The WJ hotel has a regular wake up call around 9am, works pretty well--having the maid banging on your hotel room door is pretty effective at waking ya up outta bed.
But, we got up and with the rain and all the low hanging clouds we decided to skip out on the Statue of Liberty and check out a few of the other sights like Central Park and Rockefeller Center. An old family friend of my dad's turns out to live just a couple of blocks from where we're staying here on 51st, Patty Murray.
I was thinking maybe we could grab some lunch with her and get a few pointers...heck no! She fit us into our schedule and met us at the hotel and walked us around a few blocks pointing out some good places to grab some food, the different clubs that her and her husband play at (bummed we'll be gone when he get's to play the jazz club) and explaining to us which trains to grab to get to the different places we want to go. She was super nice, a lot of fun, and went out of her way to be way more than helpful. A cool chick.
We grabbed some lunch at a lil deli/grocery store and picked up a few snacks and drinks to tide us over till dinner sometime later.
It was a relatively short walk up to Central Park, and you know you're getting close when you see the little bit of green from the trees peaking out around the corners of a couple of towering skyscrapers.
About the time we arrived the rain really started picking up, and I could say that wanting to escape the rain was the reason for taking a spin on the famous Central Park Carousal....but, we would have done that anyway! lol
From there we wandered around the park, taking the less used "Ramble" path around the lake, over the bridges and finally down The Mall to the Central Park fountain. This famous landmark had at least a half dozen artist painting the scene with their watercolors or charcoal, I made sure to set a good pose so that I would be a pillar of perpetuatud and magnanimousity. Hahahahaa...
From there it was a short walk to Strawberry Field and the John Lenin memorial they have there, we rolled up just in time to catch a bit of the tour from a group outta Wisconsin... I was tempted to ask if they had any cheese curds to snack on, don't knock it! Those things are damn tastey.
With Patty's advice fresh on our minds, we were able to catch the subway from Central Park all the way down to 50th street and Rockefeller Center. 20 plus blocks in about 3 minutes, not bad for $2, and waaaaaaaaaay better than hoofing it.
Stopping for lunch at Qdoba ( I was craving one of those super huge burritos), we pulled up a seat at the dining counter at the front window. The food was good, but it we didn't know we were going to get dinner AND a show! With out having to leave the comfort of our seats we got to see an "authentic" NYC mugging! I bet there are tourist who would have paid good money to see that. lol. The mugger wasn't what I would have expected, he was camaflauged well in his slacks and polo, but the give away should have been his well treaded shoes. He wasn't good enough to lift the wallet w/out getting felt, BUT he was strong enough to wrestle away and out run both the mark and a couple of the hotel security guards. Ah, day 2 in the big city! lol
The night was set for a relatively relaxing time full of laughs at the Comic Strip down on 2nd avenue. It was a good crowd and some really good comics, though, there were a couple of comics that were killing the crowd and got pulled rather quickly, but I have to say, if you get a chance, you ought to go, I can't evcen come close to doing it here.....lol although, when one of the comics was asking the crowd where everyone was from--there's no way I was going to mention Kentucky, that's like leaving a fat hanging curve ball for the guy, it's just too easy! Unfortunately the kid from Indiana wasn't that quick thinking....lol, but my "Hooooosier daddy!" comment came right at one of those unexpected silences, what can I say, I got a couple of laughs at a New York comedy club. ;-)
With plans to meet up with Russel and Liddy in the morning to tour the Statue of Liberty, me and James called it an early night and headed back to the hotel, yet another exciting and unique ride in a NYC cab, I have to say, it's about the same kind of excitement of a class 4 or 5 white water rafting trip, there's just enough safety but just enough doubt that keep that adrenaline going!
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