Ride with me to clear your mind!

There's nothing like a long motorcycle ride to clear your mind of burdens. As the road opens before you, your mind also opens and lets out the bad energy to allow the good energy to flow in with the wind rushing past you.

When you're feeling particularly despondent and stressed as I was after dropping my youngest off for her first year of college, no ordinary motorcycle ride will do. No, it must be a long one on a beautiful day. Fortunately for me, Saturday was just that.

We headed south to visit my son. To get to him, we take highway 281 which runs along the edge of the Nebraska Sandhills. The highway is in good shape, and it doesn't get much traffic since it runs through sparsely populated towns that are set far apart.

As we rode, I kept thinking about the expanse of the land that stretched off all around me, comparing that to my trip to Manhattan earlier this summer. Manhattan is wonderful, but it covers an area roughly 13 miles long and 2 and a half miles wide, which makes it not quite 23 square miles. The Nebraska Sandhills are 19,300 square miles!! 

On my Saturday ride, I traversed 13 mile stretch after 13 mile stretch without seeing a single person (other than my boyfriend on his bike behind mine), a single house, a single vehicle, or even a single cow. And I was only on the very edge of the hills -- the rest reach across the state for over 250 more miles.

That open and uncluttered space was what I needed to release the sadness I'd been feeling. Out with the bad, in with the good -- as some old saying goes.

We rode along with only the roar of our bikes as company, the road leading us down its seemingly endless path. The hills rolled beside us, and they were resplendent with wild yellow sunflowers in bloom everywhere.

As I crested one low hill, my eyes momentarily deceived me, and I thought I was approaching the ocean, but then I realized it was a field of alfalfa all abloom with its bluish-purplish flowers. As the plants swayed in the breeze, it certainly created the illusion of waves lapping gently at the shore.

I kept thinking, too, as I really looked out over the land, that if it weren't for the highway cutting through the hills and the line of utility poles occasionally running alongside it, I could very well be seeing this land the way the Native Americans once saw it -- virtually untouched.

I'm not usually a big fan of the Nebraska Sandhills simply because they are such a lonely place; however, just as a rainy day or a Christmas snowfall can be comforting, so can these hills to a mom who has just watched her last child leave home. The hills and their gentle simplicity along with their everlasting quality gave me peace of mind that all would be fine.

So, I rode for hours that day, stopping to see my son and have lunch with him. He's starting his first year as a P.E. teacher and head coach. My daughter is starting her first year as a college student. I'm starting my first year without them. It's hard, but I'll keep rolling -- on and on, like those Sandhills.

Roam With Me -- NYC from the Today Show to St. Patrick's Cathedral to the Brooklyn Bridge and the Strand Bookstore -- June 12-13, 2017

Now for the last two full days we spent in New York City. The final day was the 14th, and only the early part was spent in Manhattan at my favorite clothing store, New York and Company, where I scored 4 items for the price of 1! After that, we were at LaGuardia awaiting our flight home (which got cancelled, so they sent us to Des Moines instead of Omaha, and my dad had to drive five hours to come get us!), and that time was not enjoyable in the least, so that's all I'm saying about that last day.

As to the two leading up to it, they were great ones full of more adventures and sightseeing.

On the 12th, Kim and I got up early and let my kids sleep in while he and I headed over a few blocks to Rockefeller Center where they film the Today Show. Now, I seldom watch it, but he's been a longtime fan of the show, so we decided to go see if we could actually become part of the crowd of waving people you always see outside of the show on TV. Turns out it was a really simple thing to do.

We were walking along West 50th Street, keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of the show, and about the time I was saying something like, "It should be around here somewhere," we suddenly came upon an opening with a cop standing by a movable barricade, and when I said something like, "Well, I'll be, here it is," she asked, "You guys coming in?" I told her we wanted to, and she pointed us to the next building and told us to go through it, come out the other side and enter from the other street side, so we did.

We had to pass through a quick security check, but it was very quick, and then we were inside the blocked off area. Since we had arrived after 7:00 a.m., we didn't get into the main group of people -- we probably could have, but I didn't feel the need to push our way in there -- but we had a front seat sort of view of a grilling area they were going to be using later in the show. We also were in the shade of the building there which was really nice because it was already a hot morning. 

Turns out the grilling segment was in honor of Father's Day, which was coming up, and there were about 12 fathers from the area who had been chosen to come grill with a famous chef  -- I had to look it up on the Today Show archives to find out, but it was Tim Love for anyone of you who know who that is. So, we got to stand there and watch the crew get a bunch of grilling stations ready, and we also were able to see Al, Savannah and Hoda and some other people who are on the Today Show come outside for part of the show. Again, I don't watch the show, so I'm not totally up on who all those people are, but their guest was Seth Meyers.

I've watched a few of the videos in the Today's archive of that day, and I saw myself a couple of times. Since there was a delay of an hour to when it was airing back home, I was able to text my mom and let her know where to look for us and when. She said she saw us quite a few times, including once when the cameraman came by quickly for all of us to wave. It was a fun experience overall, but we definitely got to see how the crew takes forever to set up a segment that then runs about five minutes -- and those men never did get their steaks grilled, but they all did get a brand new grill out of the experience!

After we left the show, we walked over to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was another place high on Kim's list of sites he wanted to see. He's Catholic; I'm not religious, but I do enjoy visiting beautiful cathedrals around the world, and that is definitely a pretty church.

He took a moment to light some candles for special people, and he paused to kneel at the main altar. I quietly looked around and respectfully took a few photos -- no flash -- of some of the most beautiful aspects of the church. It is truly a lovely place. 

Then we went to my kind of place -- a Harley-Davidson dealer. Woohoo. I bought a black t-shirt that depicts the NYC skyline, and I got another poker chip for my slowly growing collection.

However, while we were there I had perhaps one of the funniest bathroom experiences of my life. Most stores won't let you use the restrooms or claim they don't have one at all (yeah, right), but by this time I needed a restroom, so I asked the clerk if I could please use their restroom before I started looking. He looked me up and down, saw I was already wearing a H-D t-shirt and then said in what I thought was a deep Russian accent, "For you, make exception." He then pointed to a narrow door and told me where the light switch was located. I opened the door to find a long and very narrow room with a toilet whose bowl faced sideways and almost touched the opposite wall. I literally had to climb over it to get to the sink at the back of the long room. It was weird. I later asked the clerk where he and the other clerk were from when I overheard them speaking to each other in a language that sounded Russian to me. Turns out he was from Azerbaijan, and the other guy was from the country of Georgia. Anyway, I'll never forget my visit to that Harley store!

One of the main places I wanted to visit was the Strand Bookstore, and it was on our list for the next day, but I knew there was a kiosk on the corner by Central Park, so we walked over there to check it out. I got a couple books there, but I saved my main browsing for tomorrow at the actual store.

Then it was time to go get my kids. Look how much we'd accomplished while they'd slept in!

Our first stop all together after lunch was Nike Town for my son, the sports' nut. This is a five story building full of everything Nike. He was in heaven. He got the new LeBron shoes and a pair of red shorts, the color of the school where he'll be teaching. The store has a special shoe elevator that sends up the size of shoes you need to try on after the sales clerk calls down to let somebody in the basement know. 

We stepped into Trump tower, but we didn't see a lot there. It was just to say we had more than for any other reason. 

Then we went to the main branch of the New York City library -- the famous one with the lions out front and with the beautiful Rose Reading Room. So cool. It is high on my list of places to revisit someday when I'm alone, so I can just go in there and sit for a few hours and read. 

Bryant Park is behind it, and it has special reading areas with books available as well. That's a place I'd be spending many a free day sitting and reading if I lived in NYC.

We walked around a bit more and wandered back through Times Square, stopping at a few stores. One was the M & M giant store where another funny thing happened. My daughter and I were paying for our purchases, and two of the clerks were wrapping our mugs in lots and lots of paper. They asked us where we were from, and I told them. They seemed really surprised when I said, "Nebraska," so I thought I'd surprise them even more. I told them that my town has about 1500 people in it, and they couldn't believe it. Then I told them there was a town nearby with only one person in it. The one lady's eyes got really big, and then she exclaimed, "Naw, you all are shittin' me!" I assured her I wasn't, but from then on, anytime we've been surprised by something, we look at each other and say in our best Southern drawl, which she had, "Naw, you all are shittin' me!" 

Supper that night was at an Irish Pub near the hotel where I ordered Bangers and Mash. Turns out that's just sausages and mashed potatoes, but I didn't know that until after I'd ordered it. Oh well.

The last full day in NYC started with a long subway ride across to Brooklyn -- meaning we passed under the East River, which was weird to realize, but otherwise uneventful. We met up with Jakub again for the day in Cadman Park, and from there we headed up to the pedestrian walkway across the iconic bridge. 

It's only one mile across, so it's not a big deal to walk it. The biggest thing is making sure to not accidentally step in the path of the numerous bicyclists crossing the bridge on the same walkway -- walkers and bikers each have their own sides, but some of the bikers really come whizzing by, so you still have to be careful.

I loved the views from the bridge and looking up at the structure of the bridge. 

Once across, we were in the heart of the heart of NYC. City Hall was right in front of us, and numerous other important government buildings were all around the area. 

We found a nearby pizzeria and had our cheapest meal of our stay in NYC. It was a large pizza that easily fed all five of us -- with drinks, it came to about 35 dollars!

Then we walked through Chinatown and Little Italy, which seems to have been overtaken by Chinatown making it perhaps Even Littler Italy? The day was really hot by then, so we cooled off a little in Washington Square Park before we headed to the store I'd long been anxious to see -- the Strand!

It's a three story bookstore which sells both new and used books along with some quite rare ones. It boasts 18 miles of books, and I believe it. I spent a couple hours there, and I would have stayed longer, but I hated to keep the rest waiting much more. 

I bought five books there, a Strand tote bag, some postcards and a New Yorker magnet for my refrigerator collection. Here are my book purchases for those interested: "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead to add to my full Pulitzer Prize winners of fiction collection; "Thirty Stories" by Kay Boyle, an out-of-print 1946 edition; "Mildred Pierce" by James M. Cain; "The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs" by Nick Trout, which I started reading on the plane ride home and quickly finished later; "New York Stories: Everyman Pocket Classics," which I bought because I just had to, and then the two I'd bought at the Strand kiosk by Central Park were "The Revenant" by Michael Punke, and "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" by Alice Munro.

After we left the store, we walked and walked all the way back to the hotel, passing the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Garden.
The giant blister on my foot was testament to the amount of walking we'd done over the past few days, but it was well worth it. 





New York, thanks for the memories. 

Roam With Me -- NYC from Hell's Kitchen to a Yankees game to Central Park -- June 10-11, 2017

We awoke today much more refreshed because we'd broken away from the large group last night, checked into the Sheraton NYC Times Square, had a good night's sleep and woke up on our own time instead of the group's time. 

Additionally, it was Kim's 60th birthday, and we had a fun day planned for it doing two things especially for him -- lunch in the Hell's Kitchen area and a night game at Yankee Stadium!

Knowing that 9th Avenue between West 54th Street and West 42nd Street was the main strip of restaurants in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, we headed over there to check them out. It was a warm morning, so we stuck to the shady side of the street and crossed over whenever a restaurant caught our eye. 

After walking most of the blocks, we decided on a place called Dalton's Bar and Grill, and we're really glad we did. Our waitress was a very nice young lady, and since the place wasn't busy yet, she was able to be even more attentive to us, and we asked her about her favorite parts of the city. She said she was from New Jersey originally, but that she lived in Queens now, so that meant her commute was 40 minutes by subway. She couldn't believe it when I told her my commute was about 2 minutes by car! We discussed prices, and she said that a few Midwesterners she's met have been surprised by the cost of a single beer in a NYC bar -- 6 dollars -- and asked us what the cost was back in Nebraska. When we said anywhere from 2-3 dollars, she was amazed. We were pleasantly surprised by her and her friendliness and wondered if she were an anomaly, but as the remainder of our time in NYC showed us, most of the people there are actually very nice. 

We ate very excellent cheese steak sandwiches and flatbread pizza, and Kim and my son had Bloody Marys to celebrate his milestone birthday. I love a good Bloody Mary, but not at 11:15 in the morning, so I passed -- naturally, I had a sip. Yummy. 

After lunch, we walked over to the Times Square area to hit up the Modell's Sporting Goods store and the Yankees Store which are directly across from one another. We were looking to buy apparel for the game that evening, and we ended up finding everything we wanted in the Yankees Store even though Modell's had great stuff to offer as well. I bought a t-shirt because I'm just a t-shirt kind of gal, I got Kim a nice polo as part of his birthday gift, Trevor got a baseball cap, and Sam got a jacket with patches of all the Yankee championships sewed all over it. 

Then we headed back to the hotel, rested a bit and changed for the game. We had decided to head over to the stadium early because we wanted to beat the rush, and we wanted a little extra time to figure out the subway system on our own. It really wasn't very complicated, especially to get there from the subway stop that was right next to the hotel. From there, it was a straight shot up to the Yankee Stadium subway stop, so we were there in twenty minutes, if that. 

The new stadium is quite impressive, even to a non-sports' lover like me. A bit over the top, but pretty darn nice. We walked around most of the outside of it, and then we had to wait a little before they would actually let us in, so we went into the attached Hard Rock Cafe and had some appetizers.

Once they let us in the stadium, we still had to wait a bit longer before they opened the seating areas. A man took our photo, and I've looked at it online, but I'm not inclined to purchase it. I got more of a kick out of watching my son, the sports' nut, look around in awe and make comments about everything. 

We finally headed to our seats -- seats we'd purchased tickets to months ago based on an hour of comparing views of the field from various available seats throughout the stadium. Ours were up from first base in the second level of the stadium. We liked them a lot. 

Since we were there so early, we were able to sit back and watch the place fill up, see the players warm up, and even see ourselves on the big screen pre-game! 

The Yankees were playing the Orioles that day, and the Yankees kicked their ass 16-3. As I said, I'm not into sports at all, so to me, the score didn't matter for that reason, but since we'd gone through the trouble to buy Yankee apparel, and since my son, daughter and boyfriend were rooting for the Yankees, I'm awfully glad they won that day.

Leaving the stadium and getting back onto the subway turned out to be quite easy, too. It was just a bit more crowded this time. We had a late supper at the Stagecoach Irish Pub right across the street from the hotel, and we were served by an actual Irish waitress. Pretty cool. I slipped a little when I asked her what kind of pop they had, and when I saw the confusion go across her face, I quickly switched to the word soda. Turns out that word still confuses her because in Ireland they call them soft drinks!

So, our first day in NYC on our own was a great day, and the remaining ones turned out to be, too.

The following day, we had brunch reservations at Tavern on the Green in Central Park.

Like every meal we had in NYC, it was pricey -- for the four of us, it was one of only two meals we had that was under 100 dollars, and this one barely made the cut at 99 dollars -- but we knew that going in, and we had planned for it.

The brioche french toast I had was to die for! The menu said it came with strawberries, but it was my lucky day, and it came with blueberries that morning. I love blueberries!

I'd been really looking forward to a day in Central Park. This day was a bit on the hot side, but we didn't let that deter us. However, first I'd promised my daughter, who plans to be a paleontologist, a visit to the Museum of Natural History. 

We walked along Central Park West until we arrived at the famed museum. It is a massive place. 

We had made arrangements to meet up with Jakub, our Czech exchange student from two years ago, at the museum, so we were excited about that. He would be spending some time with us in the city, and then he'd be traveling to Nebraska to spend more time with us at home. 

After he arrived, we stayed in the museum for a couple hours and took in a 3-D Imax show about hump-back whales, too. My daughter was a bit disappointed in some of the exhibits, feeling that their information was not up-to-date with modern theories on dinosaurs, but she was still very impressed with the place as a whole and would love a chance to work or study there someday.

When we left, we just walked across the street and were in the park. Central Park is a half mile wide and two and a half miles long. They pack a lot into that space, just as all of Manhattan packs a whole lots of stuff into a space that is a mere two miles wide and thirteen miles long.

There are lovely winding trails that take you into densely wooded areas and up and down some pretty steep hills. It gave us a work out! We had specific places we wanted to see, and we also just wanted to take our time and soak in the place. 

We did manage to see Bow Bridge, Belvedere Castle, the Bethesda Fountain, the Mall, and the Balto statue -- however, for that one we had to be escorted to it for a photo only because a massive Puerto Rico parade had just finished on that side of the park, and they were still clearing and cleaning the area. Crazy! The statue had been high on my daughter's list since she had loved that movie as a child, so fortunately we at least got to see it. 

We stopped often in our stroll through the park to get some shade from the intense heat, to get something to drink from the vendors and to just people watch. We were in the park for hours, and we didn't come close to seeing even one-fourth of it! I can't wait to go back someday. Here are just a few of my photos of Central Park. I really enjoyed seeing in person these places that I've seen in so many movies.

That evening we revisited the Hell's Kitchen area and ate at Southern Hospitality, a BBQ restaurant owned by Justin Timberlake. My son said his baby back ribs were the best he'd ever eaten in his life. He was in rib heaven!

We strolled over to the Hudson River which was just a couple blocks away, and we viewed the Intrepid all lit up. It's a massive battleship that is now a museum. We'll save seeing the interior for another trip.

Thus ended our second, and perhaps my favorite, day in NYC. If you can, go to NYC. It's really an amazing place.