NYC Labor Day Trip Report - Day 1

While Stacie was packing Friday night for our NYC trip, Dundee ran downstairs, grabbed her Kong and dropped it in one of our bags. This just about broke Stacie's heart because Dundee didn't want us to forget to pack her toy. As we are always excited to go someplace new, we don't like to leave Dundee at home. We are lucky to have a good friends and Stacie's mother as resources when we travel, so this trip Dundee got "Grandma time." Give me a break, we don't have kids so we gotta worry about someone.

We arrived at Laguardia early Saturday afternoon after a mostly smooth flight with an exciting decent and landing. The remnants of Ernesto gave us a bit of wind and rain. We had one of those nice tilty, swervy approaches and then the hard slam to the runway that made dozens of woman scream. This was immediately followed by the rest of the passengers laughing at them and then the obligatory clapping for making it down safely.

The sky was gray, but we didn't have any rain when we arrived at our room. We stayed in a Brownstone that was about 200 feet from the east side of Central Park / 5th Avenue. We had a good sized room in a very quiet neighborhood and the subway was a few blocks away. After we dropped off our luggage, we grabbed a slice of pizza at Marco Polo for a late lunch. We then decided to head down to Times Square to do some tourist stuff and maybe watch the Auburn game at ESPNZone. When we exited the subway, it was raining pretty heavy so we didn't wander around too much. We had a so-so dinner at Chevy's (too many chain restaurants in Times Square) and then decided to head back to the room to watch the game and relax. We were absolutely soaked and wanted to give our shoes some time to dry out before our day on Sunday.

We stopped off at Grand Central Terminal to see what it was all about. Man, that place is huge. It's an absolutely beautiful complex with restaurants, shops, train terminals, and the constellations on the vaulted ceiling. We oohed, ahhed, took some pictures, then jumped back on the subway.

While riding the subway back to our place, we had a "War Eagle Moment." I was wearing my Auburn cap and a young lady, Olivia, wearing an Auburn t-shirt came over to us and asked us if we were going over to watch the game. Apparently we were close to the bar were the Metropolitan New York Auburn Club meets to watch the games. We headed over to the bar to catch a few quarters. Holy Crap! that place was packed. I didn't expect to go New york to spend time with a hundred Auburn grads watching football, but it was a cool experience. Brian Stultz, the president of the Club, eagerly greeted us and we stayed until about halftime before heading back to our room. We were ready to relax a bit and since it was standing room only at the bar, we looked forward to lying on the bed to watch the rest of the game. In case you were wondering, Auburn won and Stacie was happy about her Clemson Tigers winning that day as well.