Last weekend I made a quick trip to NYC and back. Megan J. is going to Cardoza School of Law and needed her stuff hauled out. Being the nice guy that I am — and not one to turn down a free travel opportunity, I volunteered my time and parents van (thanks mom and dad) to make the trip.

The van got packed, as we hummed the Tetris song, Wednesday night. Thurday morning Larry, Nicole, Megan, and I departed at the official “crack of dawn” - 5:15. With a stop at IHOP where they were out of Belgium waffle mix and we hit the road by a hair past 6:00am.

Out trip out was pretty uneventful. After passing about 200 BMW bikes heading west I I saw one broken down. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to help a fellow biker and curious where they were all going, I made a U-Turn. We got it going with a McDonalds cup and Duct Tape… and I found they were heading for Lima where 5-6K bikes were expected.

The trip was filled with “are we there yet?” and a “quality” audio book.

Driving into Manhattan wasn’t too bad. Getting a little off course in Jersey City allowed for some site seeing. Shooting under the river in the Holland Tunnel and navigating around the island had as at her King and 6’th Ave apartment by 8:00. Plenty of time to unload. Did I mention it is on the third floor(41 steps?) We got some good Ben and Jerry’s to reward ourselves for all the hard work and chilled in Washington Square until being informed the park closed at 12:00.

Friday and Saturday had us hitting the sites in NYC: Central Park, Museum of Natural History, Staten Island, Times Square, and the WTC site. I don’t have time to detail all and you can probably find better pictures than I took. Some of my pics are over here.

Central Park was really cool. Nestled in the middle of the busy city was a park with real trees and people enjoying the beautify day. There was a DJ mixing Techno, and drum circle, and a band playing Salsa with couples dancing. A short walk out of the park had us back into a sea of humanity in Times Square.

All in all it was a great trip. It was a lot of fun hanging out with friends. Larry and I did a good job of talking about things we considered “interesting” and the girls did a good job making fun of us. Now, to find time to head back for a second visit…

Just for fun, I just made a list of all the states I have been to in the last 13 months: North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Caroline, Georgia, W. Virginia, Virginia
Indiana, Ohio, Ontario, Quebec, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, California.