After finishing with the Trail of Honor I went for a walk along a trail through the woods to see what I could find. I wasn’t expecting this. It’s not something you see every day in the woods of Westchester County. Apparently it’s Lasdon’s Dinosaur garden, which highlights these statues as well as some Jurassic plants.

Unfortunately my knowledge of dinosaurs is limited and I’m unable to identify these creatures. While some of them are quite realistic, others (e.g. see the final picture below) are little more than burlap covering a frame.

This magnificent eagle statue stands outside the Westchester County Veterans Museum, located at the Lasdon Park and Arboretum.

According to an article in Yorktown Patch:

Originally established in 1995, the museum is the only Westchester county-owned museum dedicated to veterans. The building and surrounding grounds have recently undergone renovations that include painting, new signage and a handicapped-access parking area, along with new landscaping.

The museum is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., which was unfortunate because I went on Tuesday and so wasn’t able to visit.

The article continues:

The bronze eagle, called the Tribute Eagle, is perched on a stone monument in the courtyard at the entrance to the museum. The eagle was commissioned by the board members of the museum as part of the renovation project.

It was created by wildlife artist Mike Curtis of Idaho, himself a veteran, and who is considered the foremost sculptor of this national symbol of America.

“We have at least 65 bald eagles that live in the mountains and fly down to fish in the lake below,” said Curtis. “I’m an Army veteran myself, so this project at Lasdon Park is close to my heart. I feel honored to have been asked to do this “Tribute Eagle” for the veterans of Westchester County.”

The eagle sculpture is two/thirds life size with a 4 ½ foot wing span and weighs in between 60 and 70 pounds. Sculpted in soft clay in the artist’s Idaho studio, the eagle was cast in a foundry in Portland, Oregon, using an ancient technique known as “lost-wax casting.” The entire process took about six months from start to finish, according to Curtis.

It was seeing a photograph of this memorial on the internet that led me to come to Lasdon to take a look at it.

According to lasdontrailofhonor.com:

Next to the Eight Nurses Memorial proudly stand three powerful figures dedicated to all of the veterans of the Vietnam War. This memorial, created by sculptor Julia Cohen, stands as a moving and heavily emotional testament to the tragedy and sacrifice that soldiers face, both past and present. The monument features a female nurse, the first Vietnam monument to feature a woman. The area in front of the monument is used for memorial ceremonies done by the Vietnam Veterans of America chapter 49. Each of the 5,900 stones that make up the path represents 10 servicemen killed during the war, which surround a black obelisk featuring 217 names of natives of Westchester County that were killed serving in Vietnam and the surrounding countries. The statues are just slightly larger than life – two servicemen, one carrying his wounded comrade to the arms of the waiting nurse. The 3,000 pound figures are standing on a granite stone surface, and both the nurse and the servicemen are anchored to the stone, in many ways symbolizing the solid loyalty and devotion that these service men and women had towards one another.

A page on the Westchester County, NY Vietnam Veterans Memorial provides additional information.