A Day in the Museum

We all slept in again this morning.  I guess it is vacation, after all.  I find it is helpful for all of us, if Stella gets a good nights (and mornings) sleep!  

We have a low key agenda today, partly because we have accomplished so much, partly because we have no evening tickets or plans, partly because Randy is still not 100% and partly because...I will admit....I am tired!  

The original list is here with asterisks by all we have seen I have put parentheses around the things we have decided not to do. The desire to pay money to go to the tops of buildings and look down has waned for both Randy & Stella and having done some of The Met and MoMA, and History Museum today, Stella is OK missing the Guggenheim. We have plans to see Ground Zero and parts of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn tomorrow with Krystl & Doug.  Not sure if it will all get crossed off the list but we will do what we can.  We may not get to  Katz's, Stella would rather go to the Shake Shack!  I might agree, I am a bit 'deli~ed' out!  I was thinking we could get up early Sunday morning and go have breakfast in front of Tiffany's before we leave ...but Sunday is the New York Gay Pride parade, and just getting to the airport on time might be challenging!

The NYC List

*Times Square

*Central Park

*Grand Central Station

*New York Public Library

*Carnegie Hall

*Lincoln Center

*The UN

*Columbia

NYU

*Lego Imaginarium 5th Avenue

*Rockefeller Center

Ground Zero

(Staten Island Ferry)

*Statue of Liberty  (from afar)

*Brooklyn Bridge~ we went under it, and will see more Saturday

(Empire State)

*The Cloisters

*MoMA

*The Met

(Guggenheim)

(Neue Galerie)

*American History Museum

*Tenement Museum

*Book of Mormon

*Phantom of the Opera

*Yankees Stadium

*Riverside Church

*Boat Cruise around Manhattan

High Line Park

*Ride the Subway

*Carnegie Deli

Katz's Deli

*Dylan's Candy Bar

*Serendipity 3

Big Gay Ice Cream

*Little Italy

*Chinatown

(Tavern on the Green ~closed)

*Russian Tea Room

Breakfast at (in front of) Tiffany's?

Today we are going to the Museum of Natural History.  If I can stop over and see Eleanor Roosevelt, I will and depending on what mode of transport we take, Lincoln Center is on the way.  Tonight anything  goes!  Stella's vote is to stay and hang out in the hotel.  Randy may be on her side!  The heat and humidity are pretty exhausting, but I think the 16 years of State Fair training Stella and I have done in preparation for this trip, have paid off! 

It is almost 11.  Time to wake the bear?

We did not actually leave here until 12:30, to avoid walking any farther than we had to, we took the m11 bus up to 79th and took a crosstown bus over to the museum. As we waited for the bus I noticed...we have a NYPL Branch right across the street from our hotel!

  I did see the back side and the parking structure for Lincoln Center.  That might have to be enough.  Of course, my excellent navigational skillz got us to the wrong side of the museum, and we got to take a nice stroll all the way around.  On the up side, Randy found a food cart with hot dogs. On the down side there was a line.  On the up side Stella and I found a bench to watch pigeons, since on the down side the family in front of Randy took 10 minutes to decide to order eight hot dogs, which took a while and then the crabbiest of the children promptly dropped his hot dogs on the ground and Randy had to wait for then to make new ones. On the upside, Randy had a place to sit with us on the bench to eat, once he got his hot dogs.  

We finally made it all the way around the block and there was Theodore Roosevelt. (Too bad I don't have a picture of his niece Eleanor to go with it). 

The museum is as awesome as everyone says!  We got tickets pretty quickly after we figured out the line system.  I also got us in for less money since we have paid twice for The Met and the Cloister and MoMA.  The museums here have a suggested amount to pay.  While I am happy to support the museums, we have dropped enough dough into the New York economy this week! 

We struggled a bit with the paper map, between the museum light levels and the fact that we thought we were on a different floor. I figured out how to download the Explore app for the museum. GPS based, step by step directions to any destination in the museum.  It was a big help for the most part, but if it could tell you which restrooms were having the floors mopped and redirect you, it would have been perfect!  Once we could navigate, we found the dinosaurs! 

There were so many it was almost overwhelming!  We found our ancient family mascot! 

The ancestor to the three toed tree sloth is the extinct ground sloth.  (Insert joke here)

Walking through the dinosaur exhibit I wanted to get funny pictures of Stella being eaten and gored by the Dino bones.  She reluctantly let me take one picture of her head positioned so it looked like T-Rex would eat her....but she deleted it. Eight days in the heat and she has maybe lost her sense of humor...or just maybe her tolerance for my antics.  The view from the dinosaur corner was rather pretty!

This. Museum. Is. Huge.

The navigator app helped direct us to all the rest we wanted to see on the first floor. Early Humans, 

Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis.  A lady walking by with very few teeth commented, I wonder why they didn't name the next one Ricky.   Seriously.  A few minutes later walking by an exhibit with a cave dwelling made of huge bones and the early humans living in it, a young mom turns to her kids and says "I thought people didn't live when the dinosaurs did". Stella is indignant and says, "does she not know those are mammoth bones?" I told her maybe she has not seen the Ice Age movies!

We saw the big canoe. 

The Star of India sapphire, which is impossible to photograph and they have no postcards of it. :(. It is beautiful though, take my word for it.  We headed to see the Blue Whale, and walked past the giant redwood slice

Tough lighting in this museum with a flash less iPad.

While Randy was waiting for us at one point, he was checking out all the bi-valves.  He discovered the confused river mussel.  What makes a mussel confused? Stella said she would research it with the information machine, but got distracted.

When we arrived at Hall of Ocean Life they had closed it early due to a 'Night in the Museum' sleepover event they were having and setting up cots.  Sadly, this is as close as we got to the whale. 

Overhead there are some pretty cool exhibits and the wall of extinction and endangered species is really impressive. 

Big signs saying 'please do not sit in clam shell' and people trying anyway.  

My family had had it.  I stopped in one of the many Museum shops to get some postcards of the things I could not photograph well. I placed the postcards in order and took a picture.  My sad version of instagram! I did buy the postcards before I took the picture.

Left to right from top, cave of mammoth bones, dinosaurs, endangered species wall, the Blue Whale, the front of the Museum, and the full size dinosaurs. 

We used the app one last time to find the nearest exit to the Subway and made our way under ground.  Once again, I find beauty in the dirt and grime of this wonderful city! This is the subway entrance stairwell.

Stella and Randy waited for the crosstown bus at 8th Ave and I wanted to get to the market for some fruit and cracker snacks.  We have been eating street food and diner food and we needed a little something better! I stopped at the Amish Market on 9th that we found our first night here and stocked up. On my way home I thought I would get a snapshot of the street corner shop, gearing up for Pride!

I continued walking back to the hotel, and despite my detour, I beat the bus back to 10th Ave.  

All I think of is the James Taylor song, "damn this traffic jam, how I hate to be late, burns my motor to go so slow...." I feel like driving in this city is pointless. 

Randy & Stella after just getting off the bus. I am on the terrace of our hotel across the street.

Fortification

Back in the hotel and Stella does not want to leave. We may have to order in tonight.

Tomorrow we head for lower Manhattan and end our New York adventure with a visit with my family here in the Big Apple!

We did get Stella out of the room for food around 9pm, but not out of the hotel.  We decided to try the tapas place, Meemo, downstairs.  It was OK, Stella branched out and got chicken fingers, and we all shared some nachos, wings and tacquitos. Topped it off with brownie sundae for dessert.

Every restaurant we have eaten in (except the diner, at midnight) on this trip, they have dimmed the lights at around 9pm.  I mean really dimmed, so we could hardly see.  The Palm was already dark when we arrived at 10:30!  Well, tonight as we were sitting n the restaurant portion of the bar, the lights actually went brighter!  We all looked at each other and laughed.  Maybe it was time to get the food people out, so the drinking could commence! 

 

We were back in the room by 10 and I got to sleep before midnight!