Weekend Picks: Model Weather

Let us cross fingers hoping for good spring weather these next three days, because we have found a lot of outside activities for you.

At Branch Brook Park in Newark, it’s the 32nd annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Sunday at noon there is a walking tour during which visitors learn what is being done to preserve the park’s world famous display of Japanese flowering cherry trees. And at 11 a.m. there’s Blossomfest, featuring Japanese cultural activities like demonstrations on origami, bonsai, ikebana (flower arrangement), and martial arts. Check www.branchbrookpark.org for more details plus a schedule of other upcoming activities.

Liberty Park in Peapack will be pretty active Sunday too, with the 11th annual Miles for Matheny to support the Matheny Center of Medicine and Dentistry (www.matheny.org) in Peapack. It provides services to people with disabilities like cerebral palsy and spina bifida.

In the city of Burlington the A.J. Meerwald arrives on the docks Friday to begin its spring sailing season. The ship is a Delaware Bay oyster schooner launched in 1928 that is now “New Jersey’s official tall ship” and serves as a sailing classroom teaching about the ecology and history of Delaware Bay. It will be in port for a week.

This is the weekend closest to Earth Day, which is officially on Tuesday; the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is inviting people to participate in an Earth Day Challenge, cleaning, planting, weeding and generally just beautifying our state parks and wild lands. Check www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/parks/earth_day.html for a list of where you can help, from Stokes in northernmost Sussex County to Wharton, the heart of the Pinelands.

Or, if you prefer the great indoors and think you have the looks to make it as a model (or if you just want to look at would-be models), Friday is your chance at the Providence Club in the Tropicana, Atlantic City. Sponsors say they will “randomly select” guys and gals from the party crowd that night, and then the party crowd will pick which ones go on the runway April 25 to model fashions by Christian Audigier.

Good luck to all the would-be models… and we hope the rest of us win some good weather!

Tags: Newark | Branch Brook Park | Earth Day | Cherry Blossom Festival

Tools: Share | Ask a question