An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

 I recently did a quick, action-packed 1 night trip to New York.  A lot of people really didn't enjoy high school, but for me it was a real blast, and a bunch of us were so close that we still get together every year for dinner (known as "Duck Night", since the dinner was originally held at a Chinese restaurant). I think part of it was growing up in the crazy semi-apocalyptic world of 1970's New York - the crime, the decay, the anarchy - we bonded sort of like war buddies. Also, the school had a special honors program called the Medical Science Institute, and those of us in the program traveled through school almost as a cohort, taking most of our classes together. Between that and some unique extracurricular activities like Sing , we were pretty tight. So, the main goal of my trip was to attend the annual Duck Night dinner, but to make the schlep up to New York worthwhile I packed in as much other stuff as I could.   Friday morning I took an early morning Amtrak up ...