Greetings from New York City,
We attempted to drive our big truck into the city and find a 24-hour parking garage big enough for our truck which happens to be 7 feet tall. Jenn did some unbelievable driving through the city even with taxis screaming hello with their car horns and found a garage near the Empire State Building.
With my trusty street map in hand, we went to visit the Empire State Building. My mom had once worked in an office there when she was younger. We bought a ticket for the New York Skyride simulator ride and then to go up to the observation deck.
The ride was very similar to the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios. However, the lady who sat behind me obviously has never been on one and began screaming the moment it moved. The film featured Scotty from Star Trek and that made Jenn very happy, since she is a self-declared Trekky. As we flew around the city, we saw the Twin Towers and it made us sad to remember what had happened that terrible day.
A trip to the top of the building is just what we needed. An elevator took us up to the 86th floor where the observation deck rings the building. It felt great to be up so high above the city, but it was foggy and Manhattan looked like a silhouette made up different shades of blue and grey charcoal. Take a look at some of pictures.
No trip to the Big Apple is complete without a visit down Times Square. Immediately, they noticed that the streets have nearly empty and it was still daylight. We walked into the Toys-R-S and we both suddenly had the feeling of youth inside us as we stood at the threshold of never ending rows of toys.
Afterwards, it got quiet in the big city because of the 4th of July Weekend and Jenn and Dave started walking towards Rockefeller Center. Places we have only seen on T.V. are now directly in front of us. We walked around noticing where the Today Show is filmed behind its thick glass and where they turned an ice-skating rink in the winter into an outside food patio during the summer. The phone rang at 10PM and we received directions to our next destination in the city that never sleeps.
We entered a subway station and jumped on to the correct train heading in the wrong direction. I couldn't resist looking at our subway map and realizing that we were heading into Queens instead of Greenwich Village. That is when I turned to Jenn and said "I think we are going the wrong way. Can we take this train to the end and then wait for it to turn around and start heading in the right direction?" Jenn, the smarter one, said to me "We are getting off now." Needless to say, we did arrive where we needed to be to meet her cousin Anna.
We met up with Anna at the Parkside Lounge in Greenwich Village and learned all about her job and the guy she likes and etc. After finishing a couple of cold ones, we left and walked a couple of blocks to another bar where she knew the DJ. Anna knew every song the DJ was playing because she used to spin herself. Jenn and I have never heard any of the songs before but we liked the music anyways. We left around 2AM and did not get home until 4AM that night, because we were in the city that never sleeps.
It's great to see our friends and families.
Love Dave & Jenn
New York City Hotels
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