Kid-Free in New York City: Day 1

Back in late 2021, the whole family took a super quick trip to New York City right before Christmas. I was feeling my post-pandemic oats and I could not wait another minute to finally see Hadestown on Broadway!

In retrospect, I really should have waited another three or four months, because our trip coincided with a COVID surge in New York City and a lot of the stuff that we'd wanted to do got canceled--including Hadestown, sob. 

Over the next couple of years, I often thought about trying to schedule another quick trip to see the show, but I just never did it. And then for Christmas last year, my partner did it for me!

So just a few weeks after dropping our older kid back at college for the semester, my partner and I left our younger kid home alone to chug along with her school and ballet and take care of the pets, and he and I flew to New York City, just the two of us, for a two-day adventure.

Here's me trying to figure out how to get from Newark to our hotel:

But here's what I consider my REAL first thing in New York City:

My egg, cheese, and pastrami breakfast sandwich is on the poppyseediest poppyseed bagel I have ever seen!

Fun fact: my partner ordered bagels from bagel shops twice during our two-day trip. Neither time did he check the bag. BOTH times he got shorted by one bagel!

New York City has some hard lessons to teach...

We stayed at 3 West Club and were quite comfortable there, with nearly everything that we wanted to do within walking distance. There was kind of some weird decor, though, and when I Googled to figure out what on earth... yeah, the place is apparently run by the Women's National Republican Club, oops. Guess that explains all the Teddy Roosevelt paintings and elephant statuary!

Anyway, we were really only there to sleep. The rest of the time, we were out here!

My partner thought the Museum of Illusions looked interesting, so we did that first. 

It WAS very interesting, but maybe not $23 a person interesting... or that may just be my New York City sticker shock in general? 

Regardless, it was fun to see all the cool visual effects and take photos of ourselves looking like one of us is really tiny while the other is really short or like we're hanging from the ceiling or standing at an impossible angle, etc. 

Someone who actually knows how to work their camera phone would have done better, because I was fighting for my life trying to figure out how to take selfie videos or use the self-timer or not have fourteen chins.

I think this illusion is the coolest, but my teenager says she can't see it! Can YOU see the dots undulating in a wave-like motion?

If I ever go back, it will be well-researched and with a shot list in hand!

I'd wanted to do Chelsea Market and the High Line the last time we were in New York City but the weather never seemed right for it. This time, though, the weather was wonderful, AND we were just a few blocks away!

I had to looky-loo at every single food stall and menu board, but all we actually bought to eat were these delicious mini doughnuts:

Then, to the High Line!

While we were on the High Line we saw Little Island and decided that what we ACTUALLY wanted to do was go there.

So we did!

There are some really lovely vistas of Lower Manhattan and the Hudson River from the upper levels, including a tiny Statue of Liberty super far away. 

For most of the afternoon, we just wandered--

--detoured back to Chelsea Market for a proper lunch--

--wandered some more--

--and then got completely lost in Penn Station. Fortunately as we were wandering determinedly in what turned out to be the absolutely wrong direction, I saw two people in Rangers jerseys walking the way we'd just come from. So obviously we let them go by, did an about face, and followed them straight to Madison Square Garden.

How is this for happy coincidences? Before we scanned our tickets, I spent ages in the gift shop mooning over the New York Rangers knit hats. I really wanted this one, but I would have taken any of them, but mostly I didn't want to pay what they were charging for anything so I left empty-handed. 

New. York. City. PRICES!!!

So imagine my hysterical excitement (or do not, because it was A Lot) when we finally scanned our tickets, and just on the other side was a guy handing out free New York Rangers knit hats!

It's itchy as hell and I do not care. I love it!

You know you've got great seats when you take every escalator that exists, then finally emerge into the arena, show the usher your seat number, and he points up and says, "Last row." Lol! Who doesn't love a bird's-eye view!

Somewhere around here in between plays the DJ played "Suffragette City" so I texted my teenager a video--David Bowie is her favorite!

The Rangers weren't playing very aggressively that night--in fact, they spent most of the game just sort of skating leisurely around the rink, handing the puck over to Calgary whenever they got tired of passing it back and forth--but Calgary seemed fine with it enough to let them score twice, so we got to watch the Rangers win in their home arena!

Afterwards, I wasn't up for the bar hopping or clubbing or M&M store shopping or whatever on earth the other billion people out in the streets were doing at 10:30 pm, but happily our walk home led us through Times Square, so we got to sneak in a little more sightseeing:

Then it was back to our Republican stronghold for pizza and Princess Bride on cable.

Tomorrow: HADESTOWN!!!!!!!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

I Left My Heart in Ohio (and Soothed it with Some Sightseeing)

 

This was perhaps the greatest AND worst moment of my life to date.

A few weeks ago, we took a family trip to Ohio to see my elder child off to college.

Obviously, there was an Office marathon running. If you don't encounter an Office marathon on your hotel television, are you even traveling?

The thing is, on the day you drop your kid off, the school keeps you so busy you don't have time to get upset. You're way too focused on trying to find parking, then trying to find the Housing office so your kid can get her student ID, then trying to find her dorm, then trying to move the car and find parking near the dorm, then loading her five Frakta bags and two plastic storage bins back and forth into the dorm, then sending her back to the Housing department because her room card doesn't work while you stay in the dorm and poke around--

--then back to the Housing office because why does she have a single when she signed up for a double, then to the campus bookstore which you, personally, treat like a gift shop (I LOVE my new university-branded sweatsuit!), then to the mailroom to find her mailbox, then to the Scholarship office AND the bursar because the National Merit scholarship money came in late so you had to pay her tuition out of pocket but the check finally arrived so now we want some money please, then to a catered lunch for the new students and their families, then to a series of family workshops about mental wellness, extracurriculars, and the dining plan, then on foot into town so she could sign up for a public library card because you do not trust the university library to provide for her fantasy novel needs, then to a catered dinner, then back to the dorm to finish getting her settled but not too settled because the Housing office promised to get her assigned to a double in the next couple of days and she'll have to move those five Frakta bags and those two plastic storage bins herself so you might as well not even open the 3-inch mattress topper because how on earth will she carry it when it's expanded, and then before you have even caught your breath, your beloved child is hugging you goodbye at the car and running back inside and just like that, your whole life is changed.

Is it possible to sob your heart out while binge-watching an Office marathon? Friends, it ABSOLUTELY is.

Back when we were first planning this trip and I hadn't quite realized that my heart would be completely broken, I'd followed my old habit of not being able to so much as sneeze at a location without also seeing all the tourist sites. So of course I planned out a whole day afterwards of sightseeing before we went home, and then I realized that we'd be driving right through Columbus, Ohio, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who, coincidentally, were playing at home against the North Carolina Hurricanes the very night after leaving my college student at college. 

I like the Blue Jackets well enough to watch them play anyone, but OMG I LOVE the Hurricanes! 

So somehow dropping my kid off at college turned into dropping her off at college, spending another night in town, sightseeing the whole next day, going to a hockey game that night, spending ANOTHER night in Columbus, and then finding a place to eat crepes the next morning before finally driving home.

I went to college about the same distance from home as this kid is from me, and when my grandfather and uncle drove me to college the first time, they helped me move in, gave me a hug goodbye, and left my ass there at the door of my dorm room. They were home by lunch!

To be honest, I maybe should have chosen enough of that route to at least have driven home that night, because all through our sightseeing the next day, I was MISERABLE. Not even hiking around a real-live ancient mound system created by the indigenous peoples of North America could cheer me up!

This is the Great Circle Earthworks, one part of the much larger Newark Earthworks, the rest of which I hope to see on subsequent visits.

This is the Great Circle Gateway. Eagle Mound is off-camera to the right.

Eagle Mound. It is raining, and I am crying.

This ring encircles the site and opens to the east.

Up and over the ring!

Here's a good view of the ditch from the top of the ring.

You can see the three lobes of Eagle Mound with this view.

Back through the gate.

This was the fifth Hopewell-era mound that I've visited in Ohio! Here are the other four:

• Serpent Mound
• Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
• unnamed mound at Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park
• Alligator Mound

After walking around in the rain long enough for me to both have a good cry and see all the parts of the mound system that I wanted to see, we left my kid's little college town. Normally, I'd probably cry even harder at that, but I was stalking her on Life360 so I could see that she, herself, had already left town with her freshman Orientation group. We were actually headed in the same direction!

I mean, sort of. Her group of freshmen headed into Columbus proper, while we stopped at my personal favorite immersive art installation, Otherworld:

My favorite part is still the archaeology finds!

These two beat the snot out of me and Will, because THEY SOLVED THE PUZZLE!

When we left Otherworld, it was only to go to yet another immersive art installation, because I found out that Columbus, Ohio, has a Joann concept store!

It was glorious, even though I only found one of the three things that I was specifically looking for. Syd found that beautiful flowered mesh fabric that I made into a ballet skirt for her, though, and therefore got to experience the digital cutting counter! They also had this fancy--and FREE!!!--coffee maker, and I drank approximately fourteen mochachinos. Syd drank at least double that.

We ate dinner at North Market, of COURSE, and then walked over to my most anticipated event of the year (so far):

I LOVE hockey, but I only ever get to watch it on TV, and I was beside myself with excitement whenever I wasn't beside myself with sadness. 

Watching it live and in person is SO. MUCH. BETTER!!!

I really wanted to see the Carolina Hurricanes play an awesome game--which they did!!!--

--but I also really wanted to see the Blue Jackets score at least a couple of goals so that I could hear the cannon fire--which they did!!!

And I promise that I did not plan this, because even I am not a big enough Smother to do that, but... guess whose freshman Orientation group also had tickets to the hockey game?

Will was kind enough to pop over during the first intermission, but later I found her group in the crowd... ish:

On the other hand, the seats I purchased were good enough to get us on the ESPN broadcast!

My favorite parts of a hockey game are the post-score cuddle pile and the post-game loving on the goalie, and I got to see both:

AND I left with a souvenir commemorative puck!

A few weeks in, my distress over having my kid gone isn't acute like it was the first week or so. It takes a while for a kid to settle into a new experience, and when I could tell that she wasn't having a good time, was a little lost or a little overwhelmed or a little lonely, that ramped my own distress WAY up. But now that she's got herself a routine and knows some friendly faces, has a roommate and a lab partner and a convivial relationship with the town librarians, found the best study spots and which cafeteria has the deli station on which nights, I can just miss her instead of fretting over her.

I wish she'd text me back more often, though...