I Love New York - Part 5 - The Trip Home

On Saturday morning, we awoke to bright sun coming through the windows in an otherwise almost empty apartment. We slept on an air mattress, and while it would not be my choice of a place to sleep often, it was nice sharing it with my daughter and waking up next to her. The window in the pic is one of two, side by side, and they don't look it here, but they are about 4' wide and 8'tall. The ceilings were 10' in that apartment.

The moving company had come the day before. It took them five hours to pack and load her furniture and personal effects. That sounds reasonable until you learn that the apartment was less than 1000 square feet. I could have done it in 3.5 hours (if I had help to load it). The guys were nice, but way too slow at packing for me.

We got breakfast from the deli downstairs in her building. Can you imagine how convenient it is to go down 20 floors in the elevator and walk into a deli in which you can get a breakfast consisting of an English muffin and two eggs for $1.55? I probably would never move from such a place. Lunch was not quite so reasonable - but not expensive either!

The luggage cart owned by the building was large enough to get almost all of the leftover stuff on it, and we loaded it and then left for a while, to find a Kinko's and print our boarding passes for the plane. That being accomplished, we walked back, stopping first at Payless and Century 21 Shoes. Is there a female alive who can pass by a shoe store? I think not. Payless was having a buy-one-get-one-half-off-sale, which was music to our ears. I have previously not been able to wear shoes from there, due to having very narrow feet. But a little bout with daily edema has made my feet wider than usual, and the black-white-and-chartreuse Champion walking shoes made my poor tired feet feel energized and downright bouncy! That was worth the virtually miniscule $24.95, and my granddaughter benefitted by getting a pair at half the cost. Is it ordinary for a ten year old to wear women's size nine? I didn't think so (are we raising an Amazon?).

We lucked out by finding a place to park the car at the rear entrance to the apartment building, right beside the subway entrance (and a fire hydrant). That was especially fortuitous. I had visions of having to double-park as we loaded the car, and I DO mean loaded! My daughter's furniture and most of her clothes are going into storage for three months. She had to keep out what she expects to need between now and the time she gets the rest of her stuff delivered to (hopefully) a newly purchased condo. It was very hard to pack all that stuff into an SUV, but since I am an expert - we got it all in and had a little room to spare. My mom could pack $15 worth into a thimble, and she taught me how to do it as well.

When we left the apartment, we drove around the city for a while so I could take photos, especially the theater marquee of The Color Purple. We left Manhattan through the Holland Tunnel, and slowly wound our way through NJ, DE, and MD, going to the Baltimore Airport. My daughter was dropping us off there, and then she was going on to her final destination.

We called Mr. kenju, who insisted we had to be at the airport 2 1/2 to 3 hours before the flight, or we would not be able to get through security in time. He predicted that we would have to get a hotel room, since we were so late getting into MD. I am happy to report that we got to the airport only one hour before the flight was scheduled to take off (and found it had been delayed 15 minutes). We checked our luggage and sailed through security, being the only 2 people there, and found our departure gate quickly. I jumped to be the first in line (Southwest allows you to pick your seat) and we were lucky enough to get the bulkhead seats; window and center. My granddaughter was ecstatic at being able to see out the window and have room for our long legs (and feet)! The flight was smoooooooth and uneventful, and we landed only a few minutes later than expected. So much for long lines and security snafus! I guess Saturday night is not prime time for flying.

Note: there will be only one more NYC post, with miscellaneous photos. I promise!