Sunday Crafts

Have you ever had someone walk through your garden or flower beds and ask, "What is that plant?" The more plants one gets the harder it is to remember all of the names.
So today I am painting flat oval rocks with my outdoor craft paints ( that have not been used for about 3 years ) and when dry I am painting on the names of the different plants. Next year, I will tuck a rock under each plant and when someone asks, all I need to do is to peek under the leaves and read the name. I will look so darn smart!
Now if I could finally get some really nice plants that people would even be driven to ask what it is, that would help a lot. I will use it for my different types of Asiatic Lillies as they are growing better each year and I have so many different colors and styles.
Today I moved a couple of plants to a better place. I hope it is not to early to do that and that they will take root before frost.
This is the last day of summer but looks more like half way through fall, the leaves are so beautiful in their bright reds, golds, oranges with still lot's of green as well. Nature certainly can paint a gorgeous canvas, it is like a painting that changes each day.

Next trip---Remember!

I must remember to take along a small bottle of hand sanitizer that I could carry in my pocket. So often while walking down subway stairs hanging on to the railing, I would think who and what has touched this railing. Also going up steps at buildings, down walk ways to the plane, down aisles at theatres and many other places, I always hold on to the railing. I think it comes with age. I never used to have to hold on to railings but now it helps pull me up the stairs and it keeps me from sliding down the stairs too fast. At the age I am at now, I have to remember a "broken hip" could be a reality........

When you are on tour and on and off the bus there is no place to wash your hands and by the time you get to a place you may want to grab a hot dog from a street vendor, you have forgotten what may lay in the grooves of your finger prints and even do the unthinkable and lick your fingers...Yuck.
If I had hand sanitizer along I could freshen my hands immediately while I was grossed out with vivid images in my head.

Important things to remember for the next trip

1. If I did not have my heart set on a specific show, I would wait and go to the TKST ticket booth on Broadway in Times Square and get tickets for 1/2 price or less..... We talked to people who did that and got good seats real cheap. You may not have a lot of choice but you will get to see some play and really there are no bad plays on Broadway.

2. Bring a good piece of elastic that I could tie around Harvey's forehead with Gladys attached, then I could just punch in the address we wanted and she would tell us where to turn and I would not have to keep looking up at street signs ( Just joking, but I really really loved the GPS)

3. Remember to bring a good set of ear phones for the plane. They do sell them for $3.00 and West Jet's are 100% better than Air Canada's but one's own I-Pod or Walkman ear phones will fit. All the planes now have built in TV's into the back of the seat in front of you and they do put in time. You can even rent a movie for $1.99 by running your credit card through the reader.

4. Not to worry about having a couple of good places to eat. We ate at 3 great restaurants but we spent about $130 at each and that was with out alcohol. Yes they were very good but we could have eaten at many small places or deli's on any street you walked down. The deli's are really like a combination buffet and confectionery. You can get hot, cold, ready made up or mix and match from the display cases. Breakfasts, lunch or dinner... Every thing was good and you could tell most of the New Yorkers were eating there. Yes it is nice to sit down in a formal place,with fancy eye appealing meals but also expect fancy prices plus the 15 - 20% tip.
This would be one way to cut back on what one spends.

5. Cut back again on clothes. Even though I had taken 1/2 what I had planned, we seemed to wear the same things over and over as they were comfortable. One pair of shorts or casual pants and one pair of dress pants would have been plenty. Of course they should be in a dark color in case of spills. Unless you are travelling with others, you know no one, and no one knows you, so who cares....

6. Remember to pack more "mole skin". If you don't know what that is, it is like a thick spongy bandaid that you can cut to what ever size you want....a life saver when blisters appear on one's feet or just hot spots from walking so much. I had blisters on the bottom of both my feet and after putting on the mole skin I could walk miles the next day.

7. Try not to arrive at the airport 3 - 4 hours before flight time. Even the suggested 2 hours is way more that is needed usually. They have the security check down to a science and seem to have set up so many more check points. Also do not go to your gate until 15 mins before boarding time unless your gate is a mile away. If you do you spend 2 hours sitting in a cold, sterile area looking at others who are looking at you in the same boredom. Look at a map of the terminal and you will know how long it will take to get to your gate......
Now that all changes if you have a laptop with you as who could be bored with that on your lap.
Oh with a GPS and lap top...life would be so much better lol

8. Dress warmer for the plane. They keep it way colder than need be and the wind blowing from everyone else's little ceiling blower makes it very uncomfortable. You can ask for a blanket from the flight attendant but it is as thin as a Klennex and very very small. I put one on one shoulder and it helped a little.

9. Take taxi's more often. They are very reasonable even with the tip and the energy and time one saves allows you to do more for a longer time.

10. Take city tours as they give you a good overview of all important sights and then allows you to decide where to go and see more in depth. The guides are professional and always have some inside stories to add to the tour.

11. Do not take up dress clothes. No one dresses up any more....not even for fancy restaurants, or the theatre. Oh yes the locals dress up but the tourists certainly do not. No shorts would be the only stipulation for some places.

12. Plan, Plan, Plan.......Google, Google Google before you go. Copy the maps on Google and put in your favorite things you might like to see. Some cities like New York can be googled and go to street level where you can walk and look at the buildings, hotels, restaurants etc. If you have a good idea, where you want to go and how to get there you can just go and do your thing and not look like the typical tourist with a big map in one hand and a big Fodors tour guide in the other......

Just a few pictures

Our "beautiful" 8 x 8 room at the Mayfair where wall paper and curtains were matching, with about 2 feet around the bed to walk in, but a comfortable bed and pillows. One did not open curtains as the windows had 60 years of smog attached I am sure......Very similar to places we stayed in Europe..... Cheaper than big hotels and only 1/2 a block to Broadway and Times Square.

Early morning outside the Letterman Theatre

Harvey outside Rupert Gee's Hello Deli from Letterman fame...no that is not Rupert wiping tables in the window.

New York skyline. The tall grey flat topped building in the middle is right behind where the twin towers of the WTC stood before 9/11 and where the Freedom Tower will be built

Projected design of Freedom Tower

Cheryl standing in Times Square on Broadway singing "Give my regards to Broadway"

......Dreams unfulfilled ...SC Little Theatre....but never Broadway lol.

Looking at the construction of the New Yankee Stadium

Harvey standing in the Yankee dugout looking out toward left centre field where monument park honors all of those who have stood on the same step he is standing on....the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra and todays Derek Jeter.

Dreams unfulfilled .....SC Indians but never the Majors

Self explained

Day 5

We slept in a bit and then packed our car and got Gladys out of the trunk and ready to go. We stopped in Brooks to eat and Medicine Hat to try to find a linen cupboard we want...found it but could not get into our car. We got to Swift Current and washed our car that was still covered with mud from our Day 1 trip on the back roads to Gull Lake. Gladys then led us east as she seemed to know exactly how to get to Karen and Ken's. The kids were waiting on the front step waving to us and we were glad to see them again. They seem to grow when we don't see them for a week. They also are getting smart as they knew the bag we were carrying had something in there for them. Karen had a nice supper ready and we spent a couple of hours there before heading to the lake. We are unpacked and the first load of dirty clothes is in the wash..... Now off to bed...Ah sweet pillow, nothing like one's own bed.
Stay tuned for my top 12 things that I would or would not do the next time........

Day 4 continued

The last part on Day 3 was written in a big hurry as the cyber cafe was late opening up. It was to open at 11 and I was there as well as a couple of others waiting. A elderly lady walked up leaning on her cane....she exclaimed "That damn girl is not here again" I recognized her as "Madeline the Crepe Lady", the lady who worked in the cyber cafe at the lunch counter. As we waited for the girl to come open up she told me all about the girl, she was no good, lazy, won't do anything she is told, only 17, has 6 month old baby and her mother kicked her out......as well as a few other choice words she had for her. She said she was going to phone the boss and have her fired. She was getting herself so stressed over losing customers as many just walked away. I told her it was not good for her own health to get so upset, she said "Yes I guess at 83 it may be time for me to retire" She then went on to tell me what terrible condition the U.S. is in, and if Obama is elected the country will explode. I did not say anything, because I like Obama and I did not want her to attack me with her cane, I told her I did not know anything about American politics.
At 11:30 the "horrid girl" arrived and opened up and got the PC's working. I wrote what I could and then hurried to get back to our room so we could check out at 12.
Our shuttle arrived at 12:30 and we had a very quick and much less stressful trip to the airport as traffic was much less and our driver was very nice. This time we even had air conditioning and seat belts lol.
We arrived at Newark airport at 1:00 and found that the WestJet desk would not open until 3 pm. What does one do with all their luggage as you can not leave them any where any more, so we all just put our luggage in the lineup and sat on the floor and waited. We luckily grabbed the only 2 seats near by to wait.
I had checked in on line and printed our boarding passes so when the clerks arrived we were through very quickly, and then had 2 hours to walk around the shops and have some supper. By this time it was pouring rain and almost looked like snow it was coming down so thick. We watched out the window as the luggage was being transported to the different planes and we figured they should be covered up.
We boarded on time but it took us about 45 mins to get into the air as they were so backed up with the rain. we arrived in Calgary at 9:30 and were quickly through customs and shuttled back to our hotel. We had left our car at the hotel as it was so much cheaper than the Park and Fly and we were glad to see that it was intact.
We got to our room and opened our suitcases to guess what?? Yep .. soaking wet clothes
That would not have been so bad but, a half bottle of orange coated Advil had come open and orange sticky spots were on a lot of our clothes. Aren't those bottles suppose to have child proof caps??? We cleaned up what we could and then had a lunch down in Moxies. Off to bed and had a great sleep.

Day 3

Up early and out walking down to 5th Ave and to Rockefeller centre where we went to the concourse below the buildings for a small breakfast and to do some people watching which they say is New York's favourite sport. We did a bit of shopping but found everything was so expensive if you could even find the kind of store you were looking for....Next we took the subway to Yankee Stadium for our 1 o'clock tour....We spent lots of time in the gift shop as it was cool,Harvey bought a T shirt.....
The tour was very informative as we went to the press box and heard lots of Yankee stories and also to the dug out where we sat and heard more stories and then to the dressing room where we were not able to take pictures but saw the tiny area that each Yankee had to get changed in and the story of one Yankee (Monson) who when he died ..his spot was never used again and is never used for storage. The subway back and the walk home doing a bit more touristy shopping.....
We did not have much time to get changed and walk the 8 blocks for supper at "Whym"
We had an excellent supper of chicken pot pie that they are famous for and the special of Maki Maki on sweet potatoe and the appetizer of ginger shrimp dumplings
Harvey and I have shared each thing we order so we get to try more things....
Then another walk to Lincoln Centre for "South Pacific" Wow another fabulous show which was a bit in the round so often the actors were only 6 feet from us. We had great seats only 4 rows for front. We taxied home and to bed by midnight.

Today our last day we walked a great distance but taxi home as a big parade was going down 5th Ave and we had no idea how to get across. All the side streets were packed with floats to get onto the parade route too
We are now to check out and hope that Hurricane Hanna aftermath does not keep us from flying tonight. It does not sound good right now but hopefully it will miss this area.....

2nd day continued

We met up with our tour guide for On Board Tours and were quickly on our way for our 5.5 hour tour of Manhatten. Due to a variety of traffic jammers happening here they had to change some of our routes and we did miss some of the things we were to see. We went through a lot of famous areas like 5th Ave, Brooklyn Bridge,Greenwich Village, Trump Tower and New York Library, we got out and toured around at the following:
New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street,
South Street Seaport
Rockefeller Center and Today Show Set
Took a ferry to Staten Island and passed by Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty,
went to World Financial Centre and went up to top floor and looked out over Ground Zero
Our bus guide was a man who had been in Bldg 6 when the towers came down and barely made it out. He was still very moved by it and had hard time talking about it but said this job where he had to talk was part of his healing. He explained all the new structures that are going up to honor those who lost their lives.
We got back a bit early as we could not go to Central park as they had a huge area blocked off for NFL free concerts with Usher etc to kick off the season. Today was the start of the US Tennis Open and that again caused traffic jams.
We had a short sleep and off for supper at Roberto Passons where we had too much, wonderful Italian food that took me back to my 10 days in Tuscany a few years ago.
Our theatre for "Wicked" was only about 1 block away and we were there early.It has been so very hot here and the humidity is very hard to handle. Wicked was superb!
The technology used (via Universal Studios) was undescribable and the acting was flawless. A short walk home and we were in bed by 11:00

Forget the Today Show

I told some of you that we were going to try to get on the Today show but with our body clocks still not quite on NY time, it would mean we would have to be up at 3 (our time)to get ready to line up by 6 am....nope not going to do it. We may wander that way but will not be in front row.....

Day One and half Day Two

After a short shuttle ride to the airport, we quickly went through security and walked to our gate where we thought we could get some breakfast. The door to Gate 34 was locked and we sat and waited out side it until it opened. We thought of walking the long walk back but we were sure the doors would open at any minute. We could see a Tim Horton's just beyond the glass doors and the glow from the muffins and donuts haunted us. We watched and waited while many more travellers walked up and shook the doors. Why did they think we were sitting there??
We were to board at 9:45.....at 10:20 the doors opened and 120 of us pushed forward and about half of us lined up at Tims. After being up since 5 am, the muffin AND donut tasted wonderful.
We quickly boarded and were in the air shortly. Great job Shannon in picking out seats.....
I think we were the only row that someone did not show up for their seat so we had 3 sets between us. Harvey quickly went into his usual flying position "sleep" and I watched TV and read... Of course since he sleeps I get double of the snacks they give you.....Wow 14 pretzels instead of 7....could they make the bags any smaller lol. Four hours later we neared Newark New Jersey but we had to circle for 1 hour before they would let us land....I was afraid we would run out of fuel as I figured with the high cost of gas, they probably didn't completly fill up......
We finally landed, quickly got our luggage and phoned for our reserved "Super Shuttle"
I had read on the forums that they were not very dependable and to avoid them at all costs. This was after I had paid for it on the web. They arrived with in 15 ins and we were crammed into the van. We were so crowded I did not even have a seat belt and my legs hung down in the step to get in. I think the driver was Haitian the way he layed on the horn, made many very close cut offs and yelled at a few drivers etc. The traffic was bumper to bumper most of the time and when he did get a little break he would be going 100K's ...It was a very very scary ride into Manhatten and we were glad to arrive at our hotel at 7:30.. We checked in and found our little room to be just fine. It was no luxury and we had to take turns walking around the end of the bed but it was fine. After staying at many B abd B's and small hotels in Europe , this was very similar. We quickly unpacked and then went down to walk down Broadway into Times Square.
Massive other tourists doing the same but very interesting to see all the huge electronic bill boards and massive lights. It felt more like daylight.....Our big excitment of the night was meeting up with a big ELMO.....We tried to take our picture with him for Mya and Aiden (he is their hero) but with the phone camera it was pretty dark.....
We went into lots of big stores like the worlds biggest Toys are Us, Herseys, and the MTV store which is down stairs from MTV studios. We then went for supper at Frankie and Johnnies ( an old speakeasy that is just as it was in the 20's. The steak was at least an inch thick and the size of a platter..Wow and at 10 at night it was not the best to do as I had a pretty uncomfortable night.....Then having to wake up at 6:30 to get going again today (which was actually 4:30 am by or body clocks) we were two dumpy tourists.
We headed out to Broadway again, had breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner, a neat 50's style diner where the waiters and waitresses sing......It was a fun way to start our day. We then walked a block to David Letterman Theatre to see the people already lining up for tickets and around the corner to Rupert Jee's Hello Deli.....we looked into the windows but Rupert was not there...... so we left lol lol to be continued.........

Travel to Calgary

We were up early to depart for Calgary after a beautiful two days of rain. The conversation went like this...Harvey: "I don't think we should go the short way via Gull Lake because remember the time we went after the big snowfall and we drove through slush and slipped all over the road."
Cheryl: "Oh Harvey that was in the winter ..this was just rain and it won't bother the gravel."
Well guess who won? Yep me! Guess who was right? Yep Harvey!
The road was terrible covered in pot holes of water and we slipped around at 40K an hour......
We saved many miles but took much longer than if we went by SC.
Poor Harvey had me yelling as well as Gladys telling him to go a different way. We were never so glad to see # 1 highway. After that the trip was super even though when we tried to stop in Medicine Hat to find a car wash Gladys started yelling at Harvey again..... Oh I guess I forgot to tell you, Gladys is our name for the nice lady in the GPS that entertained us from time to time.
After our last trip to Calgary where we got lost for 1.5 hours, Ken let us borrow his GPS.
Wow was it great going into Calgary and down to Shirley's place. (Harvey's sister). It made it so simple but it took me awhile to trust Gladys as I was looking at the map and thought I knew better. Sometime I questioned her routes but she came through like a charm.
We had a good visit all afternoon with Shirley and caught up on all the family news. We went to check in at our hotel here at the Sandman and had supper at Moxies, ......now an early night as we need to be at airport by 7:30 Good night

Day before we leave on our trip

Tomorrow we will be leaving for Calgary to fly to New York for a short holiday. We picked up a West Jet flight that was 75% off and so we could fly to New York cheaper than to Alberta, of course some of the things we have planned are certainly more expensive than visiting my sister in Alberta.
We are staying at a small cheap (for New York) boutique hotel http://www.mayfairnewyork.com/. I love the name "boutique hotel" which translates to really mean a bit of a "dive" hotel. We are in the room so little and all reports on the forums say the bed is good and clean but no other extras. The elevator is small and only 2 can go in it. But the luxury is that it is 1/2 a block off Broadway and about 2 blocks to Times Square. We will be seeing "Wicked" http://www.wickedthemusical.com/ and also South Pacific" and a tour of Yankee Stadium before they tear down "the house that Ruth built". We are also taking a short city tour ( 5 1/2 hours) that will take us to Central Park, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Statue of Liberty etc. We will do lots of walking and experincing for ourselves a bit of the touristy New York, maybe another time we can get to some other areas.
I know lots of people that go back again and again to the Big Apple once they have experienced it. We shall see.

Welcome to my World

I have always liked to write and have finally decided that a blog may be the way to start..... maybe next a novel. This will be a way for me to record some of my thoughts on things that happen in my life and those who are important in my life can read it if they so wish. You may not always agree with me and that is ok, that is what makes this wonderful world interesting...different ideas from different sources melding together helping to broaden our minds. I will also use this blog to journal our travels that we make as we enter the autumn of our lives....Retirement is wonderful, so few demands on our time, the ability to do just the things we like to do and time to travel on short notice. Now I need to get a lap top so I can jounal as we travel, but for now I will write while at home and use cybercafe's while away.
Stay tuned and I hope you enjoy the peeks into my mind...even though I know that may be scary to some of you.