This is how our final day in the Big Apple went. The show's taping ended
on Day 3 around 1:00 in the afternoon. We all walked back to our hotel where my daughter nearly collapsed. This would make sense given that she's a single mother of five great kids and runs a horse boarding ranch with 80 horses! Just to arrange making a spontaneous trip to NYC was nothing short of heroic for her.
I left her sleeping in our luxury hotel room and told the girls (6,8, and 13) that we'd explore the city. We set out to see the big city; Trump Tower, Disney Store, and pigeon-feeding. Exhausted, we hailed the form of transportation in this image. After four days in NYC, I concluded that this was the ONLY way to travel, by the way.
On our last paid night in the Big Apple, we ordered prime rib from room service and a movie: "Flight
93". We fell asleep, one by one, watching how terrorists hijacked a plane which we might very well be taking tomorrow.
On Day 4, we all packed up and stored our bags, then took a bus tour of the sights EVERY new visitor HAS to see. Big mistake. Our open air bus tour ($200) spent nearly two hours delivering us to a spot where we could theoretically see stuff. Unfortunately, the weather had turned quite nasty, so the five of us froze in gail force winds and rain in the open air bus seats.
We walked for two hours, peeked at the Statue of Liberty (no time for the ferry), and stood near the concrete barracade blocking any real view of Ground Zero. The most exciting part of this experience was - of all things - feeding seagulls. I'd thought to bring a bag of uneaten french fries. What a thrill as these birds swooped down, picking off food from our fingers!!!
We headed back to catch our pricey "Hop On, Hop Off" bus only to find that we had to wait over an hour to board for the one-hour trip back to our hotel! The $200 tickets promised a ride every 10 minutes so that we could get on & off at our pleasure. Bad advise from my young limo driver.
Surprisingly, after getting our bags out of storage, a big white stretch limo pulled up. I think I'll insert just one more image here. We arrived at the airport and saw that we'd be flying on a jumbo jet!!!! As people were boarding this big plane, all five of our names were called to the service desk.
Apparently our boarding passes didn't include the flight from NYC to Chicago! When we finally boarded, the officials realized that the three girls should NOT be on the front row emergency exit row of seats. We stood at the front of this jumbo jet for 15 minutes while the officials tried to find us all seats. Sitting right in the front row staring at us was an Iranian man who looked EXACTLY like the hijacker on the movie.
The man wouldn't smile and his eyes shifted back & forth. We were spooked for sure. Finally, some other passengers "traded" their seats so we could sit together. Bree (13) and I occupied aisle seats. She discovered head phones and rock music, then punched in this station for me. The two of us sat there dancing in our seats with gusto until her mother - my daughter- told me to quit making the whole seat move around. OK.
As long as I live I will never forget this magical adventure.......nor will my grand daughters, I think? Thank you for sharing this incredible adventure with me. Hopefully, this is just the beginning?
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