We were all slow moving this morning, and we slept through our first alarm. Yikes! But a quick shower and we're back to hotel breakfast! This is our first Hyatt on this trip, so there's a little little variety - no waffles or pancakes, but there are little hasbrown round things. I know you don't care, I don't even really care, but it's something different so I decided to throw it in here.
Back to the subway! More stroller, more stairs, more sweat. The great joys in life. This time, we headed back to our last spot last night, Times Square. We hit up the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where they show Hamilton. "K" is a huge " Hamilfan", and the show was playing in a few of the cities we've gone to on this trip, but unfortunately not on a night we were in those cities. We stopped for a few quick pictures and to see if they had a store (they do, but only on nights when they're performing - d'oh!) before heading over to M&M World. We didn't go into M&M World, that's where our Big Bus tour takes off from.
Big Bus is a fun little sight seeing hop-on/hop-off tour bus that we've done a few times in the past in Europe and a few US cities. They give out headphones and play a little GPS-linked recording talking about the sights nearby and some of the history of the area, or the city as a whole. "A" was quite grumpy today and flat out refused to participate, so he just sat there fighting with his little brother while the rest of us learned about the city. I couldn't get a very good picture, but there was a super fun little van (complete with roof-mounted pizza) advertising the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. We looped around Manhattan and down past the financial district to the World Trade Center area where we got off.
We walked across the street, past the Oculus (which is essentially just a fancy mall) and over to the 9/11 Museum. I still remember where I was when I first found out, I still remember watching news coverage of it all day in school, I still remember watching the towers fall. I don't think I'll ever forget some of the fear, disgust, pain, and sadness that event has imparted in me and likely so many other people. It was important to "K" and I to go see this, and the memorial, and pay our respects to those affected by the tragedy. We skipped the most upsetting part of the museum, dedicated to the attacks themselves because they're not recommended for children 10 and under, but it was impactful enough for the adults without it. However, for the kids, I think they just saw it as a really weird, confusing collection of damaged things and sad people.
We had a picnic lunch outside of the museum, gazed at the reflecting ponds filling the holes from the twin towers, and then hiked back to the subway. Next stop? The American Museum of Natural History, on the edge of Central Park. Stairs, stroller, stroller stairs, woo! The subway right by the museum is fun and has little "fossils" in the wall, and mosaic tile animals. We were all kinda dragging by this point and the complaints about tired little legs seemed unending. Let's just say we took a lot of breaks as we tried to power walk through the museum. This thing is colossal. It's 2.5 million square feet, across 5 floors. We got there a little over an hour before closing, so we had no hope of seeing it all, even if people had the energy to. But we did our best, and we managed to cover a decent amount of ground on 2 of the floors.
People were definitely falling apart by the end, and behaviors were worsening. The best solution? MORE WALKING!! We were right across the street from Central Park (which is itself enormous) so we went for a short little walk through part of it. We barely scratched the surface of the 840+ acres before turning down a path towards a playground. But not just any playground.. A playground named after the legendary lead singer of The Supremes, Diana Ross! The playground featured a water feature and sand (ew, but better than bark I guess) surrounding some pretty dated playground equipment. It was all wood and steel, and the wood had enormous cracks that had been filled in with silicone. But the kids didn't care, and they quickly forgot their tired legs. "K", "A" and I looked on from benches as the kids played tag and some of the wildlife (pigeons and rats) scurried about looking for scraps.
After about 20 minutes, we packed up and headed back across the street towards the subway. To cap off our trip to this fine city, we hit up another staple of the New York City diet: food from a cart on the street. And not just any food, but what I've decided to call "Highway Robbery Hot Dogs". I know I'm at least partially to blame for not asking for the price first, but we got 6 hot dogs, passed them out (and the kids promptly started eating them) before he told me the price was $50. On what planet should hot dogs be more than $8 each? Not a planet I'm from, but I guess anything goes in NYC. It's like the $12 beer in the football stadium or something, you're a captive audience so they can charge whatever they want. It certainly made the hot dog harder to swallow.
More subway. More stairs. And yes, more stroller. 2 different lines and a 7 minute walk (because we came out from a different station than yesterday) and we were back in our room. We finished about an hour earlier than yesterday, but we started out about 3 hours earlier. Despite that, we only clocked 15,392 steps today. But 32,000 steps over 2 days isn't bad!