Dear Grandkids,
Two down. Seven to go. Grayson chose San Fransisco. Bowen chose New York City. Are you already thinking about where you might want to go.
Nona and I got back from our trip with Bowen about two weeks ago. You have no doubt already heard a little about the trip but I wanted to chronicle some of the highlights from my perspective. We flew up on Tuesday morning and came back on Saturday. That gave us 4 days to experience the city. Here are my highlights from each day.
Tuesday highlights: The Empire State Building – We were staying in the Theatre District just off Times Square at the Hotel Edison. After settling in, we went exploring. Nona had done most of the research for this trip. We wanted to get a bird’s eye view of the city on the first day just to get our bearings. There are about five different buildings that give you a 360 degree view of the city but we decided to go the traditional route and went to the top of the Empire State Building. No lines. We went straight to the top and spent about an hour going through the (very well done) museum and looking over the city.
Wednesday highlights: The Lion King – That morning we had walked the Brooklyn Bridge, seen the 911 memorial and taken the Staten Island Ferry out past the Statue of Liberty. Then in the afternoon we went to the matinee performance of The Lion King. We had incredible seats. Lower section. Dead Center. About 11 rows back. And the show did not disappoint. So much creativity on display as all the characters came to life as animals. Lions and hyaenas and warthogs and giraffes, and elephants and antelope. It was pretty amazing and kept our attention for the better part of 3 hours. We literally experienced “hakuna matata” as we got swept up into Simba’s story.
Thursday highlights: Central Park – It was a drizzly morning but we walked about 25 blocks from our hotel down to the Harry Potter store and then back up to the New York Public Library and Grand Central Station. We had lunch plans to meet the Austin Tsumas family near Central Park so we trekked uptown stopping at the Lego store along the way. It was fun to catch up with Austin, Amber, Caleb, Norah, and Jovie over lunch and then headed to the park. Caleb and Bowen acted like best friends and had a great time together bonding over the New York Mets and scurrying over the park’s huge rock outcroppings.. We went to see Balto’s statue and then spent a few hours at the Central park Zoo which was very well done. We said our goodbyes, walked back toward Times Square hitting the Lego Store again, the Nintendo Store, the MLB store and then grabbing supper (with cheesecake of course) at Juniors.
Friday highlights: Mets vs. Dodgers – We spent a few hours at the Museum of Natural History in the morning, checked out of our hotel, and moved to a hotel in Queens so that we would be closer to Citi Field and Laguardia Airport. We headed to the ballpark around 5 pm. The gates opened at 5:40 and Bowen made a beeline for the “autograph station” down near the field. Caleb had told him that if you got there early then you had a chance of getting an autograph. Bowen ended up being 4th in line, waiting 90 minutes, not knowing who might be signing if anybody or even if he would get one at all. Right before game time Francisco Lindor (B’s favorite player) came over and signed about 6 autographs before disappearing into the dugout. And B was one of the lucky ones. At this point the game became secondary because we already had our highlight. But…
- We saw perhaps 6 future hall of famers play: Lindor, Soto, Ohtani, Freeman, Betts, Kershaw
- We waited through an hour and a half rain delay ( but our seats were under cover so we didn’t get wet)
- We saw the Mets erase a 5-2 Dodger lead in the bottom of the 9th
- We made it through 12 innings before we finally left (Dodgers won in 13)
- We made it back to our hotel room at 1:30 am
Awesome memories made with Bowen. Keller, you’re next. Get ready!
Never forget that you are very loved!
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