My First Trip to NewYork City Day One

I grew up in a small town, a very small town. When I was a kid, our town had two stop lights and a gas station on every corner where $1.00 bought 20 gallons of gasoline, a man cleaned the windows, AND sometimes they gave away incentives like a bright green brontosaurus. Maybe the dinosaur was a nod to fossil fuels, I am not sure.

Today, neither stoplight remains, and there is one Exxon station and a convenience store where you pump your own gas. There is one “full service” pump where I go when I am really dressed up. I will have on my best jeans and a man I have known since I started driving will pump my gas for ten cents extra.

At around the time I started to drive, I realized for the first time that there were many places where people lived differently than me. Well, I always knew there were starving kids in Africa but I didn’t know there were people in the United States that didn’t have cars. I was amazed to learn that they didn’t even need cars because they lived within walking distance of restaurants, stores, and church. The symbol of all of those places of course was New York City.

The city that was home to Mary Tyler Moore’s friend Rhoda called to me with promises of fun and excitement at every turn. The story of The Godfather assured me that if I ever ventured to New York City, I would be shot dead on arrival by crossfire of a mob battle. The ball at the top of Times Square beckoned me to come and see.

As newlyweds, there was no money to visit the Big Apple. As young parents, the beach seemed more appropriate than taking our babies where they “may be mugged or shot”. As the city grew and we aged I became less daring and more intimidated of tackling NYC on our own, but I waited on the chance to go with a group and IT FINALLY CAME!

Here is my picture journey to New York, New York with a few thoughts thrown in along the way.

Rockefeller Center was our first stop of the day. A light drizzle began as we walked up the street and immediately separated from our guide who like every other person, was dressed in all black carrying an umbrella and walked at the speed of a gazelle.

Thankfully our trip organizer was able to contact our guide and arrange a time to meet. We headed straight to Central Park to squeeze in as much "outdoors time" as possible before the predicted torrential rains arrived.

As we left that end of the park, the rain began in earnest and continued throughout the rest of the day. The people were certainly trying to make the best of the the day however, we passed many people out running, walking their dogs and even a yoga class breathing in and out in the rain.

After the rain started our tour guide opted to give us the opportunity to do some "inside activities" so we headed back to Rockefeller Center to have lunch, shop, ice skate etc. It was amazing the number of people that were there carrying umbrellas. It was almost impossible to walk due to all of the umbrellas. And the rain just wouldn't let up.

Our bus driver did a great job navigating through all of this...glad I wasn't in charge of that task!

We met up with our group and ate at a café inside Trump Towers. It was a very pretty room but the food was not so great. Everywhere we went, I felt like they were hurrying us along. I stopped after crossing the street and got yelled at by someone behind me to "don't stop". I guess in NY you must keep moving even if you have no idea where you are going.

After dinner we went to Times Square. It was so very crowded that we didn't do much exploring. That is a spot I hope to return to in the future.

Kenny, Jerry, Denise, and I walked around to Bryant Park. There was a Christmas Bazaar set up there that was really neat. It would have been more fun had it not been raining so hard the merchants were sweeping water out of their booths and the skating rink was covered with at least eight inches of water. This is what it was supposed to look like. Now picture it full of umbrellas, ponchos, and RAIN.

Day one ended quite abruptly. There had been protesting in NYC for the past week and we had avoided it today. However, our bus driver heard a rumor that the protestors were on their way to Times Square so he summoned us all back to the bus.

Even though I was wet and didn't get to do all I wanted to that day, it was all new to me and I had a ball.

Looking In the Rearview Window