Back to the New York trip:

Day Six:

The forecast called for "drenching" thunderstorms, which actually fit our visit to the Delaware Water Gap the previous day quite well! Luckily this day was a beautiful as a day could possibly be.

Fist came by with his three children plus another little girl who was a friend of his older daughter's in the late morning/early afternoon. First he led us to the local Subway, where we got sandwiches, chips, cookies, and bottled drinks. Then he led us up into the beautiful Catskill Mountains. We saw forests and mountains streams and impounded lakes that provide New York City with drinking water. It was a gorgeous drive.

I don't think I could ever find my way up there again, its off so many country roads, which is a shame because there were camping sites that looked lovely. It was off of Peekamoose Road, which made us all giggle a little bit.

We were blown away when we finally reached our destination -- the Blue Hole, a lovely pool in a mountain stream surrounded by a gorgeous forest. The water was as cold as snow melt, and the water was much deeper than Fist's 6'2" height, and so clear you could see every inch of the bottom. It was amazingly beautiful. We all did good - despite how cold it was, we all went in over our heads. If you stayed in more than half a minute the body areas exposed to the cold went numb, and that helped a bit.  We sat on the blankets I keep for winter in the back of my Jeep. and ate a picnic lunch, and it was such a beautiful place and time, I cannot even describe it -- other than saying thank you to Fist once again for taking us there.

 

Day Seven:

The previous night, we had been watching the White Sox/Yankees game at Chili's, where we ate dinner. We left an inning early and missed the biggest news from New York City for the week -- some dumb guy decided to jump off of the third deck of the stadium to see if the foul ball net could hold his weight.  That what everyone seemed to be talking about the rest of our stay.

Since this was our last day of the trip, and since Fist did not have his kids, we decided to drive down to New York City. We have room in the Jeep for one extra person, and Fist got to ride shotgun.

It took us three hours to drive the 60 miles down to the city. Traffic was horrible!!!

We parked in Queens, and only had to pay $4 for 12 hours of parking. We parked underneath an elevated subway line, and caught that to Manhattan -- but first came the great Queens potty hunt!

My bladder was very full and very unhappy with me by the time we were able to park. No one had even thought we would take 3 hours to drive down there, since we left Middletown right as rush hour should have been wrapping up. So we went from business to business, crossing busy Queens Boulevard in order to do so -- and all of them said their restrooms were out of order!  We finally found a working bathroom at a McDonald's. So my bladder was happy. But Fist and Bill also needed to go by this point. Fist opened the men's room door and there was this guy sitting on the toilet, who had not even locked the restroom door. So they slammed the door shut and decided to wait until we got to Manhattan!

We climbed up to the subway, and purchased one day unlimited ride tickets for $7, which turned out to be quite a bargain by the time the day was done. We caught the subway to Times Square in Manhattan. Of course, the men's rooms in Times Square Station were shut down (probably because of the terrorist threat). Poor Fist and Bill!

We went up to the street level, came out into a lovely, hot, sunny day - and found ourselves less than a block from Cold Stone Creamery. We went in for ice cream, and finally found a working men's room, though the line was long. And the ice cream was great! Afterwards we visited a big sporting goods store across the street, and Bill found some nice soccer shoes on sale dirt cheap.

We then went walking around Midtown. We saw a bunch of the famous, huge department stores. We saw Rockefeller Center and its famous ice skating rink, turned restaurant in the summer. We walked through the Diamond District. We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, where we lit candles for the healing of a sick friend. We visited the Nintendo Center, where Fist bought Pokemon stuff for his kids.We caught the Lexington Ave. subway then, and went down to Chinatown.

In Chinatown we window shopped and bought egg rolls and bakery goods.Steven bought a beautiful (real) sword there. We then wandered down to Little Italy, where we got a great dinner at a little sidewalk cafe. The pizza was wonderful!!

We then walked through trendy Soho over to Greenwich Village. We sat for awhile in a little park, and Fist nearly started a pigeon riot by throwing bits of his sesame roll! We saw some naughty stores and naughty leather goods stores, and chuckled at the window displays. We went to a tea/coffee specialty store that had been in business well over 100 years. I bought three teas, Fist one.

We then caught a subway to the upper West Side, where we took the kids to Gray's Papaya, where the supposed best hot dogs in the world are for sale. The adults got chilled fruit juice, but the kids did get hot dogs  and they did say they were fantastic!

We walked by the Dakota Building then, and visited the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park. We sat and relaxed in the grass for a long time.

The it was one more subway ride. down to Times Square, then back onto the 7 line to Queens. The Jeep was safe and unmolested. We then drove back to the hotel, with no bad traffic at all. We all swam and soaked in the hot tub for awhile, and then it was time to say goodbye to Fist.

Day Eight

We drove home via the Delaware Water Gap, which was beautiful. We caught I-80 on the southern end of the park. We took that all the way to Toledo. We stopped at a service plaza on the Ohio Turnpike and got dinner at a Panera Bread.We got home to Michigan just as it was getting dark.

Good trip. Good time with friends. Am very glad we went!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!