New York Trip: Part One

Once a year Daniel and I leave our kids behind and go on a trip with just the two of us.  It has turned into a pretty great tradition.

This is our 5th year of doing it - we have done New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.  After we got back from DC last year, we started thinking about where we wanted to go for our next one, and we decided it was about time we went to New York, since neither of us had been there.  We started planning for the trip about 5 months ago, and I should probably admit that we are crazy and intense trip planners (Daniel created an awesome spreadsheet that helped us figure out exactly what we wanted to do and when).  Anyway, we had so much fun planning this trip and thinking about it – I was surprised when the time came around to actually go. 

My mom flew into town on a Monday (the 14th) to watch the kids while we were gone, and then we left the next day, and got into New York late Tuesday night. 

We rented a car to use the next day, mostly because we wanted to be able to drive up to Hartford, Connecticut in the morning. That might seem like a strange thing to do on a New York trip, but we’re both trying to get all the states crossed off our list, and neither of us had been to Connecticut before. 

We left our hotel in Queens around 7:00 the next morning, and the drive to Hartford took about 2 hours. 

Here is the Old State House:

And me and Daniel pretending to be really wild criminals:

Hartford is a pretty city, and the weather was perfect for walking around and exploring.  We walked through downtown and up to the capitol building. 

Then it was time to head back towards New York, but this time we drove a different route so we could stop in New Haven, CT and visit Yale University.  We thought it would be fun to eat lunch there, and we had seen a Man vs. Food episode about two different popular lunch spots on campus. 

Daniel decided to try out this little restaurant called Louis Lunch.  It is tiny and cute and has the coolest little booths inside to sit at while you eat.  Also they claim to have invented the hamburger.  That is basically the only thing on their menu.  And they make a huge deal about not letting anyone put ketchup on their burger, because it is so original and special.  It is also not very good.  I didn’t try it, because the only kind of hamburger I like is a veggie burger, but this ended up being the worst meal of the trip for Daniel.

My lunch was much better.  I had decided to try out The Cheese Truck.  We had seen online that they drive around Yale campus, but are usually parked on College Street between Elm and Wall St., and that’s exactly where we found them.  I love when things are where they’re supposed to be. The people at The Cheese Truck make all kinds of fancy grilled cheese sandwiches using sourdough bread and gourmet cheeses, and then you can choose fun toppings to go inside (like avocado and bacon, if you are me).  You can tell from my face in the picture that I was excited about having such a fancy grilled cheese. It was pretty good.

We took lots of pictures while walking around Yale.  We both love college campuses.  We might have started planning for one of our children to come here someday (for graduate school, because of course they will all go to BYU for their undergraduate degrees).  I can already picture Tristan here.  We will just tell him to stay away from Louis Lunch.

                                                                                         

After our walk around Yale, we got back in the car and finished the drive back to New York, taking a minor detour through New Jersey first.  We wanted to see what Newark was like.  This building below was the only pretty thing we saw – the rest of Newark was a little scary.  I’m not sure why Daniel LaRusso in Karate Kid was so upset about moving from Newark to California.                                  

After driving through Newark, we drove down to Staten Island, and then crossed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge over to Brooklyn.  It was really foggy and pretty.                                                                

Our first stop in Brooklyn was at Coney Island. When I was a little girl my dad used to sing barbershop quartet songs with his brothers and one of my favorite songs they would sing was “Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby”, so I was pretty excited to be able to see Coney Island in real life.  I could hear my dad’s voice singing that song in my head the whole time we were there.

Here I am on the boardwalk with my shoes off, because I can’t be this near to an ocean without running out to get my feet in the water.                                                           

Also at Coney Island is the original Nathan’s Famous hot dog place.  When we were planning for our trip I learned that not only was Nathan’s Famous featured on Seinfeld, but Mayor Giuliani declared them the best hot dogs in the world.  Also, Jackie Kennedy used to serve them in the White House, and Franklin D. Roosevelt served them to the King and Queen of England. Daniel and I shared one, and it was good. 

After Coney Island, we drove up through Brooklyn.  In this picture you can see the Brooklyn Bridge up ahead, and Manhattan off to the left.  Even though we were in a little bit of a traffic jam here, I still had a huge grin on my face, because I was so excited to just be driving down the road in Brooklyn.  I think it was around here that Daniel said, “do you know what Brooklyn is famous for?”, and I said “Spot Conlon?” (because I saw Newsies probably 20 times when I was 12 years old, and I can’t think of Brooklyn without saying “on the grounds of Brooklyn!” in Spot Conlon’s voice.  Either that, or “Never fear, Brooklyn is here!”).  But Daniel said he wasn’t thinking of Spot Conlon – he said Brooklyn is famous for sending lots of point guards to the NBA.   

We eventually made it through Brooklyn and into Queens, to our first baseball game of the trip – a Mets game at Citi Field.  We like to go to baseball games on all our trips – Daniel has a goal to go to every MLB stadium.  It’s pretty fun because they are all so different.  We usually try to get there a few hours before the game starts, so we can see batting practice and try to catch some balls.

Except if one really came anywhere near me, I would probably yell and duck. 

I think baseball fields are so pretty.  The Mets ended up losing to the Reds, but we still had a good time, and I had fun filling out the scorecard (Daniel taught me how a few years ago, and it might be my favorite part of the game – it just feels so satisfying to keep track of every play.  Also, it helps me pay attention). 

After the game we returned our rental car, got a shuttle back to the airport, and then another shuttle to our hotel.  We were tired.

And that’s it for day one.  Here’s a map of what our day looked like, in case you aren’t familiar with the New York area, and you really want to be able to picture it all in your mind.  (And I will admit that I took way too much time figuring out how to draw this, and I still didn’t get it right. And now that I look at it, I am kind of tempted to go back and color in all the water blue, and add little buildings on Manhattan and trees for Central Park.).

We’ll make it to Manhattan on Day Two.