)

8r4d Back home after a full (no, FULL) day of traveling, New York to Toronto (with a seven hour layover) and back to Edmonton and falling into bed just before midnight local, I was awake at 5am this morning, feeling like 7am NYC time, and pulled out one of my souvenirs even as my #coffee was brewing. Anyone who's been to the Big Apple will recognize the classic New York street vendor Happy to Serve coffee cup. I got a ceramic version at the MoMA design store, and I already miss the sounds of sirens and honking while I drink my joe and look for escaping sewer steam.

8r4d I think I saw a beet farm down there somewhere...

8r4d Heading to the subway... towards a shuttle bus... onward to an airplane... and eventually back to a frozen car in a parking lot somewhere close to home. #newyork #travel

8r4d One last post before bed.... and a long day of travel home. A view of the city from the top of World Trade Center One. New York was always here but I don't think I ever gave it much thought until 2001. And then what happened a block away from where I took this pic to the buildings that bore that name brought it into focus and shaped the direction of history for most of us. The kid had a nine-eleven year herself, traveling to Gander NL this summer and today through the memorial and up into the sky. A kind of complete circle in a way, for us at least. #newyork

8r4d Five days in New York City with two missions... try out my new phone's camera and find some reference pics for sketches when i get back home. I've literally got about five hundred amazing cityscapes from day and night and a hundred perspectives. Missions: successful?

8r4d Times Square #selfie as I do one last wander around near our hotel. #newyork

8r4d One last sunset over midtown New York for us. #newyork #views

8r4d We're walking to Brooklyn... or at least part way across the Brooklyn Bridge. #newyork #walks

8r4d The charging bull of capitalism at the beating heart of the financial center of the western world. Take a picture. #newyork