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.