Visiting the Stuart Campbells & NYC

Our night in the Propria (my brother, Stuart’s start-up) parking lot went very well.  David had prepared the trailer well for the dry camping.  We had plenty of both water and electricity.  I worried a bit that someone would think we didn’t belong there and send the police in the night but thankfully that didn’t happen.

We enjoyed church in the Madison Ward, they are very welcoming and friendly.  After church I tooks the kids over to Stu’s (Stuart & Adrianne were on their way home from a quick trip to Seattle) and they hung out there until David and I got the trailer set up in the campground.  Claire was in a neighboring city doing her annual lifeguard training.  Myra, Zina, and I drove to pick her up while the boys played games.  David made brownies while I was gone and I threw together some Barrow’s enchiladas when we got back.  It was nice to have a picnic table to relieve the crowding in the trailer.  The cousins headed home about 9.

Memorial Day started with meeting up with Campbells to watch the Madison Memorial Day parade that Grant was marching in.  They warned me that the parade was very short and it was!  We grabbed some Cohen bagels (incredibly good bagels we have to get every time we come to Madison) and headed to hang at the Campbells house.  Zina was very anxious to play with Claire, who finally finished her class with a perfect score.  The boys were playing basketball and splatball in Campbell’s enormous yard.  In the evening Stu & Adrianne prepared a great holiday meal for us including burgers, hot dogs, bbq beans, corn on the cob, s’mores, etc.  There was also a fancy red, white, & blue trifle made by the girls led by Claire.

One of the things we love about visiting Madison is a nearby outlet mall and fashion advice from Aunt Adrianne. So, we spent the morning and early afternoon shopping.  All the kids benefited from Adrianne’s expert advice and we found some great clothing.  We had a fun relaxed evening eating pizza, gabbing, and watching Claire’s dance videos.

Wednesday morning we got up early (for us) and Stuart took us to the New Haven commuter train.  We caught the train to Grand Central Station.  We had arranged for a private tour guide with a van to meet us at our hotel at noon. It should have been no problem to go the 1.3 miles from the station to our hotel in the 40 minutes we had until noon.  We started by scheduling a Lyft but the more we watched the app the further the driver seemed to get.  So we cancelled that and hopped in a taxi.  We should have just walked!!!  We would have arrived in plenty of time.  The taxi took 30 minutes to go the 1.3 miles and we were 10 minutes late for our tour.  Our guide’s name was Ronald and he told us a LOT about New York City.  He took us back to Grand Central Station by way of the Chrysler building.  The Chrysler building had cool “gargoyles” of different Chrysler hood ornaments and marble walls and floors.  Inside Grand Central station we got NY pizza for lunch, saw the fancy ceiling and tried out the crazy acoustics which allow you to hear another person at the other end of an arch. Unfortunately the day turned rainy further snarling the traffic.  We did see many neighborhoods of Manhattan, passed  the United Nations, walked for a bit in Central Park, drove through Times Square (it is named after the New York Times who were convinced to build their building there), saw the Statue of Liberty from a distance, and finally the 9/11 Monument.  Just before the 9/11 monument we saw the Fire Station next door with its own monument.  In the first minutes they sent 8 firefighters in and only two came back.  At the 9/11 monument all the people who perished are listed by what organization they belonged to.  Our guide told us there was an organization who puts a flower on their name on their birthday and we saw a few of those.  We were supposed to see a couple more sites like the Brooklyn bridge but the traffic just didn’t let us get around well.  By evening we were tired.  We grabbed a happy meal for Zina from a nearby McDonalds and the rest of us got something from the food court at the Penn Station terminal across the street from our hotel.  Dinner wasn’t a great success but it was nice to be warm and dry.  We stayed at the Fairfield Inn Midtown Manhattan/Penn Station.  We were kitty corner from Madison Square Garden.

Thursday we enjoyed the hotel breakfast.  Instead of a waffle maker they had an automatic pancake maker!  It puts a dollop of batter on a conveyor belt and cooks both sides at once.  Zina enjoyed four of them covered in whip cream!  By this time we had decided walking was our best form of transportation so we walked to Times Square to wait in the discount Broadway show line.  We got 5 tickets to MJ, the musical about Michael Jackson to see that evening.  Getting the tickets took us about an hour then we wanted to eat at Junior’s like we did last time we were in NY.  The food is indifferent but the desserts are delicious.  We ate too much so we enjoyed our one mile walk to see the Intrepid, aircraft carrier museum.  We especially enjoyed the exhibits about what it takes to operate an aircraft carrier.  In WWII, the crew numbered like 3500.  There was a commander of the flight operations and a commander of the ship.  It was amazing to think what it would be like commanding such chaos!  We watched a presentation on Japanese kamikaze attacks.  This ship survived 5 kamikaze attacks and one torpedo attack.  Each time the attacks killed sailors and required the aircraft carrier to leave the battle for repairs so I guess they would be considered successful.  Zina finally talked me into letting her do the virtual reality experience and unfortunately she really liked it–more begging in my future.  We decided we wanted a Lyft back to our hotel.  We got about an hour’s rest and then headed out to walk to our theater for MJ.  There are SO many people on the streets.  We stopped to get Zina a Happy Meal, the rest of us thought we could wait until after the show for additional food.  I thought she could eat it once we were at the theater with plenty of time to spare BUT walking a mile in crowds and with crossing lights is NOT the same as walking a mile on the track.  By the time we arrived at the theater, the Happy meal was cold and the milk was warm and she would not partake of either!  And we barely made it into our seats for the start of the show.  The show’s limited plot was of MJ reliving memories as he puts together his “Dangerous” tour.  It was a great vehicle to showcase some great music.  I was so excited for Zina to see Thriller but the scene really freaked her out and she couldn’t enjoy the music.  And then she wanted to go to the bathroom right when “Man in the Mirror”, my personal favorite, was being performed!  Oh well.  Everyone else really enjoyed the show (and Zina enjoyed everything but Thriller.)  Our tour guide recommended a 24 hour diner near our hotel so we stopped there on our walk back to the hotel. A diner is a great choice when one of the things Zina will eat is pancakes.  The Knick avoided NBA playoff elimination by winning a game at Madison Square Gardens and the party went on late into the night! I thought it was crazy that the streets are as crowded at 10:30pm as at 6pm but Stu says that they are that crowded at any hour (he has an experience when he was on the streets at 2:30am).  

Friday we enjoyed a relaxed morning with the hotel breakfast, sent Will to get the piece of NY pizza requested by one of his friends back home and walked to the train station past the Empire State Building and the New York library (in one of the stories I read to the kids those lions come alive!)  We grabbed a bit of lunch, caught our train and were picked up in New Haven by Stu.  Myra and Will went with Stu to a swim meet where Sam was competing.  I did a monster laundry batch and David fixed the tonneau cover on the truck.  Adrianne made us a fabulous taco dinner with root beer floats for dessert.  It is always such a treat to spend time in Connecticut with Stu and his family.