I smite thee! ...The Diary of Nod

I like New York in June (and July)

My family and I took a road trip to NYC for a week-plus. The drive takes a day and a half with kids in tow; it's really only 16 hours or so, but we usually split it into 12 and 4 so that we have almost a full day in NYC and then only a 4 hour trip in the morning on the way in or in the evening on the way out. We're scouting out areas around the DC metroplex, so that break hits us right around there also. We stayed at a cesspool Ramada Inn in Laurel, MD on the way up--some parts of the motel were nice, but it seemed like we got stuck in the older/nasty section in the back. Somehow Priceline listed Richmond, VA as "near" DC, so Kristi booked a Quality Inn over there. It made for a longer initial drive, but it worked out. It was very nice, free wired/wireless internet, large room, stuff like that. Nothing fancy, but great for us. Beat the heck out of the Hilton that we got in Jersey. We thought the Hilton was a great thing, just on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge--even with the $7 toll to get into the city, it's much cheaper than anything in the city and a faster drive than stuff up in Westchester. The Hilton was okay, but nothing special. You get someone to open the front door and cart up your luggage, but personally I'd rather do both of those things. Other than that, two double beds, tv, free wired internet, soap, coffee.

We took a long trip this time, 10 days total from Tues to Thurs of the next week. I got to see a good bit of my family as well as a few tourist points in NYC that I haven't been to since I was a kid: the Cloisters, the Intrepid, South Street Seaport, the Children's Zoo at the Bronx Zoo, a new (to me) Children's Adventure Garden at the Botanical Gardens. We watched fireworks over the East River from South Street and I walked my grandmother to mass.

My daughter had a blast, though she was very worn out by the long days and didn't handle being drug around to places where she couldn't run around and grab everything. I realized that she hasn't grown up where she had to hold someone's hand all the time; except for walking through parking lots or the occassional downtown or mall trip, she lives in cars and houses and school and can run around at will. My son was mostly chauffered around in a backpack and could sleep through anything.

It's good to be back home but very surreal. The start of our trip seemed so long ago...

posted by Lachlan @ 10:04 PM