Life is Sweet: Bucket List

Wednesday, August 21

aka Day 7
SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, NJ, NY.

This was our longest travel day, due to my poor memory of 5th grade US Geography. When I was booking hotels, I thought New York was south of DC. Ooops. In favor of a hefty discount, I had booked the NY hotel as non-refundable and unchangeable. Good thing none of us mind car time haha. Mar had brought a plethora of craft items to work on during travel days, not to mention we all enjoyed endless opportunities for naps (although Bill drove most of the time, so was the least likely to get some sleep catch-up).

Kudos to Bill for driving in Manhattan! Even late at night those streets are a bit tricky to navigate. Our hotel was on the south end of the island, a block away from World Trade One and the 9/11 Memorial. It had been a long day and we were hungry. It was after 11pm. I checked to see what was open around us, and luckily there was a pub next door that was open late.

We had burgers... but let it be known, they were our favorite burgers of the whole trip.

Afterwards we returned back to our tiny hotel room and hit the hay.

Thursday, August 22

aka Day 8
NY

We only had to walk a couple of blocks to catch the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands the next morning.

I loved seeing the Statue of Liberty in person.

We had some lucky timing, as the Air Force did an awesome fly-over not long after we arrived on Liberty Island.

Then we hopped over to Ellis Island.

Once we arrived back to Battery Park, we were met with some street performers, which quickly recruited Bill for a stunt.

After a lot of theatrics and rigamarole, we realized that it was mainly a money grab.

Goodbye, $20 haha.

It was a fairly hot day, and we were ready for lunch, so we stopped to get something for lunch here:

Yum.

We noticed a long photo op line at the Wall Street Bull, so decided to pass on waiting in it.

As we walked back to our hotel, I happened to glance over at an old church and cemetery. I noticed someone near a monument, and on closer inspection, saw that it was Alexander Hamilton's grave. This was THE Trinity Church {mentioned in the musical - which we've all heard over and over the past few years because Mar loves a lot of the music}. This was on our "maybe if we have time" bucket list, but for some reason, I thought it was midtown Manhattan somewhere. Nope, it was a block from our hotel. So awesome. We stopped to check it out.

We rested for an hour or so at our hotel, then braved the subway to head to Times Square.

We were a block away from our subway entrance, and found, on a Thursday afternoon, it pleasantly roomy (however it became more crowded as we made stop after stop).

I've never been to New York OR Times Square before, so for some reason, I thought Times Square was... a square. Like an intersection... or a block. Mauri informed me it was pretty much an area. It reminded me of our brief stay in Vegas years ago. People everywhere, milling around... strange street performers... I'm just not a big city gal. Mar loves it, though. It was fun to see it firsthand, but it was pretty much exactly as I had suspected (other than it not being a "square" haha).

After a little milling about of our own, we made our way to the Majestic Theater to see The Phantom of the Opera. Mar had requested this Broadway musical because she had never seen it on stage before. I was happy because it was reasonably priced compared to the super popular shows right now like Hamilton and Frozen. I have seen Phantom three previous times on stage, so I was excited to see how they compared to BROADWAY.

(Can you tell Frozen was playing right across the street? Hence the backward phrase you can see in the above pic "The HOTTEST SNOW on BROADWAY!" haha)

It was a good show, however we were slightly underwhelmed. The staff at the theater treated everyone like a herd of cattle, we waited forever in a line outside for the doors to open, then once they did, they "herded" us into an upper and lower foyer to wait some more. Finally we were allowed to go to our seats. I suspect the theater and set have not been updated for many years. The chandelier was underwhelming, but overall the show was good, and I feel the experience was worth the expense. After the show Mauri wanted to purchase a t-shirt, so we waited in line. Many of the theater guests had left, and when she finally got the front of the line, she found they were out of her size, so she ran over to the other sale desk to check if they had her size. They didn't. She decided to purchase a larger size, and as she was finishing her purchase, the host was practically yelling that anyone that didn't exit soon would be locked inside. I guess I was surprised at how rudely the guests of the show were treated by the staff. They must be old and tired.

It was raining when we exited the theater, and we were hungry, so we headed across the street to The Shake Shack, along with a million other people looking to get out of the rain and get a quick bite to eat. That place was PACKED. We were lucky to grab a table as someone was leaving.

We ate and caught the subway back to our hotel. We decided to stop by the Wall Street Bull on our way, and found it deserted. Midnight in a sprinkle of rain on a Thursday is definitely the time to go haha.

Friday, August 23

aka Day 9
NY, NJ, PA

Since we didn't have to check out of our hotel until 1pm, we made the most of our morning by taking the subway back to midtown Manhattan to get breakfast at The Stardust. Mar had been the year previous when she went to New York on a choir trip, and had loved it and wanted us to experience it also. Such a fun place.

Then we hopped back on the subway to see the Manhattan Temple. Unfortunately it was closed while we were there, but we thought it was worth stopping by to see anyway.

Our final stop in NYC was the 9/11 Memorial.

Since I was feeling like I was getting the subway thing down, we got off a stop too early (One World Trade Center), thinking it would be close to the memorial. Nope. We walked forever through the building to get to the other side.

We finally made it to the memorial, and it was much more impressive than I had imagined. Pictures definitely don't do it justice.

We were a little pressed for time and the lines were long for the museum, but we were grateful for the time we were able to spend looking through it.

We checked out of our hotel, and headed out of town. Traffic was ridiculous.

We made our way to Philadelphia. Our hotel was downtown, and, once again, we were looking for food. We found this little gem a few blocks away. We were early enough to not need a reservation, and we were pleasantly surprised that many restaurants (maybe all?) in Philly are BYO alcohol (wine in the case of Giorgio on Pine). I love this. It takes the pressure off of non-drinking diners like us. You don't get the nasty eye when you tell them you won't be ordering wine or liquor.

We walked back to our hotel to change so we could attend a session at the Philadelphia Temple. This is a fairly new temple (dedicated in 2016), located right in the middle of tons of historical buildings in downtown. It is beautiful.

It was the perfect way to spend our evening.

Saturday, August 24

aka Day 10
PA, MD, VA

When we were planning this trip, I had no idea how much we would love all the history in Philadelphia. We didn't have a lot of time here, and I hope to go back someday to spend more time. We decided to walk everywhere, because it looked like it was all fairly close in proximity, but we literally walked our feet off. I should have used map-my-walk to track how far we walked. It was a beautiful day, though, and there was a lot to see.

Penn Square & City Hall

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Rocky statue. Couldn't pass that up.

Declaration House.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence here.

Liberty Bell.

Independence Hall.

Our time, again, was cut a bit short due to our hotel check-out time.

On our way out of town we decided to try the ORIGINAL Philly Cheese Steak sandwich for lunch, and discovered that there were two famous places kitty-corner from each other. Of course, we had to try both.

Pat's was the original, but Geno's moved in and upped the competition.

Geno's...

Pat's...

We agreed that both were tasty, but Geno's had our favorite. Sorry, Pat.

Now you know.

We then made the drive to Gettysburg.

Bill and I had gone here back in 1996, and had loved it, so thought it was worth a stop with Mar.

They had our favorite gift shop of the trip. That's important, you know.

I am still fascinated by the history of the Civil War.

We ended our car tour at the cemetery, near where Abraham Lincoln had delivered

his Gettysburg Address.

Our timing was great, once again, as we were privileged to hear Don Rader play Taps on his trumpet.

It was his 84th birthday.

They also honored all other past and present military people that were in attendance.

Such a perfect way to end the day.

We were again looking for someplace to eat, and I had really wanted to take Mar to a Dutch/Amish type place to eat. I googled what we could find along our route to our next stop in Arlington, VA.

This is what I found:

We arrived near closing time, so they were out of what I was hoping to order.

It was okay. Large portions, for sure. Not the amazing food I wanted Mar to experience.

And possibly not worth the detour we took to get there, darn it.

We may or may not have risked our lives to snap the following pics. Since we didn't pass a sign on the way IN to Pennsylvania, we grabbed one (across the dark, speedy, two-lane highway) on our way OUT.

We entered back into MD.

We drove along dark, two-lane back roads all the way to VA. Bill may have received a camera-flash speeding ticket along those winding back roads. I wished I could SEE what was around us, but the entire trip was in the dark.

We made it to our hotel in Arlington, again, late at night.

Sunday, August 25

aka Day 11
VA, Washington DC

We attended church in the morning.

We loved this church building... it was so fancy.

After church, we headed back to the hotel, changed our clothes, and found the subway to get to Washington DC.

This subway is super clean and nice compared to the NY subway.

I had signed us up for a 3-hour segway tour of DC. None of us had ever been on a segway before.

We were pumped.

After about 10 minutes of practice, we were on our way.

I just need to say, this was THE BEST. I highly recommend it.

Our tour guide, Rory, was awesome.

There was a whole lotta construction going on everywhere.

I was pleasantly surprised to find several new monuments since Bill and I last visited in '96.

After our super fun tour, Rory suggested this place to get food. We showed up during the rush, but we found a seat and enjoyed our dinner.

Then we rode the subway back to Arlington and walked back to our hotel.

We were super impressed (both ways) with this escalator.

It was, by far, the longest escalator any of us had ever seen.

We stopped by a fancy Target on our way home to grab some snacks and other essentials.

Monday, August 26

aka Day 12
VA, MD, PA, NY

We checked out of our hotel, then visited Arlington National Cemetery.

We wanted to stop at the Washington DC Temple, so made our way there.

This temple is closed for MAJOR renovation. It was crazy to see the parking lot completely torn up and all the work that was being done on the temple.

The Visitor's Center was open, so we chatted with the nice senior couple and young sister missionaries for a bit.

Then made our way up to Palmyra by backtracking through PA (we literally drove right past Gettysburg again) and NY.

It was a beautiful drive.

In hindsight, I wish I would have put the Priesthood Restoration Site on my list of places to visit... I totally think we could have seen it on our way up to Palmyra. Hopefully Bill and I will make it back someday.

We made it to our hotel in Palmyra, NY that evening, excited for our adventure to continue.

Tuesday, August 27

aka Day 13
NY

Our first stop was the Palmyra Temple.

We loved the stained glass in all the windows that represented the Sacred Grove.

We were told the amazing story about how the Church was able to finally acquire the land this temple sits on, and admired the clear window in the waiting area of the temple that looks out over the Sacred Grove.

We changed our clothes and headed to the Smith Family farm.

Then we took a peaceful stroll through the Sacred Grove.

I didn't realize what a large area this is, and we had it nearly all to ourselves.

It was an amazing experience.

On our way out, we chatted again with the young sisters that gave us the tour through the Smith homes, when a senior sister brought a snake she had found in the closet at the Visitor's Center.

Mar was not afraid to hold it.