Central Park and BO

Having the strong desire for an adventure or possibly a change of scenery I decided to take the kids into Central Park.  This was Central Park during the week.  On a day when Scott was at work.  This was an adventure involving one adult and four children.  This was a day that was a hot, a humid, and almost unbearable day in the weather department.  I'm not sure it was an adventure or just really not smart.

We started our drive in Chatham and headed into Hoboken.  No, this was not a day for Carlo's Bake Shop.  This was a day for seeing Central Park.  You can't eat cake every time you pass through Hoboken.  We made it to 1 Hudson in Hoboken without anyone honking at us or without me accidentally cutting anyone off on the crazy freeway.  It was a bit on the Christmas Miracle side of things.

One Hudson is the location of the PATH.  It's the Port Authority between New Jersey and New York.  It's like the subway except different.  It looks like a subway and even smells like a subway but it's not.  It's the PATH.

We took the PATH to 33rd street.  This is as far as it takes you into Manhattan.  Which is fine but I needed to be somewhere around 65th street because we wanted to hit the Central Park Zoo.  Scott suggested I take a cab up to the park.  Really?  A cab when I have two good feet?  Not to mention the ten feet we had in total.  I asked the kids if they wanted to walk to Central Park.  They're smart kids.  They ask me, "How far is it?"  I don't really want to say how far because it's more than 30 blocks away.  At that moment we walked right by a Crumbs Bake Shop.  I suggest we get a cupcake!  This treat softened the 30 plus block conversation.  Everything was going to be fine.  A little sweaty.  But fine.

After the evidence of anything resembling a cupcake was gone we headed straight up, through Manhattan to the Central Park Zoo.  We walked through Times Square.  It was fairly busy and not quite as breathtaking as seeing all the lights at night but we were definitely feeling adventurous.

We took in the sites but we kept walking.  We walked until we started to see evidence that Central Park was close.

We headed into the park and surprisingly we found a hot dog stand selling water.  Water had never tasted so good.  We enjoyed the water on a bench surrounded by the NYPD.

If you've ever been in Central Park you know it's a place that can be confusing and you can easily get lost.  Get lost in the way that you know you're in a park but you have no idea where in the park you are or which way you need to head to your destination.  We found a map and made one more wrong turn but finally found some really cool animals. 

We had made it.  We were dripping with sweat but we had made it to the zoo! 

We loved seeing King Julian and the Penguins of Madagascar. 

Our adventure was not quite over.  I had been wanting to take the kids to Dylan's Candy Bar.  It's just a store that has any type of candy you could possibly want.  This seemed like the perfect moment to make them forget the 34 blocks they had walked and could possibly be walking again momentarily. 

 I would mask the torture by feeding them candy.

 It was supposed to be a simple walk-one block down and four short blocks over. 

Not so simple with BO in the city doing his taping on The View.  Not simple at all.  As we approach Park Avenue, the street we need to cross in order to get to the store, I notice that there aren't any cars going down it.  There are barely any people walking down it either.

 In fact, there are police barricades lining the whole street. 

I think to myself, "This can't possibly be good!  I have four sweaty and tired kids who I've imposed an adventure on.  Surely these nice police officers will see the desperation in my eyes and my need to cross this tiny street." 

Um, no.  They did not take pity on me.  One police officer even attempted to yell at me. 

We decide to just walk Park Avenue because I had a couple of blocks of wiggle room.  But, no, the whole street was blocked off.  I counted us lucky as I looked down every cross road and saw the piles and piles of cars wanting to escape the president's motorcade. 

We had no choice but to watch his entourage of 40 plus vehicles go down Park Avenue.  I will leave my feelings about the President of the United States wanting to be on The View or why he needed to have dinner with the editor of Vogue magazine that same night to myself.   What I can say it that everyone was very enthusiastic to cross the street after he passed by!

 

On with the adventure.  Dylan's was just two blocks away on 3rd Avenue.  Sweet! 

While one of the cuties sat on the floor, the other three kids scooped out the candy of their choice.  This was a great candy store.  A candy aisle at the grocery store will be such a disappoint now.  After taking in the cool air and the smell of all things sweet we headed out the door to beat traffic. 

Oh, wait. 

 The president was driving around the city with forty cars and streets blocked off. 

We had no chance of escaping without the zoo york affect. 

We took Scott's advice about taking a cab.  Outside the candy bar Jenna hailed her first cab.  Very cool.  We had a nice conversation with the cab driver who had no idea why the streets were so crowded.  He laughed out loud when I told him what the president was doing in New York.  

We headed out of the city the same way we had entered it.  After feeling like the day was a bit blurry and really sweaty we got into our car at 1 Hudson and blasted the air conditioning the whole way home.

This may be too much information for you to take in but this is what your feet look like when you have an adventure in Central Park wearing flip-flops. 

I'm just saying that we play for keeps.

Adventuresome feet!

God Bless America

The one thing that really hits me everyday are how many American flags I see.  We arrived here at the end of June.  So I certainly can understand the feeling of patriotism that people wanted to display with Independence Day just around the corner.  But I need to point out that when I visited during  Thanksgiving last year I was hit with the same impression: the people here are very patriotic or at the very minimum have a sense of where they live and show appreciation for it. 

July Fourth was a month ago but I see the same American flags up and down main street in every borough that I drive through.  I like it.  I like it a lot.

Okay, maybe I wouldn't put a hundred in my yard.

I like going old school with the flags too...with an angle even.

Classic

I would put one on a tree if I couldn't find a place for it on the house.

I've seen several homes with posts just for the flag ( I don't know why this is blurry)

The house of money, I mean the New York Stock Exchange, represents very well.

Almost every subway car has a flag on it.

I understand that New York City is one of the top destinations for people all over the world. 

Not ever being on my list of anticipatory destinations, I appreciate the diversity I see and I appreciate the respect I see for what American has to offer people. So, as I drive or walk around this area I can't help but think to myself everyday, "May God Bless America."

A Drive by Shooting

The second part of our Hershey trip was to drive through Lancaster, Pennsylvania and visit the Amish country.  There were many people who, when Scott mentioned us going into Pennsylvania, suggested we make the stop in Amish country because it's worth the drive.  I'm not sure we appreciated it as much as other people did.  Maybe it was the heat, the humidity and the small roads.  I will say that Lancaster and the drive into Lancaster is beautiful.  There are beautiful farms, silos, and acres and acres of corn fields.  It's very peaceful and I can imagine that many farmers enjoy a really good nap when the field work is done for the day.

I think the best time to see the Amish country would be when they put on a festival and they invite people to make butter, build a barn, etc.  From what I've heard they do that festival once a year.   It wasn't going on while we were in town so we just drove around the small town and stopped off at the farmer's market.  I was surprised to see the Amish women working cash registers and calculators.  I refrained from taking any pictures at the farmers market, but some how left my camera at one of the booths.  We recovered the camera and I am grateful the Amish are such honest people. 

After driving around for too long I was left to do some drive by shootings of the Amish.  Not realizing that I was snatching a portion of their soul with every click of my camera, I took several pictures.  I apologize to those sweet people of whom I shot and I in no way intended to make a graven image of them.  I just find their life fascinating.

Pennsylvania is such a beautiful and peaceful state.  I apologize for the drive by shooting I did while visiting.

Willy Wonka in Disguise

Last weekend we felt the need to go to the source of chocolate.  The two and a half hour drive to Hershey, Pennsylvania was painless enough because we were headed toward "Chocolate World."
 How clever of them to call it "Chocolate World." 

Pennsylvania surprised again by it's beautiful farms and very interesting signage.

They frown upon tailgating here.

They also frown upon the president not having a birth certificate.

This picture isn't mine... I was slow on the camera.  But we laughed when we saw this billboard.

As we entered the city of Hershey Scott asked me if I knew where to go.  I said, "Um, we should go to the Hershey factory right?  I think that would be the world of chocolate they are referring too."  I looked at my phone and guided him to the Hershey chocolate factory. 

 It was a factory.  A factory with a parking lot and buildings and a guard inside the building.  I got out of the car and was instantly hit with a Chocolate World smell.  Surely this must be the right place.  The nice guard probably thought I was from California or something and he tried not to laugh when I explained that I was looking for Chocolate World.

Apparently there were so many people converging to see the Hershey factory that they actually built a place called, "Chocolate World."  He very sweetly explained that chocolate needs a sanitary environment when it's being made and having hundreds of thousands of people walking through a factory was unsanitary.  I got back in the car corrected.   A few minutes later we pulled into a very packed parking lot and into air that did not smell like chocolate.

I was impressed that all of the street lights around the town were in the shape of Hersheys' kisses. 

Some with the foil and some already unwrapped.  Really clever.

We took a short tour of how the chocolate is made. The tour is a ride with singing cows and replicas of the machines that make the chocolate. It's a cool tour because the line moves quickly. It's informative and you get a small appreciation of how chocolate is made. They also give you a little treat of chocolate when the ride is over. Sweet!

We decided that the kids would like to make their own candy bar so we headed to the innovation room (or something like that).  It's a forty-five minute chocolate bar making experience.  We were dressed in a food service hat and apron.  We seemed very official.  This is the part that we had to wait in line for a bit and it was really Willy Wonka-ish seeing everyone dressed in white food service garb.

The way you make your own candy bar is very cool.  You pick the type of chocolate you want, the fillings you want inside, and you even make  your own label for your 9 ounce bar of chocolate-y goodness.

Below is the process of how the magic happens.

Did I mention the bath of chocolate? 

When all is said and done, these nice people find the right box and put your candy bar into your personalized box.

Chocolate World was very chocolate-y and worth the drive.  We all liked being Willy Wonka for a day. 

Well, at least for forty-five minutes!