There's nothing like a bad summer cold to derail you from your blog-writing schedule (and your 4th of July plans as well, sadly). But alas, after three brutal days, I am feeling a bit better and ready to get on with memorializing our incredible trip to the East Coast.
Our second full day in New York was nothing like the first, thank goodness. No lost children, nor backpacks. No idle threats from Mom to catch the first plane home to Los Angeles. I would call that a successful day of travel with four kids.
We only had one venue planned for that day, basically, so it was much easier to manage (Mom took note of that for future trips as well). Our jet lag was a bit improved, as were Garin's subway navigating skills. So we were in good shape to enjoy our day at the American Museum of Natural History and Central Park. With my goal of planning the quintessential New York trip, both of these places were on our list of must-sees.
Day Three..
Any perfect day in New York begins and ends in Central Park, which ours did. We were running so ahead of schedule with our subway ride that we had a chance to take a brief morning stroll in the park before arriving at the museum for our 10 AM reservations.
The American Museum of Natural History. It beats out Disneyland, any day of the week!
I don't think if you had a week it would come close to being enough time to take in all the wonders this museum has to offer.
The Dinosaurs. This is the must-see exhibit within the must-see museum. The vast collection and massive size of these skeletons (or should I say fossils) is jaw-dropping. It was everything (and more) the kids had hoped it would be.
The prerequisite poses with some classic prehistoric giants.
Although we didn't get through many of the exhibits we did our best to see as many as time would permit. We enjoyed this one a lot which featured the African culture.
Since the museum cafe is closed indefinitely due to COVID (which turned out to be the case at almost all venues we visited), we had to venture out for lunch. We picked up Nathan's hotdogs right off the cart, took them across the street to Central Park, and enjoyed some time off our feet on one of those recognizable dark green Central Park benches. Perfection!
After lunch we returned to the museum to take in more. We really enjoyed the newly designed Hall of Gems. These were minerals, gems, etc. in their purest form. The colors, shapes and textures were wondrous.
In the Hall of Gems was also the brand new, but temporary, Beautiful Creatures jewelry exhibit. As a jewelry fanatic (who makes no qualms about hiding my obsession), I was in heaven, taking in these one-of-a-kind treasures.
Click here to see more on this exquisite exhibit:
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/beautiful-creatures
After spending the entire day at the museum we were ready for a little brain break. Good thing Central Park is right across the street. We walked through the park and took in all the sights, including this Puerto Rican roller skate dance party. Miles wasn't the slightest bit reticent to join in on the festivities. Watch this entire video to get a good laugh at Miles embracing the Puerto Rican sprit.
We came upon this gentleman blowing giant bubbles for the kids in the park and boy were they entranced.
It was a perfect day in the park, after a few hours of rain, just prior to us arriving. The weather was spectacular during the entirety of our stay in the city.
We ended our day with dinner at the iconic Loeb's Boathouse restaurant. We dined overlooking the boats and gondolas going by, with the New York skyscrapers in the background. It was a glorious evening.
With the weather as lovely as it was we decided to walk all the way back to our hotel as the sun set in the park.