God Bless Bob King

Yesterday when we were checking into the Hotel Edison, we said something about a room with a view. The receptionist said, " I can give you that" so she gave us a corner room on the 21st floor. One of windows gives us the view of the Hudson River shown above. The other window gives us the following view.

Tonight we saw "Evita" and it had the most amazing choreographing. Ricky Martin, going against my dear daughter's prediction that his role tonight would be filled by his understudy, was there. Elizabeth probably thought it would be the understudy because theaters are usually dark on Mondays. But, reliable, hard-working Ricky did perform and he performed very well. I pointed out to Bob how often his dances were choreographed so that his butt was facing the audience. Not a bad side of him to see, I might add.

And now on to the story of why God should richly bless tour guide Bob. Shelley, I know you want to travel with Bob and I don't blame you one bit!

We had tickets to go out to Ellis Island at 9a.m. We were down in Battery Park earlier than that so he checked if we could leave on an earlier boat. The ticket taker said "no problem." That got us on to the first boat of the day. All the boats stop at the Statue of Liberty first and then go on to Ellis Island. Our boat was totally full, but at least 90% of the people got off at the Statue of Liberty. We didn't.

That means that when we got to Ellis Island, we were there with maybe 50 people so lots of the parts we looked at, we had entirely to ourselves. We had the Registry Room ALL TO OURSELVES. It was perfect. Once we finished touring and went back to the Baggage Room to exit, it was pretty packed as more boats had come in. We didn't care ... our tour was finished.

When we arrived back at Battery Park, there was organized chaos. Bob estimated that the line to get on the boats was 1/2 a mile long (and he's darn accurate at estimating!) I couldn't have tolerated waiting hours so, Mr. Bob, today you are my hero.

I took a couple of photos of 1 World Trade Center which, so far, mainly goes by the nickname Freedom Tower. 100 floors have been erected and once they build on 4 more feet, it will surpass the Empire State building for height. Can you tell that my first photo of it was taken on land, and that my second photo was taken from the boat on a very, very windy day.

The wind really howled all day long.

We ate in a good little cafe in the finacial district. The tables were all pushed together and when the two of us were seated, the waiter courteously moved our table away from the next one - no doubt to give us privacy. I put the fork in the next photo to give you perspective. He moved the table about 4 inches. Thankfully Bob and I didn't have any secrets to share as those 4 inches of separation from strangers wasn't as reliable as Max Smart's cone of silence.

The parking price below is why we flew in and take subways.

We walked part of the High Line in the windy wind! If I lived here, I would be one of the volunteers who maintain the vegetation. There were quite a few working today.

Who would own a Great Dane in Manhattan?

Next we tracked down some stores I wanted to window shop at. I loved the cowboy boots hanging outside this one. Even second hand, they weren't in my price range.

Myers is a grocery store that sells nothing but British food. I would have been so disappointed if the people working had New York accents. They didn't. Canada's specialty in potato chips might be ketchup, but this British store sold Marmite crisps.

Tea and Sympathy and A Salt and Battery are beside each other. I was expecting cutesy little places, but only got the little right. They were pretty run down although I loved the mosaic of the queen in Tea and Sympathy.

The yellow sedan cabs are all going to be replaced with mini-van cabs. At least they're keeping the yellow.

We were a block away from The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop when we found firetrucks, emergency vehicles, and ambulances. We couldn't smell smoke, but the firemen were going up the aerial ladder and there were stretchers waiting at the bottom. We moved on without being told as it really wasn't meant to be a tourist sight.

Over a bit from that excitement, we stumbled upon this vintage clothing store with a most appealing name.

But my real destination in the area was The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop. I went for "The Salty Pimp" even though one of the gay owners told me his favorites were the ones with hot spices in them. We have to love these two guys ... they were going to sell Girl Guide cookies out of their store an hour after we were there. The Girl Guides were hauling cases of them into the store.

If weather predictions are right for tomorrow, don't expect so much blue sky in tomorrow's photos.