Sixty degrees and a light breeze made it feel more like June 27 than January 27. The air smelled like spring. It felt like baseball's Opening Day, and Casey got annoyed when I continued talking about it (April 1, Pirates at Mets, 1:10 p.m. - I'll be there, which is part of the reason I kept talking).

She and I went into New York to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Guggenheim. What a great display - all, or nearly all, of his Saturday Evening Post covers were on display, framed in a single room. Most came from the collection of the same family from Burlington, Iowa. The address labels were still on many of them. As I made sure to lay eyes on each cover, I smiled at those I recognized from cards I have, or on images for which I'd seen the original painting only minutes before.

So many of my favorites were there - like Bottom of the Sixth, part of the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame - and it was amazing to see so many of them up close and in full color.

And the colors - some so vibrant and vivid. Use of light that conveyed feeling, the feeling of being in the room as the sun shone through the window, the feeling of being on the street at dusk, peering into a vacant barber shop to glimpse the band playing in the back room. Many of the pieces were accompanied by background for the scene - who the models were, where the inspiration came from - and with quotes from the artist himself.

The museum was quite crowded, not unexpected for a Sunday at a traveling exhibit that will be gone after March 3. But after silently seething among the crowds at the beginning of the exhibition, Casey and I were more or less able to meander at our own pace, and I was sure to see every painting.

Included in one room upstairs were the Four Freedoms, all so poignant in this day and age. Rockwell was actually uncomfortable with Freedom from Fear, mentioning how the headline talks about bombing in the Battle of Britain, but the American family is calm and quiet in their own bed, a jingoistic view considering America had never been attacked on its home soil.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

After completing the exhibit, we perused the gift shop and walked out into the warmth of Fifth Ave. We crossed over to Central Park and dodged all the bikers, runners, walkers and roller bladers to make our way up to the Reservoir (just before, or maybe right around when Mayor Bloomberg warned of a possible drout before long), where we enjoyed the comfort of the park before returning to the subways and New Jersey.