New York, New York

The trip video is available here. I want to acknowledge that I am fortunate to have the wherewithal to to travel and to also have friends who also have the wherewithal and similar travel adventure bug.

My friend, Bud, needed to use a Delta companion ticket before August and invited me to go to New York City for a long weekend - July 21 to 24. We left early on the 21st and hit the ground running.

Landing at La Guardia, we took the free transfer bus to Subway Line #7 to Grand Central Station, Manhattan. We walked from Grand Central to our hotel for the weekend, the Hilton Millennial United Nations. The hotel is located immediately next to the United Nations building on the East River. Our room was on the 36th floor with amazing views of Manhattan including the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and Freedom Tower in the distance.

We got an early check-in, dropped off our luggage, and headed out to Times Square and the discount ticket office, TKTS. We were in line for about 1 1/2 hours and decided to purchase tickets to a Friday evening show and a Saturday matinee. We didn't have real plans for shows so were open to whatever was available.

Friday night we went to Grey House at the Lyceum Theater. It is a "straight" (ie. not a musical) play which I wanted to support. It fit its billing as being a creepy, horror story. Very difficult to describe and very thought provoking about what it was or wasn't representing. Laurie Metcalf (of Roseanne show fame) appears in this production.

Starting Friday and throughout the weekend, we hit as many Irish pubs as we could between Times Square and our hotel. The weather was pretty much fantastic the entire time. It did get hot but not humid. We were lucky.

Saturday, we walked nearly completely across the island of Manhattan...from the East Side to the West Side and the High Line near the Hudson River. We walked a good portion of the High Line towards downtown. We got off around 14th Street and jumped on the subway back to Times Square for a matinee of New York, New York at the St. James Theater.

Before the show, we went to my favorite diner, Westway on 9th. It was perfect. New York, New York is a HUGE musical. We had 2nd row seats! We could read the conductor's music score! The show as full of unknown Kander and Ebb songs with additional lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The 2nd Act is really a block buster. Unfortunately, the closing notice was published after we saw the show. Hopefully it will tour so people get a chance to see it. The lead actor, Colton Ryan, is freakin' amazing.

Bud hasn't been able to get authentic Japanese sukiyaki in the Twin Cities so we went to Jukai for dinner and opted not to see a show Saturday night. I had never had sukiyaki. It was delicious and the staff's attention to detail was impeccable.

We had stopped by TKTS after the Saturday matinee to get tickets to the final preview of The Cottage, another "straight" play. This one a farce/comedy at the Hayes (formerly Helen Hayes) Theater. It was fun and fluffy and full of a lot of sexual references. It was directed by Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame. It opened on the Monday after we saw and, unfortunately did not receive good reviews.

From the play we walked to just off Central Park to eat at Serendipity, a New York institution. We found an interesting beer bar while we waited for our table. I have been to Serendipity before but do not remember it being the crazy, weird place that appears to be now.

I can't remember is we walked back to the hotel or took the subway. We did A LOT of walking!

We had time before our flight on Monday to get in some more touristing. We took the subway to the upper east side to visit The Guggenheim. I had never been. The building was designed by Frank LLoyd Wright. There were 3 very interesting exhibits (check them out on the website). I really enjoyed visiting this museum.

We took the subway back to the hotel to get our luggage then to Grand Central to back track our route to La Guardia. Everything really went really well on weekend.

Another link to the video.

Wisconsin Roadtrip - June

Well, I've been back from a Wisconsin roadtrip over a week and finally edited the photos and put together the trip video. You can see the video by clicking here. A lot was packed into the 10 days.

First of all this was a trip with my dear friend Jill. She flew to Minneapolis where we started our driving adventure.

First stop - Madison, Wisconsin. Jill is from Madison. We visited the house she was raised in. The current owners had just sold the house and by chance, the lady of the house was there when we stopped. She graciously let us walk through the house so Jill could see it. Turns out she and her husband had bought the house from Jill's parents!

We went to the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus and met an old friend of Jill's and hung at the student Union. We spent the night in Madison. In the morning I took a run along Lake Mendota and through the campus. After that we went to the huge farmer's market that surrounds the Wisconsin capitol building. We went in the building briefly. It was a very hot day.

From Madison, we drove to Milwaukee. There we met friends that Jill knew from 35 years ago, Shannon and Will! Destination was the James Taylor concert at Summer Fest. Sheryl Crow opened for James in the ginormous American Insurance venue...23,000 James Taylor fans.

Spent the night in Milwaukee. Left for Door County, Wisconsin in the morning and stopped at another childhood friend of Jill's who has a house on the lake (Lake Michigan). Made it to Sister Bay in Door County for a week's stay at the Liberty Lodge.

The video covers the Door County portion of the adventure pretty well. But in brief and in no particular order we ... 1) took the ferry to Washington Island where we saw lavender fields, a really weird building that someone told us was a Scandinavian church?, and visited a rock beach. 2) sat out at Newton State Park (a dark sky location) to see the stars, however, the moon was so bright the stars weren't all that visible. 3) went to Cave Point County Park to see the waves (not too wavy) but saw what turned out to be a duck with all its baby ducks tucked under her wings...you had to see it. It was cool. 4) strolled in Ellison Bluff County Park where Jill and I had been a winter ago. 5) ate and drank a lot 6) went to the world premiere of a play at Peninsula Players Theater 7) listened to steel pan music at Birch Creek Conservatory 7) ate and drank a lot 8) it was crazy smoky (Canadian fires) most of the time but had a few days of clear air 9) hung out at a beach on the Lake Michigan side (beautiful) 9) drove across Door County (it is the peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan) every which way you possibly could. 10) saw some beautiful sunsets. 11) and have a mentioned that we ate and drank a lot?!

After we dropped Shannon and Will off at the Green Bay airport, Jill and I drove straight back to Minneapolis. I've basically been sleeping ever since.

The weird building. It has serpents and scary things.

It also has these strange goad gargoyles.