Quack if You Love Manhattan

4:20 p.m. The Duck is late, and it's starting to drizzle. I'm huddling outside a Jamba Juice with a family of four from Jersey, trading quips and quacks with a 6-year-old. I'm the source of the ruckus, and even I'm annoyed by it.

The vehicle finally arrives, with my new friend screaming, "It's the bus boat! It's the bus boat!" About a dozen people disembark, but instead of being invited aboard, we watch as the guide and driver pace about talking on cellphones. We know what's coming, but still . . . .

"Sorry, folks," we're told. "The river is fogged over and it's just not worth going out. You'll need to try tomorrow."

Suddenly, I'm starting to not {heart} New York so much.

5:15 p.m. Nothing like St. Patrick's Cathedral to set things right. Just need a little peace and quiet to gather my thoughts, and that's what I get -- after the guards at the front door rifle through my backpack. People are scattered about, looking at the ceiling, taking pictures, lighting candles and trying to ignore the homeless guy sleeping in the pews.

I walk the perimeter of the church and, head properly cleared, pop out a side entrance.

6:45 p.m. I'm finishing dinner in a window seat at Pooket, a Thai restaurant on Second Avenue. Plenty of restaurants in the area, but I had a hankering for pad Thai and, well, this place had an empty window seat.

There's more than an hour to go before I have to be at the American Museum of Natural History for its "SonicVision" show in the Hayden Planetarium. Which leaves me with a decision: Walk or cab or bus or subway?

I walk. It's always one of the great pleasures of a trip to New York, and though the sky looks as if it's about to swallow the island, I start the long haul north toward West 81st Street. At East 60th, I cut over to Central Park, now partially enveloped in fog.

It's an eerie, wonderful feeling. Bikers and joggers zip by, dogs tug on leashes. I can hear a group of kids playing on a hillside and, far in the distance, the distinctive caw of bagpipes.