Our Last Day in Boston and Time in the Big Apple

We were so glad to be able to visit with two of my high school buddies, and their families of course. They haven't changed a bit! Reminiscing is always fun. It's also good to know that no matter the time that goes by, you will always have a special connection with them. When I was asked what was my favorite part of Boston... I have to say it was Tom and Tom with their families. Thanks, guys, for all the memories!

Me, Tom Cole, and Tom Clouser

Ellen & Ethan Everett, Ethan & Avery Cole, and Tobin Clouser

After having a wonderful lunch at Tom's, we decided to hit the Minute Man National Historical Park. This is site includes where Paul Revere, William Dawes, and "Doc" Prescott made their famous ride to warn the Patriots that "The Regulars Are Coming!!!" and then later the next day "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" occured. This was the shot where the "rebels" were finally ordered to shoot, thus starting the War. Very cool history!!! It is also where Louisa May Alcott, the author of "Little Women," Nathaniel Hawethorne, the author of "The Scarlet Letter," lived and wrote their books.




North Bridge - "The Shot Heard 'Round the World"



The Wayside



Site where Paul Revere was captured


Sunday evening, Tom suggested we go to Redbones, a local barbecue restaurant in Somerville, MA (a suburb of Boston and where he lived). This was a fun experience! The ambiance alone was worth it. Ruth couldn't get over the fact that kids were allowed to eat in the same room as a bar... something you are not allowed to do in Indiana.


Some of the artwork on the walls of the restaurant


Monday was a slow day. It was our last day in Boston, so we had to pack. We were also a little tired and needed a little bit of down time. We ended up finishing the Freedom Trail by going to the USS Constitution and museum. We weren't able to actually tour the ship because it's closed on Mondays, but we were able to tour a World War II destroyer next to it, as well as visit the museum, which was nice. After catching another cache, we went back to the hotel. I did, however, have a very nice drink with my friend Tom, after he got off of work. He took me to a great tavern that was near the Minute Man Historical Park. It was a great way to end our stay in Boston.

USS Cassin Young - World War II Destroyer

The USS Constitution or "Old Ironsides"

The following day we decided to make a quick drive down to Rhode Island to get a cache... just so we could get the geocache souvenir. By doing this, we had to drive through Connecticut, therefore, we had to grab a cache in that state as well. :-)

After getting settled into our hotel in Queens, we took the subway to the United Nations. The subway system in New York turned out to be a little more confusing than in Boston, which I'll explain in just a bit. The UN was pretty cool. Ellen, my daughter, loves foreign countries... she's taking AP World History next year, so she, in particular, loved this trip. When we finished with the UN, we were all starving (I must say, the TripAdvisor application for the iPhone is incredible!) I did a quick search for Chinese food (Ethan was in the mood for Chinese after seeing a lot of Asian people at the UN) and found a great authentic New York Chinese restaurant that was only a block away. The workers in this place were great! Definitely not your stereotypical New York attitude...in fact, almost everyone we've met here, has been exceptionally nice. I understand that almost everywhere we go, they are used to tourists, but even getting on the subway when we ask native people how to work the metro-card machine or which train to get on, they have been exceptionally kind. This brings me to the subway mistake.

Outside the United Nations

On our way to back to the hotel, we got onto the train and I started to talk to my family about which stop we needed to get off, which was 59th Street. A man overheard this discussion and explained that we had gotten on the wrong train... we were headed downtown instead of uptown! He explained how to fix the situation... and he even tried to make us feel better by saying it "happens all the time." Anway, we got off at 14th Street, transferred to the uptown train, and rode it back to the stop closest to our hotel.

Finally we come to today (Wednesday, July 20th). We decided to get up very early and head over to Rockefeller Plaza and see if we could get on the Today Show. We had reservations for an 11:00 tour of the NBC Studios, and thought it would be fun to go early. I think we were actually seen 3 times!!! We were getting texts and facebook posts from friends telling us that they saw us! How cool was that!!! We also saw that there was a Nintendo World Store right next to where the Today Show is filmed. The kids had to go in! When we left the store, we were asked if we would be willing to be interviewed live on a segment on "America Live". The interviewer would ask us about our feelings regarding Washington, DC. We got kind of excited about it when she mentioned going in for make-up and needing all sorts of viewpoints. After a little more discussion it turned out that we would be unable to do this because the NBC tour would be at the same time. Bummer!

Outside the Today Show

Anyway, at 11:00 we did the tour of NBC. Ok, this was awesome...we learned a little television trickery, like how when Brian Williams does the Nightly News he's actually in a small studio, not a "Master Control" with tons of people working, it's a "bluescreen"... and a lot of times when they say they are going to someone in the such-and-such studio, they are actually within "high-five distance..." The coolest set we got to see was the Saturday Night Live set. There's a ton of really cool pictures along the backstage of the various skits throughout the years! The coolest part of the whole thing was when Ellen was chosen to do an actual news recording!!! Even though it wasn't actually shown on TV, it was shown in Rockefeller Center and we got a DVD of it!!!!!! How cool is that!?!?

NBC Studios - LOVED the SNL set

By the time the tour was over, we were starving. The breakfast at the hotel was only continental, so we hadn't had much to eat. We wanted something quick and easy, so we ate at Subway... that was below a subway... heehee... After our bellies were full, we went to the top of the Rockefeller Building, which was called "Top of the Rock!" The view was amazing as you can see by our pictures.

Can you see Central Park below?

Next, we took the subway over to Central Park. The park is beautiful...and huge! We took a bike tour and got to see about a third of it. We even found a geocache! How cool is that?! We found a cache in Central Park!!! Ethan went on a carousel ride and then it was time to get moving again.

Central Park - Maine Monument

John Lennon tribute

Bike Tour (without all the work)

Bethesda Fountain

Ethan whirling around on the carousel

Once again, we were hungry, so we found a pizza joint that was close to the park called "Mariella's"... supposedly this is Oprah and Gayle's favorite pizza. It was rather tasty! Walking back to catch the subway back to our hotel, we walked by a few more famous places (see below).

PIZZA!

Whew!!! We are tired! I apologize if I haven't blogged as much as I intended, but the trip has been a whirlwind of fun! There simply has not been enough time. I'll try and do better :-). I hope you enjoy the pictures.