Early BK morning

Hooray for Heather who finished the Brooklyn Half Marathon! Although she had to get up at 4:30am to get prepared for the race, P and I were up and out of the house by 7:30am. We biked down to south entrance of Prospect Park and were standing by the side of the loop by 8:10am along with other race supporters. The runners were finishing their 2nd loop and exiting the park by this time (on their way to Coney Island), and we were whooping, clapping, and cheering them along! It made me miss my running days... :(

We unexpectedly saw P's coworker which was fun, and within a couple of minutes, we saw Heather crying out our names as she ran past us waving with her giant smile! We whooped and hollered and in my excitement, started up again with the cheering. Noticing a guy wearing a t-shirt with his name (Bob) painted on it, I started cheering for him too- only to realize that I actually DID know him! (He is one of the engineers I work with!) After more cheering of the runners, we biked into the park to have some "breakfast" (water and bananas) and do some people/dog-watching. Then we decided to go to the nearby Brooklyn Botanic Garden but it was so early that even they weren't even open yet!

So we biked around looking for a cafe (good lord, is anything open before 10am in this city?!?)... and we found our answer... at the beloved and popular Tom's Diner, which opens at like 4am or something. Thankfully we got seated right away since it was still pretty early so we didn't have to deal with the typical line of people outside. The old friendly host/manager (I forget his name- no, it's not Tom) was joking around and clapping customers on their shoulders, greeting them by name, waving a Purell pump about. He was squirting it into the palms of people he was seating- two guys had walked in right before me- and then proceeded to squirt some into my hand- saying with a smile that everyone should always have clean hands in his restaurant!

We sat down and immediately the same manager guy set down a plate of (complimentary) cinnamon buttered toast in front of us while a waiter poured our coffee. What service! P got their famous fluffy pancakes and I got an assortment of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Yes, the food lives up to the reviews (although my meal was a bit heavier than I would have liked) but those pancakes!! Wow! Meanwhile, the manager was walking around with a giant bowl of orange wedges and giving them out to customers while chatting with them- it seemed like most of the patrons knew him and his staff by name.

We literally rolled out of there, completely satiated and in such a happy mood- and walked off the breakfast at the BBG, now open. We wanted to take advantage of our membership (free admission) but turns out it's free admission anyway on Saturdays before noon! The rose garden was the place to be- and it was so colorful and gorgeously lush!

It was crazy- by the time we met up in Park Slope with Kel and Iris, it felt like we had done a whole weekend's worth of activities already- and it was only like 2pm!