New York

All of us made it back alive after the trip to NYC. There was no doubt about me and Hector but I wasn't sure about the kids. Actually, we all had a great time. We flew to Cincinnati where we spent the night (my first visit to this very middle American city), picked up the kids, flew in to La Guardia and were hammered by the heat the instant we stepped out of the airport. Remember that scene in Ab Fab when the girls go to Morocco? They've been boozing it up on the plane and the instant they step out into the heat, they both pass out.

Here's what we did: Statue of Liberty (the days are over when you can climb to the crown), Central Park featuring Hot Dogs and Ice Cream, Museum of Natural History, Times Square (countless times), shopped for junk in Chinatown, Ground Zero viewing (very uninteresting, don't do it), Double decker bus tour, we saw Harry Potter when it opened, went shopping at FAO Schwartz, Apple Store, Bloomingdales, saw Blue Man Group, had room service (amazing the mileage we got out of that) and a lot of aimless walking designed to wear down their little resistance quotients so they'd go right to sleep.

It took a couple of days to figure out that if you give a kid a soda, they go fucking nuts for about 2 hours, needless to say we clamped down quick. They were dying to ride the subway but the one day we did it there was a lunatic preaching on our car so they pleaded for taxis after that. And regardless of your feelings toward Starbucks, I thank God for them. At last, in New York there is someplace to pee every block.

I think I enjoyed the trip to the Statue of Liberty best. The ferry ride was fun, and I love all that old time Americana. Overall, a fun trip. We flew out on Friday, dropped the kids back home and continued on home to San Diego to find that all our luggage was scattered all over the country. It took 24 hours to reel it all in.