New York Vacation - Day 4

Our final day. It's Sunday morning and of course we sleep in. After getting up and getting cleaned up, we checked out of the hotel. We checked our bags with the bell people. It's real funny. They change you $1.50 a bag to hold them when you check in, but charge you $3.50 a bag when you check out. Go figure.

We took the subway down to Greenwich Village and found a small deli for breakfast. The food there was almost the best we had all trip, except for the corn beef on rye. We walked around this part of town for a couple of hours. There was a small street market that we went through. We found some souvineers for the family. The best was a tie-die bag/purse for Steph. We also bought a cute little jumper for Tommy.

It was early afternoon and our flight didn't leave until 8:00pm. But we didn't want to chance missing our plane, so we went back to our hotel and got our luggage and went to the airport. We decided to use one of the hotel transports that we had seen all week. They charge just a few dollars more than a regular taxi, but you are riding in a Escalade with leather seats. The only problem was was the driver didn't take the same route to the airport that we took when we came in. I wasn't sure if he was taking us somewhere in the 'hood for a friendly game of beat the crap out of ya'.

We got to the airport and check our luggage. We ate dinner and then boarded our flight. We were able to get on the airplane at 7:45pm. The airplane left the hanger around 8:10pm and then sat on the tarmac until 9:10pm. On top of that there was bad weather with fairly heavy head winds that slowed us down some more. So instead of getting into Salt Lake at 11:00pm, we got in around 12:30 am.

By the time we got our luggage and took the bus to the economy parking lot, it was 1:15am. We loaded our luggage, got in the car, started the car, and the car went "uggghhh". It wouldn't start. It kind of sounded like a dead battery, so we called the local help and they sent out a truck to jump the car, but to no avail. The car wouldn't start. We took the bus back to the terminal with the intent of taking a taxi home. I really didn;t want to take a taxi because I knew it would cost us another $100 or so to get home. After waiting 20 minutes for the taxi, I looked across the road and saw the car rental building with the lights on. My light came on and we wound up renting a cheap car. We finally got home around 2:30am.

The next morning we bought a new battery for the car and drove to the airport. I installed the new battery and the car still wouldn't start. We called the dealership for the Pacifica and the car was still under warranty, so it qualified for roadside assistance. They sent a tow truck and we had the car towed to Sandy. One of the few things that didn't cost us money during the trip. The dealership looked at the car and discovered that the engine had froze. They would have to replace the engine. Thank goodness for warranties....

New York Vacation - Day 3

Day 3 began much like day 2.... We slept in til 11:00am. We really didn't do too much today. I can't remember where we had lunch, but, we ate somewhere. It must not have been too memorable.

We decided to go to the American Museum of American History. This is where "Night at the Museum" was filmed. There isn't a T-Rex in the main lobby, but there is a dinosaur. There is a statue of President Roosevelt, but it is in front of the building. We purchased the full ticket and saw a couple of shows. One was on dinosaurs and the other had to do with the ocean. They were pretty good. The museum also had a live butterfly display that we were able to see. They were pretty cool. We saw a few other displays that were pretty good. But we were pretty tired from walking and riding around for two days.

We left the museum around 4:30 and went back to our hotel to rest before the play that night. For dinner we decided to go to Carnies Deli again. It was pretty good. Of course we had the same thing. Corned Beef on rye.

We went to the play. Rayma seemed to like it, I was disappointed. I had seen the movie and I made the mistake of comparing the play to the movie. Kind of like comparing a movie to a book, book is usually better.

After the play, we went stopped by Carnies deli and got some cheesecake and apple pie. The apple pie was not very good. But the cheesecake is to die for. It is the biggest cheesecake I've seen. It is easily four inches tall. With Strawberries.... yum. Rayma went on line to see how much it would cost to have one sent to Sandy. The cheesecake was $45 and the shipping cost was $55. It's going to have to be a pretty big event to justify the expense.

We spent the evening renting a movie on the TV, which Rayma slept through and I ate the apple pie and some of the cheesecake. Not a good thing for a diabetic.

New York Vacation - Day 2

Day 2

We decided to go to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We took the subway down to the Staten Island ferry and walked over to the SOL and EI ferry. We hadn't eaten lunch yet so we shared a pretzel. I took this picture of the SOL while on the ferry (obviously). We knew that we couldn't go up inside the statue, so we decided not to get off the ferry.

The ferry then went to Ellis Island and we did get off. We were hungry so we went into the cafe on the island and had a hamburger. We walked around for a little while and took a few pictures. Below is a picture of Rayma in front of a display. The other picture is of the Manhattan skyline as seen from Ellis Island.


When we returned to Manhatten we decided to go see Grand Central Station. Again, we got on the subway and walked through the terminal. We decided that we wanted Italian for dinner and we had not yet made it to our favorite bakery in Little Italy. So we went back to our room and rested and then made our way to Little Italy for dinner and an eclair.

The subway system is pretty easy to get around and they aren't too expensive. We paid $25 each for a seven day pass. The only problem with the subway system is that they are under ground. Sometimes, way under ground. You are constantly going up and going down stairs. Hard on old people.

After our italian dinner we came back to our hotel and got a piece of cheesecake from Carnies Deli. They are not just known for their corned beef...

New York Vacation - Day 1

Day 1

We took the jetBlue red-eye into JFK. We left Salt Lake around 11:15PM and arrived in New York 5:30AM EST. The flight went pretty good, we were able to sleep most of the four hour flight.

One of the problems with the dynamics of this trip was that we couldn't check into our room until Thursday afternoon. This gave us about eight hours to kill before we could lie down and catch up on our sleep.

We took a taxi to our hotel and had them store our luggage until we could check in. We then went to a local deli and had some breakfast. At about 7:15AM, we decided to try and make the 8 o'clock session at the temple. We walked to Columbus Circle (at the southwest corner of Central Park) and caught the subway to the Lincoln Center where the temple is. We arrived at the temple just a few minutes before eight. They were very nice there and waited for us to change before they started. There was a really funny matron working in the clothing area. She was from Scotland and had a great accent. She had Rayma and I laughing. I've never been to a small temple before. It was an unique experience. The temple really is quite beautiful.

After the temple, Rayma wanted to go down to the garment district and look around. So we looked at the small map the hotel gave us and took the subway down to 35th street. This was pretty close to Madison Square Gardens. After getting our bearings, we walked around. But the only thing we really saw was a bunch of cloth stores. That was disappointing. So we still had four hours to kill...

We decided to go to a movie. We felt that New York surely had a movie theatre playing a show at 11:00AM. The only problem was we had no clue where a theatre was. We stopped at a Burger King for a potty break and to get a soda. I had the brilliant idea to phone CHA CHA. I told them that I was on 35th St near 7th Ave in New York and where would the closest movie theater be? They soon responded that the Beacon Theatre was located at 2124 Broadway. Now I've lived in Utah my entire life and if anybody were to ask me where 2124 would be, I would tell them that it would be between 21st and 22nd street.

So going on my Utah assumption, we took a taxi to 21st and Broadway. The taxi cost us 10 dollars with tip. We looked at the building numbers and they were around the 790 to 800 range. So we hailed another taxi and told the indian driver (who could barely speak english) to take us to 2124 Broadway. His first question was, "What cross-street is that?" I responded, "I have no idea.". He started driving north looking at books and calling his dispatch. No one knew what the cross street was.

When the driver was passing 63rd Street on Broadway, we spotted a movie theatre. This theatre was not the Beacon, but, we didn't care. We told the driver to stop and we paid him his 15 dollars and got out of the taxi.

We went into the movie theatre and found out that the first movie wasn't until 1:30PM. The same time we could get our hotel room. So we left the theatre and discovered, that we were only one block from the temple. We spent 25.00 looking for a movie theatre when there was a theatre right next door to the temple.

We took the subway to our hotel at 12:00 noon and they allowed us to check in two hours early. We went to the room, turned on the NCAA basketball playoffs and promptly went to sleep.

New York

For Rayma's birthday I decided to take her on a trip. My original plan was to go to San Diego. When I googled airfare for SD, the price was only $70 less than going to New York. Last time we went to NY, we had a wonderful time, so I thought we would do the trip again.

So I went on Expedia and searched for a trip. They had a nice package that included airfare, hotel and one Broadway show. When I reviewed the list of shows there wasn't too many that struck my fancy. So when I saw the show Chicago, I thought, I liked the movie...

So I booked the trip (without any trip insurance). After all of the credit card charges went through I realized that I had booked this during the exact time that Jen was going to have her baby. So I stressed about that for about three weeks.

I made Rayma a birthday card that said "So you just turned 51, Now what are you going to do?" The inside of the card said, "You're going to CHICAGO". My initial thought was to leave it at that and let Rayma think that she was going to Chicago, Ill. and then surprise her when we got on the plane for New York. I didn't think that she would really appreciate that kind of surprise and I worried that she would book Oprah or something, so I spilled the beans and showed her the vouchers for the play.

Luckily, our trip fell two days after Jace was born. So everything worked out pretty well. We paid the outlandish fees the hotel charges to get internet so we could keep up on Jen's blog to see any new pictures.

More about the trip later.