20170803 - UPGRADE!

20170803 - Up in the am and we jumped on the bus to get downtown. We started walking and D realized he lost his wallet so e ran back to the bus that hadn't left yet and found his wallet, lucky boy... we walked to the location of the boston Tea Party and saw the replica ship. We then headed downtown to walk on the freedom trail.

I spent a bunch of time on the phone trying to get baseball tickets for tonight's game, however we have been issued tickets for the 8/14 game. One slight problem, we won't be in Boston then... So I followed the fam as they headed down the freedom trail on the phone selling the tickets for the 8/14. I got those listed on StubHub and then headed a couple of blocks the opposite direction of the freedom trail to get hop on hop off bus tickets. I met up with D who waited back for me and we hiked halfway across Boston to meet up with LJ&G we found in a cemetery listening to stories of Paul Revere, John Hancock and my favorite Samuel Adams.

G was busy correcting the tour guide as we made our way to the Boston Commons and our tour concluded. We walked around the park and ended up a having a meal around the square that we topped off with fried Oreos. We jumped on the bus and headed to Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church. After that we met up with my buddy Paul and we walked to the USS Constitution and some ice cream.

Feeling guilty about being in Boston and not getting D&G to a Red Sox game, so I snagged some tickets at 5:30 for the 7:10 game :-o My buddy Paul put us on the right train and DG&I headed to the Green Monster while he took L&J to the finish line of the Boston Marathon and to the top of the Prudential building where they had a great view of the city and he taught J how to eat oysters. Paul also took L&J to the bar in the Green Monster to see the field and then got them on a bus back to the hotel. DG&I made it to the game as it started and we had pretty good seats. We had hot dogs and a couple of drinks and were enjoying the crowd, it was electric!

Then something amazing happened. A guy walked up to D&G and asked them if they were together; they looked at me like 'should we answer this guy?'. I leaned over and said 'yes'. He said 'so all 3 of you are together?' 'Yes' again, he said 'come with me'. I rushed the boys out of there seats and we followed the man down the steps and he pointed and said 'go wait for me down there'. Well 'down there' was the baseball field. I mean THE BASEBALL FIELD. The man caught up with us and took up to some seats right up against the wall behind 1st base. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! The most AMAZING seats I have ever seen!

We sat ringside for the remainder of the through 'Sweet Caroline' and 'Take me out the Ballgame'. What are the odds of everything falling into place for this to happen? Needless to say D&G were in heaven and got some of the dirt from the field after the Red Sox victory over the White Sox.  We headed to the bus stop, waited forever, but got on a bus and headed back to the hotel. We met up with L&J and everyone told of their awesome experiences of the night. What a great day!

20170802 - Dancing Milk & Rained Out

20170802 - Up in the am and we loaded the car and headed North up across the George Washington Bridge and into Connecticut. We made a stop at the World's Largest Dairy, Stew Leonard's in Norwalk CT, where saw the animatronic displays all over the store. All this food made us feel starving so we headed out so G could see the Goats before we found a local diner to get a huge meal. We were the youngest patrons by about 3 decades, but it was good! 

Back on the road and into Massachusetts, L mostly missed the sign, and we drove for what felt like days before arriving at a military museum that was closed... On to the hotel where we got checked in and then across the road to catch a bus to go Fenway for an Indians @ Red Sox game. The stadium was awesome and we got to our seat, that were luckily under cover as it was raining, and then had a nice Fenway dinner of dogs and soda. DG&I headed out looking for very specific hats and found the across the road in the team store. We got back to our seats just in tie for them to cancel the game :-( So a little wet we headed out to the bus stop, not raining now, to catch our ride back to the hotel. We made it back in one piece and settled in for the night, a bit disappointed our evening entertainment was cancelled.

20170801 - No Kong, Shop, Park, Stomp

20170801 - Up in the am and all on the subway to seach for King Kong. We took the elevator WAY UP to the top of the Empire State Building and the view was amazing! L was a bit weak in the knees especially when we put our phones out through the cage to take great pictures, and she wouldn't get close to the edge. We enjoyed the sights for a bit and then headed down to stroll up 5th Avenue and check out the stores.

We stopped at the 3 level Adidas store where J was in heaven and got a cool hat. The NBA store had some supper cool memorabilia. The 3rd floor of the Microsoft store gave J a chance to strap on a VR headset and blow some stuff up and D got to do a 3 screen driving game on a supercomputer, G was too young :-( A bit further uptown on 5th and we strolled into the Trump tower that had a 5 story Nike store in it.  The boys loved that and we spent a ton of time in there. We tried to get some Trump ice cream but there was only 1 super slow dude working there so we bailed and found a street vendor for a cool treat. We came to Tiffany's and went in to the amazing diamond sparkling show room to look around. We saw the 128 carat Tiffany Diamond and I looked for something less expensive to get for L and a dainty little silver and diamond bracelet. We got a hold of a salesperson and the $2000 bracelet got to stay in its nice case. No little blue box for L :-( however JG&I did get to use the drinking fountain that had a person stationed there to operate it for you. There were 2 other floors to Tiffany's but we weren't invited to visit those. On to the Apple store, which was huge, but not much neater than the one at Easton.

We crossed the street into Central Park for some hiking, climbing and sight seeing. We saw many of the movie sights and cool things, along with some performers by the pond. 

We caught the train and headed back downtown to the Broadway district where we got some pizza in a corner cafe before heading to Stomp. The sow was really loud but the boys really enjoyed the show. Another day done in the big city and we headed below to catch our ride back to NJ for the night. G got his special reserved seat :-)

20170731 - Statue and Grand Arenas

20170731 - Up in the am and we jumped a train to Liberty National park where we had quite a hike to get to the ferry. We noticed at Liberty park a black line running through the park, same same kind of black line we saw at the PA 911 memorial, and this one pointed across the Hudson river towards where the Twin Towers use to stand, it was another flight path... From the ferry we had a great view of the city as we approached Ellis Island.

We didn't get off and continued on to Liberty Island where we walked around the awesome statue. What a sight it must have been coming into the country as an immigrant. We had a nice lunch on the patio and then headed back to the ferry to go to Battery park From there we walked to Wall St and on to the Grand Central Station. We toured the beautiful station for a bit before jumping on the train to the Bronx. Our destination fr the evening, Yankee Stadium.

Once inside the door the boys got their a special treat, their picture taken with the World Series trophy. We stopped at the fan appreciation booth and got certificates for our first game in the stadium, we got Aaron Judge's too.  Up to our seats in the front row of club level for a spectacular view of the grand arena. What a place! DG&I walked around the entire place searching for the perfect hat. We found one and headed back to our seats to finish the game. The Yankees won!

Back on the subway, through WTC Station, pretty much empty at this hour, and to our hotel.  We saw some great things today!

20170730 - PA all the way to NYC

20170730 - Up and had bfast at the hotel then more time on the road in PA. We stopped in Shartlesville to see Roadside America to see the huge building full of a model train display. It was awesome and the boys loved looking at all the different scenes and cool stuff they did with this. Definitely worth a stop.

On to the Peeps Factory in Bethlehem, they were closed but you could still smell the sugar in the air. We drove through a Burger King for lunch and kept on moving. Next stop was the Crayola Experience. We didn't take the tour but went through the huge gift shop and saw a wall of crayons.

That was the last stop for a while as we got in to traffic the closer we got to NYC. We drove through some pretty rough neighborhoods to get to the hotel in Newark NJ. We got settled in and then headed down to the lobby, through the tube and to the NJ PATH station to catch our first train to NYC. We made it to the World Trade Center Train Station which was AMAZING.

We came up through the bottom of the new World Trade Center and through a line that wrapped around the building  of people waiting to pay $50 a pop to go to the top. We went outside and walked around the 911 memorial fountains and talked to the boys about it. Pretty amazing and moving to be standing there. We then headed back down to the subways and made our way to Times Square.

The boys thought it was pretty awesome and we saw all the sights we see on TV. There were street artists making cool paintings, performers dancing and playing music and every language on the globe around us. What a cool place. We went into the M&M store and got a couple bags full of all the different M&Ms from the 3 floors of chocolate. We stopped in the Disney store, and got a snack from a street vendor. We took a hike and found a nice little place to eat and sit for a bit and then walked past Macy's and the Empire Sate Building. Back on the subway and the boys found the perfect seats. We made it back to the hotel and crashed.