I'll try to keep this from morphing into a pathetically bad school essay. We just returned from our annual summer jaunt. Maybe I'll call this one The Alpha and Omega since it incorporated New York City and Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore in Northern Michigan.
As you, my friends know, it's been a funky summer. A get-away is usually a good tonic for this and this one did not disappoint.
As previously noted, we opted for the urban/rustic experience.
First, New York. I actually have history with the city since for some odd reason I've TWICE had boyfriends from Long Island. Not bad for a Wisconsin girl. Hayseed that I was, NYC always freaked me out. I remember learning in college about a psych experiment in which someone purposely overpopulated a colony of rats and kept them in a confined space and watched their anti-social behavior develop. I always thought that experiment was a little unnecessary since all one would really need to do is study Manhattan. I mean really.
The first time I went to the city my boyfriend's mom told me I'd see a homeless person/bag lady, a television or film crew, and we couldn't quite remember what the third thing was, either a drug deal or a 3 card monty game. The city did not disappoint on any of those. I was also offered drugs for sale (Bryant Park), and had my purse stolen at an Arby's after I set it on the floor next to me like a completely ignorant mid-westerner. Boyfriend's mom grabbed it back for me. She also took me to see The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on Broadway. She's awesome.
By the time my second New York boyfriend rolled around I had developed something of a phobia of the city. He and his sister laughed that the city must have looked like the view from a fish-eye lens to me. It was a big deal the day I actually walked from his sister's apartment in the West 40's to the McDonald's across the street ALL BY MY SELF.
So I could never say I had a particular fondness for the Big Apple, and I always argued that their pizza was too flat.
So here we were having a family adventure in the place that never sleeps, which actually led me to a cosmic realization: Tom may have been born and raised in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area, but his father grew up in the Whitehall (? I think?) section of the city and his mom is from Lyndhurst, New Jersey. While he was growing up his grandparent lived in Queens and he used to hang out there some, roam the city, and go to lots of Mets games. My cosmic New York connection continues. I swear I didn't plan it this way.
We found a decent hotel for under $100/night (!) on Long Island that was not far from Islip where my friends live. Just getting there was Day 1. Having dealt with Chicago a number of times, the Cross-Bronx and Long Island Expressways weren't unbearable. Day 2, it was decided, I would visit my friends while Tom took the girls to Jones Beach. My friends in Islip are actually the parents of LI boyfriend #1, and our relationship was better and far-outlasted the one I had with their son. My daughters didn't quite get this whole concept so I thought it best that they have an adventure while I caught up on old times. I can only take so much eye-rolling, sighs, and "can we go yet?"
Day 3 was it. Our foray to The City. In typical fashion we really didn't have it planned out. Tom, as mentioned before, has a certain familiarity with the place and felt just exploring would give us the best feel for the place.
Lesson 1 - staying further out on the island may have saved us on room cost, but this was somewhat offset by the train fare. Yow. Lesson 2 - there are no Broadway matinees on Tuesday, and the Long Island Railroad doesn't make it easy to get back in the evening unless you don't mind arriving around 2am. Lesson 3 - if you have a 16 year old daughter that is really freaked out by heights that eliminates climbing the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building or the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center.
So what do you do? You walk. And walk. Up 8th Avenue to Times Square. After
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