The city of New York is the American icon of the big city. Everybody who is anybody “knows” New York. Being a west coast nobody, I have never been to or even had an interest in visiting “The Big Apple,” New York. None-the-less, last week I did just that.
Ellen and I were out visiting my younger son Mason and his wife Miki in a tiny suburb south
of Baltimore for the holidays. We made a similar visit to see them last year, and on that visit we took a field trip to Washington DC to go to the Smithsonian. I had never been to Washington before either. In fact until last year I had never been east of the Mississippi river. I have traveled all over the western United States, Canada, and Mexico, but never had I traveled into the eastern side of the country.
Since I was already out there to see the kids, I suggested we take in New York City this trip – one of those “everybody has to visit it at least once in their lifetime” type trips. Ellen and I tried several times to sit down and create a visit itinerary, but gave up because there are simply too many things to see in such a big city. I told my son, “Lets start in Times Square and see what we can see on foot from there.” Many hours and exhausted feet later, that is exactly what we did.
First stop was Times Square, because any later in the day and it would be wall-to-wall people. I am skipping over the 3 hour drive and the $50 to $75 dollars in tolls paid on the roads just to get there. Yes, back there you get charged for every few miles you drive on the freeway. Once you get to the city you hope you can find a parking spot in some underground garage for $10 to $18 per hour, because there is no other parking anywhere. You can tell I was missing California already.
Times Square was huge. I have seen it on television many times for New Years eve celebrations, but I found the television impression completely missing the real presence of the 360 degree onslaught of multi-story high video screens all blasting various sorts of colorful advertising. You have to see it to truly believe it.
From there we headed over to the Radio City Music Hall and NBC studios and the Ice skating rink in front of the Rockefeller Center. One of the delights there was the dancing and singing Salvation Army folks trying to gain donations. We also made a quick swing past St. Paul’s cathedral and of course Saks Fifth Avenue. You may have noticed how bundled up we were. It was freezing. Technically it was a couple degrees above freezing, but the damp air combined with the wind seemed to cut right through the many layers of clothing we had on.
Our next big stop was the Public Library – the famous one with the two lions in front – you know, the one the Ghostbusters were running around in. The attraction was the beautiful reading room halls with painted ceilings and gorgeous carved woodwork. It was about this time we noticed Ellen’s transport chair was failing. The foot rests were falling off. We needed a couple crescent wrenches to tighten things up – good luck! One of the library staff asked some contractors working in the building if we could borrow a wrench, but they claimed to not have any such thing since they were strictly plastering contractors. No one had any idea where such a thing could be found in the heart of “The big city.” Mason hit the streets and eventually found an overpriced Leatherman utility multi-tool from a street vendor that included a pair of pliers we were able to use to tighten things up with.
Our next stop was Grand Central Terminal – what we have always referred to as Grand Central Station. It certainly was grand. The inside looked to be about five stories high – an architectural style no one does anymore. It was about 2pm at this point and we had been on the go since 6am, so we were getting hungry. Now the challenge was finding something we could eat. For us the challenge was the whole gluten-free issue. The gluten-free concept seems to be completely unknown in New York. We walked through row after row of croissant and bagel sandwiches, pizza, breads and rolls until finally I found a place claiming to have healthy soups and salads. I spied butternut squash soup on the menu and read the ingredients. Everything sounded good till I got to the last ingredient – wheat crumbles. Really? Wheat crumbles? Why would anyone add wheat crumbles to a perfectly good soup? The only thing on the entire menu that did not have wheat in it in some form was a kale and broth soup and a kale salad. As I am looking over the food court I see the final gluten-free insult – a sign advertising a grain bar. New York is seriously into its wheat.
After a not terribly delicious meal of kale and kale, my son insisted we needed to go just a few blocks to see the United Nations. He consistently lied about how far everything was, but we ended up at the UN building – well at least across the street from it anyway. The other side of the street was down a long flight of stairs and that wasn’t going to be possible with a wheel chair. So we had to be content with just looking at it from afar.
It was getting late, so we had a long march back to our car and then a drive to our last destination, the Natural History Museum. This is a place filled with dioramas of stuffed animals and big rooms filled with dinosaur bones. We were actually hoping to see the Egyptian Pyramid exhibit with recreations of rooms in various pyramids and lots of mummies, but by the time we got there the tours for that area had all been sold out. We did get to the ocean exhibits and the wildlife exhibits and finally the dinosaurs. The first dinosaur we bumped into was a new exhibit of a 120 foot long teenage dinosaur found just a few years ago in South America. After that there were endless dinosaur rooms filled with all sorts of reconstructed dinos.
Once we were stuffed to the gills with dinosaur impressions, it was time to head back to my son’s house south of Baltimore – with another pile of tolls. Another couple of days and it was time for our Christmas celebration. My son is a staunch traditionalist, so it was turkey and mashed potatoes for us. I made the gravy, since they had no idea how to do this without using flour. Yeah, that gluten thing again. But Christmas was lovely sharing it with family.