Day 3

So, we woke up on our last morning in the city and I had two things that I wanted to get done.  I wanted to see the LDS temple, and I wanted to walk through Central Park.  Mike had a few things he wanted to not do...he didn't want to walk as much as we had walked the day before, and he didn't want to ride the subway.  Since that conflicted with my plans, we had to come up with a new plan.  Mike was an easy mark for all the guys who were trying to sell the city bus tours.  They all took one look at him and decided that he was a tourist who was done walking.  He convinced me to let him take one of the bus tours that takes you all over the city on a double decker open top bus.  We got one that could take us uptown or downtown.  You could supposedly hop on or off at any point in the tour.  

It was pretty cool at first.  We checked out all there was to see from a comfortable perch on the top of a double decker bus.

Even though I haven't read this play, I couldn't pass up a chance to photograph Harry Potter's name on a billboard.  :)

  

We drove by some cool things...

 ...then, I wanted to get off so we could see St. Patrick's cathedral.  We only had 10 minutes till the next bus, so we rushed in and out of the cathedral.

We also speed walked passed the Lego store...

Then, we ran into some trouble.  We missed the bus by seconds.  Then, we waited a really long time for the next bus.  We finally learned that we needed to walk to another bus stop in order to catch one in the next hour.  That meant that Mike's request for the day (to not walk as much) was tossed out the window.  I watched the minutes slip by and I was getting really bummed.  I knew we needed to pick up our rental car in a few short hours and we also had to check out of our hotel.  I was afraid we weren't going to get to do all the things I wanted to do.

Just when I was about to go insane, we were able to hop on another bus.    

 I took this picture because it's in a book that I read to the kids all the time.  When Trixie and Sonja got their Knuffle Bunnies switched, they exchanged them in this part of the city...at this very fountain!  At least, that's what I thought when I took the picture.  But then, I came home and consulted the book, and found that I was wrong.  Still a cool place. 

 We also drove by more of Trump's buildings, and more cool churches.
I have to admit that it was interesting to listen to the little bits of information about the parts of the city we were driving through.  We also saw more than we could have seen on the metro.

Being on the top of the bus was cool.  This was in Harlem.

I could reach up and touch the lights.  I thought the kids would like that for sure.

 What they wouldn't have liked, and what I didn't like either, was getting stuck in traffic.  The ride that was supposed to be an hour was turning into a three hour fiasco.

Grr.  We finally got off and walked through the park.  That was one of the things I had wanted to do that day, so it should have been great.  What wasn't great was that we had to be back at our hotel in 30 minutes.  We were hungry and had half of Manhattan to cross.  We ate a really gross hot dog in the park and basically ran to the next corner to try and find a metro station.  We were really close to the temple by this time, but I was being too stubborn and was going to walk right past it.  Mike convinced me to walk a block up so we could see it and then he convinced me to go in.  I was glad he did because as soon as we walked through those doors, I felt the emotions of anger and frustration wash away and I let the peace of the temple permeate my soul. 

 It's crazy how you can see Angel Moroni standing as a beacon...in the middle of the rush of the city.

 The man at the front desk directed us to the subway and we made it back to our hotel in time.

 I know I mentioned it before, but Mike really didn't like the subway, but he rode it anyway.  It wasn't too bad.  No crazy guys named Steve.  We even caught a glimpse of some missionaries traveling in the other direction. 

It was a stressful but peaceful end to our time in the city.  When we were a few blocks away from our hotel, I saw some LDS missionaries.  I had thought of my friend Natalie the whole time we were there.  She served in the NY, NY South mission and came into the city on her p-days.  It was so great to see those elders.  I almost wanted to hug them.  I am so grateful for the missionaries who give two years of their lives to teach others the gospel.
There are millions of people in the city and I know those missionaries help so many of Heavenly Father's children.  It is so fun to see them out there.

We took an Uber out to the car rental place and got ready for the next leg of our journey...
As we waited in a super long line at the car rental place, I started to worry that we'd be there for hours.  It seemed like they had taken more reservations than they had cars.  The workers were really stressed out and the people in the lines were getting angry.  When the worker said "is anyone willing to take a minivan?"  Mike didn't hesitate a second.  He said "I'll take a minivan!  I've got 5 kids.  I have no shame in driving a minivan!"  The crowd laughed, and then they all watched jealously as we were processed and headed out the door.
We plugged some town in the middle of nowhere into the GPS and we took off.  We were driving along enjoying the beauty of all the views and Mike was finally relaxing now that he had some things in his control.  He liked knowing that we had our own wheels and could go wherever we wanted.  Song after song was coming on the radio that he liked and he was amazed that some station in New York City was playing such great songs.  As we crossed another cool bridge into New Jersey, Allison Kraus came on, playing a song from our wedding, and he just couldn't believe our luck at having such a great experience.  After a while, we discovered that the minivan had magical powers and was playing his favorite playlist on Pandora, but it was still so magical that we have to think there was some sort of divine intervention.  :)
We saw some beautiful countryside.  I couldn't believe that just a half hour out of the city we were out in the middle of nowhere.  There were really cool trains in one of the towns (one of my biggest picture regrets.  I should have turned around and taken the picture!).  The trees still had all their leaves, but they were still beautiful.  The rolling hills and gray rocky cliffs were just amazing.  We were loving every minute of that drive.  We stayed in Corning that night.
Next stop, Watkins Glen...