One part travel blog. One part nerdy history lesson.

Author: Erin McKinney (Page 3 of 26)

Mother. Wife. Travel Addict. Never met a gadget she didn't immediately need to buy.

Day 3 – Christmas Day

Merry Christmas, everyone!

We had a pretty chill morning, making coffee and opening presents in the hotel room. Our first event was the Christmas Brunch at the Roosevelt Hotel where we are staying. On our way down we stopped in the lobby for photos since it was much less busy this morning that it had been on Christmas Eve at 11pm. Ha

We were seated in a ballroom with a great Jazz band playing Christmas songs along the side and TONS of brunch stations and selections on a buffet. Some highlights- a crab imperial Benedict station, a raw bar with shrimp, oysters, mussels and ceviche shooters, meat carving stations with sirloin, turkey, ham, etc, waffles, hot breakfast items, salads, a cheese station and desserts. I wish I had 4 stomachs because I would have eaten everything, it was all great.

After brunch we hung out in the room again to digest the large amount of brunch we just ate and the 3 mimosas I had with it ha. Then we headed across the city to the convention center where we had timed entry tickets to the NOLA ChristmasFest. It was a bit of a trek for us… but we knew we only had to walk it once because we would be taking a Uber to dinner later and then back to the hotel.

A sculpture dedicated to Hurricane Katrina across from the convention center

The ChristmasFest setup was really cool. Very open, spread out, various carnival rides, vendors, some food and drink and some ice skating!

Norah chose to make a wax hand art sculpture to take home over getting her face painted.
Ice Bocce was definitely the highlight of the day. Norah asked to play this about 6 times.
A collective coloring wall. We of course had to add our name.
Posing for photos on the Elf Walk at the #elfie station
Norah even got the staff to take photos of her lol
They had a Dumbo ride “just like at Disney World!” According to Norah lol
Norah decided she wanted to ride the spinning cups around by herself, so we stepped aside and let her go on by herself. Then two other little girls climbed in her car with her haha they had a good time together

After ChristmasFest, it was time to head to the dinner I think I was most looking forward to on the trip- Shaya out in the Garden District. We had watched an episode on New Orleans of Somebody Feed Phil and he was hanging out with Chef Shaya and he was discussing the love and care that he put into the pita bread at his restaurant and the hummus process- and man, have we both craved that pita bread ever since….so it is with great pleasure I can say- it 100% lived up to the hype and surpassed our expectations.

Norah was excited for the non-alcoholic drink list- she chose Matcha Lemonade
We shared a bottle of Barbera wine
The fried chicken hummus. We were only going to order the Tahini hummus and the waiter suggested this instead as it’s their favorite dish. So glad we listened.
The bread. Omg. The bread. It came to the table straight from the bread oven. Puffy and fantastic and they brought us 9 total pieces ha we took the last 3 home for breakfast the next morning.
Ikfa- a whipped cream cheese dip that was fabulous with dill and shallot.
Mixed pickles
A mint and beet dip that was very fresh.
The braised lamb shank with a tabouleh salad
Kegan totally annoyed that I make him wait to eat everything while I photograph it first haha
Norah with her requested chicken meal with pistachio rice and whipped feta.

After dinner, it was back in an Uber across the Garden District back downtown to the hotel. It was a very pretty drive along gorgeous houses. Not 100% certain we didn’t hear gunshots at one point at a stoplight. We’ll just say they were fireworks… Christmas fireworks…Ha

Day 2 – Teddy Bear Tea, Aquarium and downtown

Today started by getting ready and putting on our Christmas Eve best to head down 1/2 a floor to the Teddy Bear Tea. The Roosevelt Hotel has been hosting this event for 30 years with appearances by Santa and Mrs. Claus, Rudolph and others. It was a super cute kid show… and the food was pretty good, as well as the waiter who kept our mimosas filled at all times. And I needed those mimosas. My only complaint was that they literally sat us at a table where the speaker for the whole ballroom was blasting 3 feet from my chair. It was terrible. I took one for the team and sat in the “direct” line of fire…and I couldn’t hardly hear anything Kegan said the entire time because they were blasting out a Christmas songs most of the event. It definitely felt like the worst seat in the house and if I booked it again, I’d be one of those people requesting a specific table- AWAY from the speaker. Ha

Photo evidence of my arch nemesis, the Christmas speaker as seen from my chair. My god. Lol
They brought Norah the children’s plate, of course. She wasn’t thrilled because she had already picked out the crustless quiche as her choice (because we thought you had to order from the menu, not that they were bringing everything ha. BUT… she discovered an Uncrustable PB&J on her plate…and instantly, things were looking up 🙂 I gave her my mini quiche anyway. ha
Towards the end the hotel manager and some other folks brought around big silver trays heaping with teddy bears and handed them out to the kids. It was cute.
They had projected snow globes all around the room for photo ops

After tea and changing back into more comfortable walking shoes, we headed out the back entrance and towards Canal Street to start walking towards the water and the aquarium, which was our big destination for the day. Its hard to find things open on Christmas Eve obviously…so I was excited I found a couple things to squeeze in!

This church is right outside our hotel room window. Very cool architecture.
This Walgreens we passed has to be the most vintage Walgreens sign in the world. I LOVED it.
First glimpse of a New Orleans streetcar. This one running up and down Canal Street.

Canal Street is a major roadway downtown, named for a canal that was never dug. It has a big median in the middle- widely accepted as the widest street in America – that used to be known as “no man’s land”. It served as the dividing line between the French-speaking (and Spanish Speaking) city and the English speaking city.

We stopped by Spanish Plaza, a big open area on the waterfront, next to the aquarium, the Harrah’s giant casino and other riverfront high end shoppes. It was constructed in the 1970s as a reminder of Spanish heritage and has a plaque for each province of Spain.
The Creole Queen steamboat was docked right there. It’s made to look and run like an old paddlewheel steamboat, but it just got its start in the 1980s as a tourist boat for dinners and sightseeing.

The Aquarium of the Americas was way bigger than I figured it would be… they had great exhibits, crystal clear tanks, exotic birds, an albino alligator…. it was fun!

The highlight of the day, for sure… for both Norah and I…petting stingrays! We sat there for a good 20-30 minutes petting the majestic sea flap-flaps.
These guys looked like a real-life Flotsam and Jetsam plotting against Ariel from the Little Mermaid ha
Red Tail Hawk
A Great Barred Owl
We left the aquarium to begin wandering around town…stumbled on this statue… and from far away, I’m like “that looks like Churchill… let’s go see who that is…” sure enough- a random Winston Churchill statue. It was apparently donated in the 1970s by the Hilton hotel developers for the “British Square” – the developer was the honorary British consul for Louisiana at the time.
We continued on to the Piazza D’Italia- a modern space created in the 1970s to honor Italian American contributions to the city… it had the same black and white alternating granite we saw on cathedrals in Italy… and hence, gave it a very Italian feel with the brick pavers and the columns on the edge and the fountains.

Next, we weren’t going to make it to dinner because apparently we didn’t have enough food with our mimosas for breakfast ha. We found a place on the map called St James Cheese Company that had cheese plates…and grilled cheeses (Norah’s choice) so we headed there to hang out for an hour or so

Everything was fantastic. Great meats, cheese, everything meshed really well. The Stilton Blue was the best I’d ever tasted. The fresh sheep cheese was great. The Raclette was funky… no complaints all around. Kegan wanted the Jamon Iberico, hoping it would bring back Spain vibes… he said it was good, but just wasn’t the same stuff he was getting there. The search continues 🙂

We continued wandering around quite a few blocks trying to waste time until our Escape My Room Jazz Parlor reservations at 4:30.

Statue of Henry Clay in Lafayette Square
Ben Franklin in Lafayette Square
Norah being an art deco bird.
St Patrick’s Cathedral
Some famous metal porch architecture that is famous in the French Quarter… but is actually a Spanish style. ha Very New Orleans either way.

We arrived to our Escape Game a little early. I had read that this was the #1 escape game in the city…and it did not disappoint.

We entered into the lobby and the game immediately started. An old timey intercom asked us our business and then “the great detective, Erin McKinney?? We’ve been awaiting your arrival. Please come in” and the small door popped open where Laszlo, our lead security detective for the prestigious Delaporte family told us about the travesty they were currently investigating. The matriarch’s daughter was on the run for the murder of her husband, which Laszlo KNEW she wasn’t capable of committing. We had been called in to assist in uncovering the real murderer. But not only the WHO… but also the WHY and the HOW. Finding the WHO was the most important… but if time allowed, finding the motive and how they killed him were bonus adventures.

Not to give away any details, because it really was a FANTASTIC Escape room… we were able to get all 3 items with 4 minutes to go. When we found our way out of the first room, the guide actually said “thats the quickest I’ve ever seen anyone find their way out of there” over the speaker and then again on the 2nd room “thats the quickest I’ve ever seen anyone put that together.” haha and…. as usual, he was absolutely floored with Norah. She figured out a lot of the clues. He was so shocked by her, he bought her a T-Shirt at the end as a souvenir. We will go back on Dec 26th for another room in the house- the Mardi Gras Study.

Next it was time to meander our way down to dinner, even though we were 30 minutes early. We had reservations at Luke- an old-timey flair’d fancy culinary spot on St Charles Street. I reserved this for the raw bar… I wanted some great oysters and it did not disappoint.

I ate 11 of these, only because Norah agreed to try one. She was not a fan. haha and Kegan doesn’t like them… so I got the entire plate! it was glorious. These were local gulf oysters- so for being from warm water-they were massive and fantastic.

They had a limited menu for Christmas Eve- but New Orleans has a tradition of Reveillon, a French based tradition of a long Christmas Eve meal that stretches into the morning. A lot of local restaurants have a Reveillon meal available for a few weeks at the end of the year. Since this was the ACTUAL Christmas Eve Reveillon date- it seemed fitting to order the Reveillon meal.

I forgot to photo the dessert. Imagine that. ha

We walked back to the hotel and settled in for the night in our Christmas pajamas. Norah talked us into opening half of her gifts tonight and the other half in the morning. We agreed.

One of her top requests this Christmas was a game called What Do You Meme? and so I put that in her “early” pile, knowing full well we’d be playing it for the rest of the night… and we did. ha

We added a couple Christmas touches to the room.

We waited around until around 11pm so we could go down to the lobby can get some cute Christmas pajama photos of Norah before bed. The elevator opened to an absolute madhouse of people drinking in the lobby just packed in elbow to elbow and loud as can be. Norah saw the people, the noise…and just immediately hit the button back to our floor. LOL It was a big ole’ NOPE. hahaha

Seriously… what the heck were so many people doing downtown at a hotel at midnight on Christmas eve??? ha

So, we had to abandon hopes and dreams of cute backlit pajama pictures and just call it a night. 🙂 We’ll try again in the morning.

Tomorrow (Christmas) is Christmas Brunch and a ChristmasFest at the convention center followed by another dinner at a middle-eastern restaurant called Shaya that is open Christmas.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Day 1- New Orleans – Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler!

As they say in New Orleans, “laissez les bon temps rouler” or “let the good times roll!”

We are off to the Bayou state this week for a week of exploring and Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

We have a lot packed in, per the usual…and basically eating our way through New Orleans with reservations made at some great restaurants most nights.

We start out with 3 days of Christmas explosion with lights, festivals, teddy bear tea, Christmas brunch and a Christmas fest at the convention center so hopefully Norah still feels like she’s making some great Christmas memories. The kid is also currently obsessed with Escape Rooms, so I booked like 4 different rooms for her this trip. She’ll be pumped…we’re going to be exhausted. Ha.

We drove down straight from Indiana to Picayune, Mississippi yesterday to be ready to start our first full day of sights today. About a 10.5 hour drive that took us 12 due to some traffic but overall not bad.

Nothing to note from the drive other than we picked out this amazing looking Cajun seafood crab boil food truck in Hattiesburg only to find out when we went to order that they changed their hours for December to be closed on Wednesdays. Booo. We’re going to try to hit it New Year’s day on our way home but they may be closed then too…

So, we got some okay Greek food and went to our hotel for the evening and were asleep before 10pm! Early for us.

Today, we started our day at the southern gem known as Waffle House. Norah had always had a strange affinity for Waffle House…ever since she was little, you’d think we’re taking her to Disney World. It’s hilarious.

She actually got a waffle this trip, with chocolate chips. She said it was good, but she only ate two bites. Who knows… ha

After breakfast we headed towards the INFINITY Science Center which is part of the NASA Stennis Space Center, NASA’s rocket testing launch center. They were scheduled to launch a rocket with the beginnings of the space telescope today, but it got delayed until at least Dec 25th… we tried to drive towards the launchpad to catch a glimpse… but we had to turn around due to gates and multiple signs telling us we needed to turn around 🙂 so…back to the visitor center for us. ha

They opened at 9 and we arrived a few minutes prior to that and hung out. We were the only guests in the whole museum for a while, so that was cool. It was a smaller, but neat, science exhibit geared towards kids- with random science based exhibits- hurricanes, flooding, carnivorous plants, small animal exhibits, a wave simulator, and the entire second floor was space related items.

Neil Armstrong’s training suit, Fred Haise’s (who is a local from Biloxi) suit, the Apollo 4 Command module- the first Apollo command module shot into space and returned to Earth. It was unmanned, but this tested the heat shielding and made sure the module would hold humans for re-entry. It paved the way for Apollo 7- the first manned Apollo command module flight to space.

Outside they had a Lunar Module and a F-1 Engine or “stage 1” burners from a Saturn V rocket- the Wernher von Braun (ex-Nazi) designed rockets that were the largest and heaviest, largest payload rockets we ever launched. Apollo 18 and Apollo 19 were scrapped because of the Vietnam War and costs… so we think this was a part of one of those unlaunched rockets.

We grabbed a couple of souvenirs from the gift shop, the coolest being a mission patch from Apollo 13- the mission Fred Haise was on, we thought that was fitting since he was the local star astronaut.

After leaving the science center, we crossed over the water into Louisiana.

Stopping by the Fort Pike historic site, but its closed to the public… we could see it from the highway, we couldn’t get any photos. It was part of the post- War of 1812 fortifications James Monroe ordered to better protect the Gulf coast, ports and Mississippi. Apparently its been closed since 2015 due to budget constraints in the state park system.

Next was a quick drive-by of something called the Fisherman’s Castle on the Irish Bayou. I have no idea what this is…but its pretty funny to see a tiny castle as a fishing house on the water. It apparently was built in 1981 for the World’s Fair and has withstood all the hurricanes since.

Our lunch destination was a place called Dong Phuong Restaurant and Bakery.

New Orleans has a huge Vietnamese population… and therefore tons of great Vietnamese options. We had spring rolls, egg rolls, Kegan had the traditional Pho, but I got adventurous and tried something that was a spicy fishcake and pork soup with udon type noodles. It was fantastic. The Pho was very very good… but honestly, I don’t think anything can top the richness and flavor of PhoShiki in Columbus, IN. It is legit the best Pho broth in the world. I’m convinced.

We popped into the bakery portion after eating to grab some breakfast items and just to see what they had, really.. they had tons of items, like King Cake- a mardi gras traditional cake- along with meat pies, crawfish pies, lots of refrigerated cream rolls and other cakes and buns… but since we had to leave everything in the car for a few more hours and didn’t know if our super fancy hotel would have a fridge… we just went with some shelf stable items.

We next drove by the old city airport- its currently the business airport. Very cool Art Deco building.

We drove on in towards New Orleans through Gentilly and to the Metairie area.

We stopped along the edge of Lake Pontchartrain along a seawalk area and Norah just HAD to take her shoes off and get into the water. Such as water baby. We told her to be careful becuase if either of us had to jump in that brown water to get her, no one was going to be having fun. ha

Across the street was the Mardi Gras fountain- a fountain dedicated to all the Krewes of the Mardi Gras Festival. Krewes are basically clubs that have formed in the city over the years, that perform philanthropy and community service throughout the year, but also build parade floats and toss trinkets and giveaways to parade watchers from them. The Krewe of Rex started it all back in 1872, just after the Civil War, a group of businessman got together and formed a group ahead of a visit from a Russian Grand Duke as a way to organize events and entertainment. The Mardi Gras colors we now know as purple, green and yellow are the Rex krewe colors. The gold “doubloon” coins tossed to the crowds originated with this krewe, too.

There are tons of formal krewes these days, most dating from the 1920s or 1940s… its pretty cool. Some krewes select a monarch or lead each year, like Rex crowns a “King Rex” from its members, a way to recognize a member that has been especially involved or giving over the last year. Some krewes crown celebrities as their lead for the parade and its usually a surprise not revealed until Mardi Gras day. The Krewe of Bacchus crowns a celebrity every year. Past kings included Drew Brees, Hulk Hogan, Andy Garcia, Will Ferrell.

After getting back in the water again for “nostalgia later in life” as Norah put it, we headed into Metairie area- the suburban soccer mom shopping mall capital two days before christmas- likely the last and biggest traffic jam day of the year. and boy was it busy. I didnt account for all the Mercedes and Porsches out shopping when I planned my itinerary.

But, we made it to Vivi bubble tea to kill some time before our reservation at Club Carré Metairie for an escape room. Super cute place with tons of drink options. Kegan got the standard thai milk tea with black boba (or chewy tapioca pearls)- Norah got a strawberry fruit tea – her go to- with Yogurt popping boba… something we had never seen before and she was adventurous enough to try it out. I got a Kumquat Lemon Jelly Tea which at the half sweetness I ordered was really sour but really good.

We still had an hour until our escape room reservations, so I decided to squeeze in a drive by of the Metairie cemetery. New Orleans is famous for its above ground crypts instead of underground burials. Obviously because the water table is so high. They used to try to add stones inside the coffins or on top to try to weigh it down. That didn’t work. They tried drilling holes in the coffins to keep them underground in a flood, but that didn’t either. So, eventually they followed the Spanish tradition of using the above ground vaults. Something I didn’t realize until reading about this, the vaults are sometimes for whole families, not just individuals. They have a rule that if the person has been dead for over two years and another family member dies, the first family member coffin can be removed and the bones placed in a bag at the rear of the vault. Then, the newly deceased person put into a coffin in the space. If it’s within two years, the cemeteries usually have a holding vault they can be kept in until the time has passed to “swap” the bodies. What a strange custom! Very interesting.

We sat in heavy traffic again back to the escape room spot, but made it in time. I know its not normal traffic levels because that was the first question we got when we got inside was “how did you do in all that christmas shopping traffic today?” ha

Our Escape room today was The Naughty List at a place called Clue Carré in Metairie (pronounced MET-a-ree all run together like we do in Indiana or Kentucky.) It was a Christmas themed escape room where you have 60 minutes to try to break into Santa’s office and erase your names off of the naughty list before Santa returns. It was very cute… and Norah had a blast. She even solved some of the riddles and opened some locks. The girl that was watching over us said “oh my god. she’s so smart! I couldn’t believe the things she was getting in there!” Yep. Same girl. Same. ha

We did escape- with 20 whole minutes to spare! Safe to say we rocked that one and we are no longer on Santa’s naughty list (so we thought!- more on THAT later…).

After that, we headed downtown to check into our hotel. Also, a total zoo. Apparently when you book a hotel for its well known Christmas deocrated lobby and its christmas themed events, everyone else in New Orleans is gathered for those same events 🙂 We spent a bit in traffic and then a while winding our way up the parking garage across the street before heading into the madhouse of a hotel lobby. My digital key still hadn’t arrived on my phone, so I had to find the front desk and speak to them. They told me it was because I had only booked checking in Dec 24th! Queue the panic. lol

However, I was able to show my confirmation email, my print outs, my apps, etc- all showing Dec 23rd. Whew, I didn’t screw it up! ha It took a while and a manager and all that, but they did get us in for the evening and all is well.

The room isn’t really anything too fancy but it’s nice enough and it does have a hot water kettle, a Nespresso machine and some nice toiletry items…but overall first impression- not worth the cost. But #memories and all that 🙂

All of that took up our dinner time though prior to our drive through light show and festival I had timed entry for, so we made a last minute switch from a sit down place near the lights event, to carry out fried seafood baskets from the Fiery Crab right next to our hotel. No photos available because we ate and drove in the dark to our event, but Kegan got a shrimp po’boy sandwich, I got fried oysters and cajun fries- oysters were really pretty good! and Norah went conservative with chicken tenders and fries. ha

The drive through lights were an event called Celebration at the Oaks, which is all through City Park which has been blocked off. They had a lot of fun NOLA themed light displays that we laughed at and enjoyed.

The traffic line to enter the lights. Took us about 40 minutes to get in

The best was as we neared the end, we saw the real Santa Claus waving to kids as we passed… but then it showed his list on a big monitor… Norah was on the good list, but Kegan and I were still on the naughty list! How rude!

Norah was hilarious.. “but…how did he know our names..” and Kegan would just say “Christmas Magic” and then she’d wait a second…”but really.. how did our names get up there??” It was killing her that she couldn’t put it together haha Eventually we had to tell her that when we bought tickets, they asked our names and then when we arrived they scanned our QR code and then stuck an RFID card in our dash and then when we got near Santa, it was read off the reader hanging down out of a tree we drove under. Then she felt better… but Kegan was disappointed she wasn’t just happy with “christmas magic” ha

After the lights, there was an option to add on the Carousel Gardens festival. It was more like an old timey amusement park with some rides and tons of lights along really cute brick paths. They had free hot chocolate stands and cute Christmas music streaming everywhere.

The highlight though was that as we’re waiting in line for a photo of Norah on a giant Christmas alligator, Kegan looks over and says “hey that guy just proposed to that girl”.. he saw him get down on one knee. I was totally oblivious and would have never noticed any of it… I thought, oh, how cool! but then was like, Oh man! I should take a few pictures for them! I hustled over and tried to capture as much as I could since he was already up off one knee… then tried to hang around long enough to not totally interrupt their moment to be able to get their number to text them the photos if they wanted them. Well, now we’re Facebook friends and I get to see how their love story plays out 🙂 She was a sweetie and was totally shocked a stranger would capture that moment for them. ha I text Scotty Perry- the awesome photographer friend of mine and asked him if he could do some fast editing to try to make my crappy iPhone photos look a little more magical… he of course hopped right on it and sent me back brighter better versions than the photos I took to share with them. People are great sometimes.

Norah rode rides. She loved the Wacky House- just a little kid funhouse with a slide at the end, but she also rode the carousel, the bumper cars… and even got out of her comfort zone and rode the swings! I was impressed. Then asked to ride them again because she loved them. The swings were always one of my favorite rides as a kid too.

We drove back downtown to the Roosevelt hotel and this time decided to just valet the car until the 26th. ha the extra $10/day was worth not fighting with the parking garage again. ha

Tomorrow we have the Teddy Bear Tea in the morning, we visit the Aquarium, have another escape room booked and dinner at a nice downtown restaurant called Luke’s. We may ride the St Charles street car to see the houses and lights all along that famous street…or we’ll come back to the hotel and watch a Christmas movie to finish out our Christmas Eve….. we’ll see how we feel!

Day 7 and 8 – Upstate, Brooklyn and Wrap Up

Day 7

For Friday, we headed out of the hotel, hit Angelina’s Bakery again for a quick bite before heading to Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station.

We booked an Amtrak train north out to the city to Poughkeepsie, NY with absolutely no idea how any of this works. ha

They don’t assign seats, so you get to play this fun little game where you wait in the main hall until they assign a track and display it 15 minutes before departure. Then everyone rushes to that track to get a good seat.

We didn’t know this. ha So, we were in the back of the line, so by the time we got routed onto a car, there were of course no seats together. And, being New York, even when I said “sorry, Norah… I guess you’ll have to sit by yourself here” loud enough to be sure multiple people heard me, no one offered to move. ha

Oh well. Lessons learned. Finally after we all sat in different rows some woman offered to move so Norah could sit with Kegan, so that was nice. But it really wasn’t a big deal either way. She’s old enough now.

The train was basically like a nice airplane with all first class seats. Each set of two seats had its own power outlets and plenty of legroom and wide enough seats for real people. There was only “coach” seats available for the ride north so this is a Coach car. I booked Business Class on the way home, and it was pretty much the same, a bit more legroom between the seats (but there was plenty in coach too) and then the seats had a flip down footrest. Also, the business class car is the caboose, so you don’t have people moving through trying to get to the cafe car. Also- the cafe car was sort of cool- I didn’t get a photo, but it was like a bar/food stand that took up a full car with some booths for eating.

We arrived at Poughkeepsie without issue. Took about an hour and a half.

I have ZERO pictures from the entire day. ZERO. I was on an inside seat with a wall between two windows for my Amtrak ride up. So even though I could stretch up my neck and see the gorgeous Hudson River Valley and changing leaves, I couldn’t photograph it. Norah and Kegan had a window… but of course when I asked Kegan if he got any photos. No. ha

I had signed up for ZipCar online and reserved a car at the station, but when we walked out of the station, I learned they changed my pickup location to across town. Still not sure why because I reserved a CRV and the CRV was parked in the Zipcar spot but didn’t show on the available cars or that it even existed. … SO… we had to get an Uber to our car. But, it only took 15-20 minutes and we were on our way.

ZipCar is a car share app. You sign up to use a car and you walk up to it, unlock it with your phone. There is a fuel card to use to fill it up if it needs it, there is a EZ-Pass for tolls, and you can drive up to 150 miles with no additional charges. It would be convenient if you lived around New York… but otherwise, I’m not sure how useful it would be since it was a little pricey ($150 for an 8 hour rental) but around here, to not have to park a car, maintain a car, etc if you only need one every 2-3 weeks or so…. its a cool model. The car we got was pretty dirty, the steering wheel was sticky, it wasn’t maintained the best, the brakes squealed…so it wasn’t a glamorous experience, but it got the job done.

Because I drove as well, of course there were no photos of any towns or anything we saw.

We were supposed to drive straight to Woodstock to meet a friend for lunch, but she wasn’t feeling great, so she decided it was better to stay home.

So… we just meandered around to various small little towns north and south of Poughkeepsie checking out the area- Kegan and Norah have never been to anything “New England” so it was literally just driving into towns, seeing their downtown, driving around the Hudson River, etc.

We drove by the Vanderbuilt Mansion, Franklin D Roosevelt’s home and a bridge named after him. We really liked Wappinger Falls, Fishkill, Newburgh area.

We ate dinner at an excellent Mexican restaurant. I’d go back just for that. I asked what we wanted for dinner, Kegan starts googling, says “looks like there’s Mexican right up here”. Immediately Norah is like YES! 100%. Mexican. ha We laughed…okay this kid apparently needs some Mexican food in her life.

The child ordered chicken nuggets and fries when we got there. Who’s child is this? Someone come get her. ha

Right behind the restaurant on a high hillside was this awesome sprawling mid-century modern house… and both were right across from a giant Home Depot. So, we decided we were all set to move here and live. ha Huge mid-mod house, walkable to margaritas, train to the city, with a Home Depot across the street?? Sign. Me. Up.

We caught our train back to the city around 8pm.

Kegan captured a photo of Norah and I twinning at the train station. Apparently, I dressed my kid just like me today. Black quilted shoes, jeans, green shirts, ponytails. What can I say, I guess I know what I like. ha
The train hall at night was very pretty with the LED lights
Taking one last photo in front of Madison Square Gardens, all lit up in New York Knicks colors. I’m sure they had a game tonight. The blue and orange colors of The Knicks are a throwback to the Dutch flag, for the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. And the name is short for Knickerbockers- which stuck as a New York history when Washington Irving wrote a satirical History of New York under a pseudonym Deidrich Knickerbocker in 1809.
One last capture of the Empire State Building down the street as we walked north. Technically, it wasn’t the last sighting since we could see it from our hotel room.

Day 8

Our last day exploring New York! We decided to explore Brooklyn a bit today. We took the subway south from Times Square down through the Wall Street area and under the river popping up in Brooklyn.

We walked a few blocks into DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) which used to be abandoned warehouses and shipping docks but now has been revitalized and is a very pricy and trendy area with a great view of Manhattan and a coffee roaster on every corner.

I had pre-ordered breakfast at Butler because their menu looked good and I figured in this area on a Saturday morning, it would be packed. It was busy…but not as busy as I expected.

They had mini sausage rolls, and we thought maybe they would be like the sausage rolls in Ireland! Nope. Ha but still decent except mine had a raw pink spot of pork in it
This smoked bacon, runny egg, truffle aioli on brioche sounded amazing- but it was bland and the bun just tasted like a mushy cheap hamburger bun. I wasn’t impressed lol

Walked back a bit to get the iconic Manhattan bridge photo of Norah.

Found our way up onto the pedestrian walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge
Norah wanted to take a perspective photo where she was holding Kegan in her hand. He was annoyed but complied lol

Walking around the neighborhoods, Brooklyn had a much more chill vibe than other boroughs. It’s so interesting how every part of New York can feel so different… and we didn’t even make it to The Bronx or Long Island or Staten Island this trip.

We made our way to Clark Street and entered the subway there to ride down a few stops to the Brooklyn Museum and Prospect Park

We didn’t have advance tickets here because today was just a play-it-by-ear day. There was a pretty big line so I wasn’t sure we would get in- but we did.

The lobby had these massive 18 ft tall wooden statues by Brooklyn-based artist KAWS. He likes making large statues that had riffs off of consumer goods. There was another of his statues in front of 30 Rock although I didn’t know what it was at the time.

A lot of the art was a little “artsy” for me. I would look at it, try to understand it, then when I didn’t I’d go read the plaque on the wall to explain to me what the intention of the piece was. I love that art exists and that people have the artistic talent to see the world in a new and different way. I’m just a more tactile and objective person usually.

This exhibit was in the Feminist Art wing, and showed a place setting for any groundbreaking female throughout history or female goddesses in various cultures.
There was a replica of the Statue of Liberty behind the museum that used to sit atop Liberty Warehouse in Manhattan until 2003.
Norah discovered Strawberry Perrier and wanted to take the can home as a souvenir because she thought you couldn’t get it there. Hahaha so if anyone sees this around Indiana, please let me know where. Ha

After the museum, we grabbed an Uber up to the Williamsburg neighborhood because I had been talking with an old high school classmate that lives in New York to see if she wanted to meet up for dinner some evening. We decided Saturday worked best for both of us… and Williamsburg was an easy spot between us to meet.

She walked the 4 miles down from her apartment (right??) to meet us at a vendor market called Smorgasbord that had about 50-60 vendors set up selling food and drinks.

It was very crowded, but like with everything in New York, it went smoother than it usually does at home when things are crowded because people know how to act and how to queue. You just weave your way through, people let you pass through the line and you go about your business. Same with driving, it’s a mess of traffic and honking and pedestrians but there are far fewer wrecks than you’d see elsewhere with this level of chaos.

We waited for a table to open up and we snagged it and sat and chatted for over an hour catching up on life.
We got a lobster roll from Oyster Party
More dumplings from Mao Bao- but they were OK at best.
Norah got a Nutella S’mores sundae from Bona Bona
After we ate and talked, we all grabbed a drink from this stand (I didn’t grab the name)
The New York skyline from the pier in Brooklyn. It was such a nice day with the breeze picking up as it was getting ready to rain for the evening.

We said goodbye to our friend and headed away from the water towards the subway. Found a famous New York resident on the tracks while we waited 🙂

This was the highlight of the day. Lol Norah, not paying attention, smacked right into a subway steel beam. I tried to catch her but she didn’t hear me. Ha here she is pictured with tear streaming face and her sweaty face imprint she left on the beam. I made her take a photo as a way to get her laughing and also-because I’m a bit of a jerk.

We were back to midtown and back to our hotel by 4:30pm feeling like I was wasting my last night in Manhattan but it was rainy and expected to continue all evening until midnight. So, we watched Hocus Pocus, packed up our suitcases and grabbed – you guessed it- more Asian food for our “last meal”. It really was my “last meal” of sorts. I have been binging on everything I see all week and tomorrow it’s back to the calorie counting grind until Thanksgiving for me 🙂 I’ve lost 30 lbs this year and hope to lose another 30! But that won’t happen with dumplings and pizza every meal! LOL

Pork buns
Popcorn chicken
Shrimp dumplings
Peking duck buns
Soup dumplings that have broth inside of them. It was my first time having them. They were really good!

Wrap up

Sunday morning, we grabbed an Uber to LaGuardia. Only took about 1 minute for it to arrive and with almost no traffic, we were to the airport way ahead of schedule. We woke up at 6:45am and we were at the airport by 7:35. Pretty great timing. But, our flight didn’t leave until 9:55, so we sat around, had breakfast and then dealt with seat issues again. I’m guessing because the flight change before we left messed something up in the computer. I showed seats on my app, but my app told me to see a gate agent for seat assignments. I went up and the guy told me it was fine. Then I realized I had no clue when to board- so I went back up to ask that and the lady spent 15 minutes trying to figure out the situation herself. Eventually we got our same seats it showed in the app, the very back row of the plane, but we were boarding group 7, so we had to check our carryon bags.

But, just happy to have seats on the flight as it was the only direct to Indy today.

All in all we had a great trip! We saw a ton of sites, experienced a lot of culture, didn’t really have any major issues

They say almost a million cars come into Manhattan a day looking for half as many parking spots. I definitely think driving in Manhattan is doable- but it’s the parking in Manhattan that I couldn’t handle. I love the public transportation options available. Subway, buses, ferries, trains….you name it, you got it.

I’ve said for years, living in the country is a young person’s game. Ha mowing, gardening, upkeep, driving long distances to everywhere and everything….I want to retire to Manhattan. Doorman, elevators, public transport, delivery everything including groceries. Tons of recreational options and hobbies, small space to maintain, no exterior maintenance…that sounds like the best life to me.

Kegan says I might convince him to make that happen down the line, but likely not in this country. I asked him his thoughts overall- he said it was good to see and visit but if he never saw Manhattan again? He wouldn’t be upset. He didn’t hate Brooklyn and he liked it upstate but he said too many crazy hobos and druggies running around everywhere and just too much going on. His brain would be up on high all the time spending too much time there.

Norah says she liked everything except that it smelled like marijuana everywhere we went (which it TOTALLY did-people just walk down the street with a burning joint. ) and there were too many people haha she said she isn’t used to that many people every place you go.

So overall, it sounds like I will not be convincing my family to buy an apartment in Manhattan anytime soon (Kegan’s mom can breathe easy for a while longer that we stay local haha)

Our next adventure to blog about will be Christmas-New Year in New Orleans, so we’ll catch up then! Thanks for following along with us!

Day 6 – Flushing, Queens and Jackson Heights

Today is the day of eating I have been waiting for all week. Ha Staying in midtown right off Times Square has its advantages, in that the 42nd Street port Authority Bus Terminal basically is the hub for almost every line of the subway in the city… and if you can’t get there from 42nd street, you walk south to 34th street and grab a train or subway from Penn Station, or you walk East and grab anything else at Grand Central. So, I wanted to get out of Manhattan and explore an area of “locals” so we took the 7 train as far out as we could take it, to Flushing.

Flushing is a very diverse melting-pot neighborhood with Chinese, Nepalese, Korean and other ethnicities all mixed in. The Main Street/Roosevelt Ave intersection in Flushing is the 3rd busiest intersection in New York! It’s a bustling place.

We had 20 subway stops out to Flushing, but it honestly only took about 35-40 minutes total. It seems like a crazy commute, but no worse that if I worked in Columbus while living where we live in Freetown. It’s 40 minutes to everything lol

Flushing is one of the 5 original Queens towns from when Queens county was established when the British took over the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1683. It has a bit of history.

Walking out from the subway station, you definitely had no doubt you had stepped into a very large Chinatown… but the pace was slower than Manhattan- people walked a little slower. It was busy and very “close” with awnings over the sidewalk, goods spread outside the store. But again, I’m drawn to this sort of community and network feel- not the modern sterile sort of shiny glass and elevators. Plus- the food in these places! You’d have to roll me down the sidewalk if I lived here. I might quite literally become one of those 600 lb women they have to knock the wall out to get her out of her apartment in a medical emergency! Lol

All of the shop signs in Chinese

We were headed to Asian Jewels, a Chinese dim sum house where they serve you from carts of steaming baskets of dumplings and small plates. This has been consistently rated as one of the best places for dim sum in New York, so the day was quite literally planned around this meal! Ha

Dim Sum started as small plates served to farmers and travelers along the Silk Road in tea houses as a means of serving some sort of food with the tea. Tea houses were sort of the pubs of the time and place. People gathered here for conversation and relaxing in the evenings after work or before settling in for the night. Dim Sum now is just a style of Chinese cuisine typically served for breakfast or lunch. Most places even in the US don’t serve dim sum after 3 or 4pm.

All of the Chinese waitresses LOVED Norah and kept commenting on how beautiful she was. To the point she was super embarrassed and quietly told me she wished they would stop. haha She’s definitely growing up and getting more self-aware. She had to perform in her school’s talent show last week and she said her hands were shaking because she was nervous. I don’t think this child has ever gotten nervous before.

The start of our spread. As you can see on the left, as you select off the cart, they mark your card depending on the price of each dish. We had pork buns, shrimp shumai, tripe, some sort of scallion dumpling.

After eating, we had quite a bit of a walk across to Flushing Meadows- Corona Park. It was needed. I needed to digest all that food.

This park was created for the 1939 World’s Fair. It was an ash dump until the 1930’s (featured as the Valley of Ashes in the Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald). Robert Moses, the great urban planner/public works creator around New York responsible for parks, highways, the Verrazano Bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn, the Battery Tunnel, the Bronx Expressway and a lot of other great and controversial projects, led the creation of this park.

The park contains the Billie Jean King Tennis Center-which hosts the US Open Tennis tournament annually.

It contains Citi Field- the new stadium home of the New York Mets, after Shea Stadium was demolished in 2009.

It also hosted the 1964/1965 World’s Fair… which actually had a lot of impact on the world as we know it today, but you probably don’t realize.

Walt Disney consulted on designs and exhibits. The Its a Small World ride and song that we know was actually conceived and designed for the World’s Fair here! It ran here for 2 years, and was then repurposed into a ride at Disneyland theme park in California. Eventually copied and installed for Disney World in Florida.

The same with The Carousel of Progress, designed for the General Electric pavilion- Disney’s “most boring ride” to most people and kids- but one of my favorites. haha The carousel with animatronic people and animals and a theme song of “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” was designed to showcase technology and innovations and was cutting edge for its time. Sidenote: we got stuck on this ride a few years ago. We were stuck in the 1920s over and over and over and over. haha It was only like 15 minutes, but we definitely played that scene quite a few times before they shut the ride down. ha

Also, the concept of the metal seats on a conveyer belt used to usher people through rides originated here as they were expecting 70 million guests to come through the fair over 2 seasons. Disney eventually would use this concept in his parks for tons of rides.

Initially, Walt Disney wanted to use the Flushing Meadows site for his east coast park to recreate what had been so successful in California…but eventually, he purchased the swampland in Florida and made it into what it is today. It recreated the landscape and altered the American family dream to include a trip to Florida to visit this park.

The Unisphere was installed for the 1964/65 World’s Fair by US Steel
This column from an old Roman temple was gifted to New York by Jordan for the World’s Fair.
You may recognize these towers or the Unisphere from the Men In Black movie with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The movie theorized that the world’s fair was a cover for the arrival of aliens to the planet and these towers were their spaceships lol
Spotted a friend off the side of the path. Just a big fat groundhog finding some food.

We visited the Queens museum which houses an amazingly huge miniature diorama of New York.

You walk all along the edge of the room to see various boroughs and buildings.

The exhibit goes dark every few minutes and it lights up to show the city at night.
Upstairs they had tons of memorabilia from the World’s Fair.
General Electrics pavilion called Progressland which included the Carousel of Progress Disney ride.
Another scale replica showing the layout of the various vendors and pavilions of the World’s Fair.

I really didn’t think there was much else to see here. There were a few artist exhibits and posters.. but it all felt a little over my head in terms of appreciating the art of it all since I’m not a real artsy person… but then I stumbled on this little room in the corner, dedicated to the design of Tiffany glass. It turns out, Louis Comfort Tiffany was disappointed at the quality of glass available and decided to open his own glasshouse furnace in 1893 in Corona Queens, just a mile or two from this museum. It was very rural at the time and allowed him to keep his glass recipes secret, well away from competitors in Manhattan. In 1901 he added a foundry, woodworking, metal working and other services to give him complete production control of all aspects of his business.

Charles Tiffany- his father- was the founder and owner of Tiffany & Co Jewelry…and Louis C Tiffany, started out as an interior designer and quickly found a passion for stained glass panels. This leaded Tiffany glass is what he became known for and what lives on today. A Tiffany lamp sold at auction for over 3 million dollars a few years ago! Supposedly you can find more common models for around $5,000. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen a real Tiffany lamp in anyone’s possession. I thought I had because there are so many of these style around, but it seems they may all be reproductions or rival designers made to look like Tiffany lamps. I don’t know all that much about them, I could be wrong. If anyone reading this does know- please let me know!

Some Tiffany lampshades in the exhibit

What I found the most interesting was this case exhibit showing that they were cut and then wrap each individual piece of glass with copper, to help the solder stick to the piece.

Then they were assemble the lamp over a metal dome pattern to ensure the design was correct and shaped correctly.

There were 2 of these big racks full of flat glass sheets of Tiffany glass.
A collection of turtleback glass tiles. These bumpy, wavy tiles were used alone or in combination with the more geometric and smooth designs.
My favorite piece in the collection.

As we were leaving the Queens museum, a lady walking past us said “they are doing a puppet show up there… I wish my daughter was with me to see it… but I thought your daughter might like to see” – And she did!

It was a cute little modern rendition of Little Red Riding Hood put on by the City Parks department. The puppet mobile performs in a different park 5 days a week 6 months of the year. I think they said their schedule was on the parks website.


We walked a good few blocks to Corona which seemed to be a more Latino geared area where Flushing was more Asian. Kegan said he saw about 6 people that I looked like, so yep- must be in the Cuban and Puerto Rican area! Ha

When I lived in South Florida, people would walk right up to me without missing a beat and start talking to me in Spanish. And then if I didn’t understand or couldn’t answer them, they’d roll their eyes and walk off. At first I was like how rude! But after a while I realized it’s because I look very Cuban haha and these old ladies were super offended my young butt didn’t even know Spanish.

For the record, my DNA shows 0% Italian, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rica. or any other nationality people usually think I am. I’m a conundrum lol

I was so excited to see that Benforamo- The Ice King of Corona was open! I was afraid I just walked a mile for nothing. But if there is creamy Italian ice at the end, then it’s all worth it. This is the standard for Italian Ice. In business for over 60 years. They have like 50 different flavors and multiple sizes to choose from. It was busy with almost everyone walking by grabbing at least a small $2 cup.

https://vimeo.com/34416081

If you’ve ever seen the intro to The King of Queens- you basically just hit the highlights of our day. Ha they are walking down the street in what appears to Jackson Heights (where we headed next) lounging in the Park, underneath the US Steel Unisphere globe, eating at Benfaramos… hilarious. I only found this intro after our visit while looking at the Benforamo website lol apparently, they live in Queens on the show. haha I thought the title was just a play on Queens, Kings, rooks, etc…never actually put it together! So now I feel stupid. lol

I had been seeking a bubble tea since breakfast Dim Sum so we had our Uber drop us off a few blocks early when I saw the stand.. and because I felt bad for the guy sitting in traffic trying to get the 3-4 blocks down that I had keyed in. I didn’t know it was SO busy there!

We walked on down under the 7 tracks seeking a Birria taco truck. But it turns out, the truck doesn’t show up and serve until 5 and it was only 3:30. Boo. I’ve never had birria tacos, but they are the new fad food showing up all over social media and my Indy foodie food group. I figured this would be a really good spot to try them. But I guess we’ll have to seek them out closer to home.

I can’t believe i didn’t take more photos of Jackson Heights! This lone picture of a produce shop is all I have to show for a mile of walking. Shame on me. It was a very neat, culture rich area. I really liked it.

As we approached the Jackson Heights subway station, I spotted a place I had bookmarked to go and try Nepalese food. The photos people had taken of the dumplings and soup looked amazing as well as the rice dishes. We still weren’t super hungry and I felt guilty taking a table to only order a bit… but they weren’t super busy, plenty of seating open, so we went in.

Norah ordered French fries again. Don’t know what’s up with that… but whatever. She’s been good this whole trip- if French fries are her choice for lunch/dinner- so be it. Ha a little comfort of home I guess?

We didn’t know what to order so I started stalking their social media and ordered what someone else had that looked amazing.

Paneer momo. Very rich creamy cheese filled dumplings with herbs and maybe some greens or spinach of some sort. Cress? Leek? I don’t know. But heavenly.
The Goat Momo in Jholi (a spicy herby broth)

I immediately googled and made sure I could make this again in the future because it was going to be a LONG flight and Uber out to this restaurant again haha and there were plenty of recipes for momo in jholi. Let me know if you want an invite when I recreate this masterpiece at home. Ha we were reading a recipe and tasting the broth, making sure we agreed that those ingredients were definitely present here. Oh my Lordy.. it was so good. It was so good that after we got to the hotel later in the evening, we tried to go order more dumplings in broth, knowing full well that Times Square Kung Fu kitchen would never live up to this, but the restaurant had just closed. Probably better. Ha

I loved these hammered copper drinking glasses and pitchers. If I ever open a restaurant I’m stealing this idea. The cold metal made the water seem that much colder and more refreshing.
All the poor commuters heading East away from Jackson Heights towards Flushing. The trains were packed to capacity with this many people waiting to add to it. I can do the crowded trains, but I loved that we were headed the opposite way on a mostly empty subway car with seating available 🙂

The rest of our evening was boring. We were in the hotel by 6pm and didn’t leave again. Norah got some iPad time, Kegan watched TV and I caught up on blogging.

Tomorrow we catch a train out of Penn Station to go upstate to Poughkeepsie to explore the countryside of New York along the Hudson River Valley.

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