Howdy folks, back from the NY trip, had a pretty good time. Took the redeye out of SLC last Tuesday night, arrived at JFK at about 5:30 am, raining, went and picked up a rental van, drove it into Manhattan. Ok, I'm a long time pizza driver, even drove cab for a couple of years, but that place is NUTS!!! I did get into the flow tho, I actually like it when everyone is trying to move fast. The rain kind of messed up some of our plans, couldn't drive into central park, and didn't want to walk in, didn't have umbrellas, should have bought some i guess. Ended up going to the Museum of Natural History, quite interesting, but got very warm inside, especially on the upper floors. The sea life exhibit was the most fascinating, full size model of a Blue Whale hanging from the ceiling!! Kids were freaked out (ok, me too) by the giant japanese spider crab, 6 ft leg-span, 50 ft. giant squid and even longer giant jellyfish of some sort. Yikes! Some of those freaky creatures from the depths of the sea are just WRONG!
Eating in NYC was a bust, 1st I tried to find some good bagels, but couldn't find the bakeries i looked up on the internet, so just bought some at a place I found in the Village. They were very tough. Kids slept for about the 1st 3 hours while I drove around, so after the bagels we just skipped lunch and went for pizza at dinner time. Went to Grimaldi's under the Brooklyn Bridge. I was finally happy to find it after driving around it for a while, but the pizza just wasn't what I expected. It may be the most authentic, but maybe that's not always a good thing. Ordered extra cheese on them, and they still had less than a regular Domino's pizza. Strange tasting watery sauce, oh well.
Rest of the trip was nice, stayed at a Ramada on Lundy's Lane near Niagara Falls for a couple of days, went on the Behind the Falls tour. Drove down to Kirtland OH, toured the early LDS church sites, including the Kirtland Temple. Saturday we moved it on over to Canadaigua NY, place called the Fingerlakes Inn. Toured Palmyra church sites and the erie canal a little. Spent a fortune on food and gas on the trip, soooo looking forward to Free Dining and the Magical Express. Most striking thing on the trip was how green it was everywhere. Utah is fairly desert-y, sagebrush, NY and Ohio seemed almost as green and lush as the pacific NW. Beautiful!
Been on and off the caffeine lately, picked me up a head cold last day or so of the trip. Need to get over that, then get to work again.