Day 2: What else can you do in a day?

After a late-night we slept in a little and had our second Jamba Juice in 8 hours for breakfast. Yes, knowing what we had for a late night snack and breakfast is important. We headed to Columbus Circle via the subway and emerged to all the fanfare that surrounds Earth-Day. How fitting, we visit Central Park New York on earth-day. Also being memorialized but less popular is the day Armenians remember the genocide by the Turks. We saw a ceremony for that in Times Square on our way to the park. Also across from the genocide commemoration was the infamous Naked Cowboy serenading all comers. Only in New York I can presume.

We emerged from the earth out into Columbus Circle only to be welcomed by HSBC employees trying to give away compact florescent lightbulbs. I didn’t want one because I didn’t want to break it hauling it around for 3000+ miles. But I watched the people beside me refuse as well, and they were locals I am sure of it, no cameras, maps, books or strollers with two kids in tow. You would think that in the epicenter of all things liberal, people would be carting off these compact fluorescents by the wheelbarrow so the Earth could be saved. It wasn’t happening, I watched for a few minutes and the only conclusion I came up with is if you want to hand stuff out in New York you need to put it in a bag and leave it on the corner. Or perhaps could it be that savvy urbane people never take something for free because nothing for free is worth having. So in this vein we preceded across the south side of central park to the east side. To what is some of the most expensive real estate in the world. 5^th Ave. Home of Tiffany’s Cartier and even Apple. Who would have thought even 10 years ago a computer store could ever grace a place like this, somehow they have pulled it off.

Our first stop was of course Tiffany’s Ashlee had to go, plus she was not as impressed by central park as she thought she would be. The trees weren’t full of leaves and the grass had not yet quite recovered from the ravages of winter. To her it was not as pristine and lush as the flagship park of Salt Lake City, Sugar House Park. In my opinion we just came too early in the year to give it a fair shake. But honestly I don’t think we could have had better weather. Low 70’s maybe high 60’s and lots of sunshine. Perfect for walking, and we did a lot of that on this day. From Tiffanys back across to 7^th avenue to the famous Carnegie Deli.

We had the most insane sandwich I have ever seen. It’s on the menu and it’s called the Woody Allen. Half Pastrami Half Corned Beef, and all heaven! It even came with two slices of Rye bread, but I’m not sure what they were for. Ashlee was amazed by the quality of the meat but she could not believe the cheesecake. It was truly decadent, Lance was thrilled by the platter of pickles they gave him and we were stuffed within 20 minutes of arriving. On our way out we were stopped maybe 5 or 6 times by restaurant patrons and staff all admiring Renee, people in Manhattan seem to adore babies.

So about a block away from the deli we had our first problem of the trip. A total blow out, and I don’t mean a tire. As I mentioned before we had Jamba Juice two times in 8 hours. There are consequences to theses kinds of decisions. Unfortunately, Lance paid dearly for those decisions. It was a total mess, I will spare you the details, but I will mention that the stroller did have to be dismantled down to its raw frame.

We had to walk all the way back to the hotel, and we made a full recovery. We set back out and caught the last Gray Line bus making the Downtown Loop. I am so glad we did. The guide for this trip was awesome, we learned so much from him and he was also entertaining, especially while he was showing off his French vocabulary so some of the other Eruopean tourists on the bus. He showed us the good and the bad and really conveyed his love of the city he calls home. We were in love with New York by the end of the Route. So much so that we stayed on the same bus and took the night time tour and saw the city at night. We got a little cold but were in good spirits. After 5 or so hours on a bus we were ready to get off and have dinner. We found a late night restaurant that was probably Ashlee’s favorite for the trip. A little French bistro that had a lot of atmosphere and great food. We walked back to the hotel for our last nights stay in the Big Apple and crashed… hard.