Off We Go!

I apologize for the disruptive order of my blog posts. I realize I am jumping all over the place, but have so may things I want to share that are "old news" that I have to mix and match as far any sort of chronological order goes.  Please bear with me.

Finally October arrived and we headed out for Spain to become grandparents. It is always such a long flight, and very uncomfortable especially for a guy my size. So, Kim put her considerable planning talents to work and developed a strategy.  Split the trip up. One leg to New York, and after a few days, head out over the Atlantic for the final leg to Espana. Shorter times crammed into airline seats, a little time to acclimate to the changing time zones, sounded good. So off we went to New York!

The first leg was still quite a haul. We left Reno at around 9:30 AM and arrived at La Guardia via Chicago at around 10:30 PM local time. We were a little worried about getting to our motel so late, but it was a pretty easy cab ride away. Te guy sitting next to me was a professor at a business college in New York, and he was helpful in getting our bearings in a strange city.

We had a two hour layover in Chicago, so we relaxed and toasted our adventure!

We took this picture, at the arrival gate at LaGuardia
in New York before deplaning, for Brother Mike. 

We planned to spend the entire next day in New York, so the next day we took off for Times Square and Broadway.  We took the A train! The station was only a few blocks from the hotel, but there was some construction going on and we had to take a shuttle buss to get access to the train. The ticket agent was very helpful in getting us squared away, and we were off!

We took the A Train to 42nd street, and humped the 2 blocks to
Times Square.

 The streets were jammed. It was a real zoo but navigable.  I would not want to be here on new years eve!! Kim was wistfully hoping that we would be able too take in a play, so we checked at the first theater we saw for tickets. The Lion King was sold out, but the guy told us to check for cancellations at another  theater down the street. We shouldered our way through several blocks and found the place. The show was starting in 5 minutes and it didn't look good. However, a guy was there with a couple of tickets to get rid of. So he gave one to Kim and took me to the ATM to get enough cash to pay. I picked up some food from a street vendor (some kind brochette, probably chicken, in a bun). I figured they would not let me in with it, so I wrapped them up in foil and jammed them deep into my jacket pockets. The guy we bought the tickets from was nice enough to escort me back to the theater so I wouldn't get lost. I made it inside only missing a few minutes of the play.

Kim has been wanting to see the Lion King (the play) for years, She finally got her wish!!

Took this picture of the curtain call at the end of the performance.
It was a great show, and well worth the trouble and cost. Recognize any of the characters?

Mufasa looks down on us as we left the theater.

It was a fabulous show. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and were glad that we had lucked into the guy with the tickets. Checking on prices later online, I think we paid pretty close to the going rate. They were excellent seats, center stage, about one third back.

 After the show we headed back out into the sea of humanity outside, looking for a place to get some dinner.

The sidewalks were very crowded with sightseers and vendors.

That's the big ball that falls down every January first at 0000 in the center of the
photo, upper third.

Pretty busy place!

We found a Chevy's restaurant almost directly across the street from the subway, and decided on some New York Tex-Mex.

Kim checks out the menu at Chevy's New York. We ended up with a
sampler plate and a fajita salad. YUM!

This photo was taken after Kim's second margarita... 'nuff said!

The train ride back was uneventful. We got back pretty late, but managed to make
it before dark.

We got back to the room with little trouble. Next day we had a leisurely start, and finally a 2:30 shuttle trip to JFK and our final leg: New York to Dublin to Malaga to La Roda de Andalucia! More to come.

That's All!