My Big Apple Trip

Robert here.
I wanted to get in post about my short but fun trip to New York City.

My intention was to inundate you readers with cool pictures, but alas, I realized once I got to the hotel that I forgot our camera, so you'll just be getting a light smattering of small pictures from my phone's camera. This picture, to the left, is not one of those pictures.

It all started early on Sunday morning. I'm never really a fan of having to set my alarm on a Saturday night, but needing to be out the door by 8am, I didn't want to take a chance. My flight was at 10:30 so I figured I'd be fine. It wasn't going to be the full 2 hours I normally give myself, but it would be closer to one and a half hours, and it was a Sunday morning. How busy could it be?...(foreshadowing)
I parked, rode the Pikes Peak shuttle and arrived at the terminal to check in at about 9:10. I got in the United line (it wasn't terribly long, I've been in worse) and worked my way to the automated kiosks to check in and check my bag. I got up to the front at about 9:20 and attempted to scan my card to find my flight. It couldn't find it so I got out my itinerary and entered my confirmation number, still no dice, so lastly I punched in my frequent flyer number and when that still didn't work, the machine asked me to pickup the phone to speak to a representative. Weird, I thought, but I did it. I spoke to a nice man, who looked me up, found me in the system and said I would need to go over to the actual human counter to check in. I started to wonder if maybe I'd get bumped up to first class or at lease economy plus. (not a chance, btw) I went over to where the human manned counter was and waited in line a little longer, now it's probably 9:35 or so. I get up there and the nice woman informs me that my tickets were booked, but had not been issued. (Whatever that heck that means) She goes on to explain that this isn't an uncommon situation for government or military travelers because of problems with our government travel contractor. Go figure. She kindly hands me her phone so I can call the agency and ask them to issue my ticket. I call, wait on hold, finally speak to someone who tells me that my travel has been authorized but not approved and she can issue my tickets but cannot guarantee that I will be reimbursed for my expenses. I say go ahead and do it because I know my boss wants me there and since I had just changed jobs, thought that maybe the approval had just gone to my old supervisor instead of my new one. (Incidentally, I found out when I returned to the office this morning that there has been system wide problems for our travel agency stemming from the change in fiscal year and that is why the request for approval never got to my boss) As I looked up from the phone to the woman, she had a dour expression on her face and asked if I needed to check a bag, I said I did, and she grimaced because she said, "it's now 9:46 and we're beyond the 45 minute window to check bags." WTF I said, something similar to "But its just one minute" and she replied with "I'm sorry, but the computer locks me out." She asked to see my bag to see if maybe it would fit in the overhead as a carry on. Nope. I asked about gate checking it and she said it was too big to fit through the security x-ray machines, and she was right. WTF! I continue to stand there trying to figure out what my options were: 1) go buy an overpriced carry-on bag in one of the stores, cram my stuff into it and try to get my other bag back to my truck and get back in time. 2) ask about a later flight that day, which I wasn't super keen on because I wanted to get there while it was still light outside, or 3) ask about a flight tomorrow morning and miss some of my conference. As I pondered, she had been typing on her computer and then, blam, "Oh, we're in super luck, the flight just got delayed 20 minutes because of weather in NYC, I can check your bag." Hallelujah! I quickly headed to security, got some McDonald's breakfast and headed to my gate. I was probably the only person on this completely full flight that was happy about the delay but I was not missing my flight. This was about it for drama. Other than forgetting my camera, things were really smooth and fun. Let's dig in.....

I was staying at the Warwick New York Hotel. This happened to be caddy-corner from the Hilton that the conference was being held in, still had government rate rooms available when I booked my trip, and in all honesty, it just sounded really fancy. In reality, it wasn't the fanciest hotel I've ever stayed in (that honor belongs to the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C.) but it was still fancy and had that historically classical feeling. Small elevators coated in rich wood. A lobby that felt more like a huge living room instead of a railroad junction with halls leading in 20 different directions. The outside was an entirely brick facade with a tiered look that jutted in at the 20th and the 30th floors. When I checked in, I asked the nice woman for a room with a view. I got a 23rd floor room that looked out over the Avenue of the Americas and I could barely see Central Park over the Gargoyle that perched on top of the 20th floor. Awesome. I quickly unpacked and headed out to see what I could see. I found a magazine that had a map of Manhattan and some of its better known attractions, tore it out, put a star where my hotel was and headed down to the lobby.

I took off walking, enjoying the cool crisp air and the monstrous buildings that surrounded me on all sides. Whenever I am in downtown areas, Denver, D.C., wherever, I seem to always have a quicker pace to my walking and this was no different. I don't know why that is, but I guess the hustle and bustle is contagious. I quickly made me way to past St. Patrick's Cathedral (where I would attend a lunchtime mass on Monday) on to Rockefeller Plaza, the GE Building and Radio City Music Hall as they were only a couple of blocks away. This was pretty neat and I was surprised how busy it was. I know it is New York and it's the city that never sleeps, but it was just more than I expected. It started to drizzle but nothing bad and I kept walking. Heading west, I figured I would be getting to Times Square soon (I didn't want to look at my map to confirm that because I didn't want to look like a tourist. I don't know who I was trying to fool or impress, but whatever. That map was only for if I really got lost) Soon I could see bright lights reflecting off building walls and I knew I was getting close. I arrived down near the south side of Times Square and headed north taking in all I was seeing. To be honest, I was also doing a little reconnoitering because I knew I would be back tomorrow and I needed to buy gifts for the family I abandoned back home. (Love you...) Anyways, my strolling continued back towards 54th, which was what my hotel was on, so I headed back that way. It was after seven and I hadn't eaten since my egg McMuffin that morning so I stopped in to get some free advice from the front desk at the Warwick of a place for moderate Italian food I could go to without having to change. They told me about a place just down the street, Il Gattopardo that met my criteria. I walked in to see about seating for one, the hostess told me she didn't have anything open until 8:30. A little dejected, I headed out to try my luck in finding something else. I had gotten about 100 feet up the street when I heard her calling me back, someone had just cancelled so she could seat me immediately. Sweet. The food was quite tasty and I have to thank my wife's nagging because I was very self-conscious as to not chew with my mouth open and not lick my fingers. This was a nicer place and even though I was alone, I needed to act civilized. I finished up dinner and headed back to the hotel for the night full and very satisfied.

I won't bore you with the details of my conference about Oil and Gas markets in the US and abroad, I'll just skip to 530pm. I headed back to the hotel and changed and decided to venture out again. This time, to the north towards central park. I lallygagged a little bit watching some playoff baseball so it was after 630 when I finally headed out. I walked the handful of blocks up to Central Park but didn't want to go to far into it because it was starting to get dark and the paths are pretty winding and I knew I'd get lost somehow. I scuttled around the southern edge of the park over towards what I think is Columbus Circle. (someone correct me if I'm wrong) Along my way, I saw many interesting people and things. Even had two people ask me where different places were. I couldn't help them, of course, but I know they wouldn't have asked had I been fumbling with some map I tore out of a magazine. I made my way back to Times Square and entered what I imagine to be the largest Toys 'R Us in the free world. It was three stories tall, had a 20 foot tall replica of the New York skyline built with Legos, someone took your picture when you came into the store (not me because I wasn't a kid nor with kids) and oh yeah, this ferris wheel too. Amazing it is totally inside the building. After this, I continued along until I saw an old familiar sign, and it reminded me of scene from the Office when Micheal is in New York and says something like, "Whenever I'm in the city, I always try to stop into my favorite spot for real authentic New York style pizza." And the camera pans to show him walking in here:

Anyways, I stopped into a few souvenir stores and picked up some things for Natalie and Emerson and headed back to the hotel. If my plan was right, the Yankee game would be ending and I could head over to the Irish pub I saw near the Warwick and watch the Broncos on MNF. I know, I'm a Giants fan, but I don't hate the Broncos. I grew up in a Broncos house, my wife is a Broncos fan and there is a good chance that Emerson will be one too. Plus I picked them to cover the spread in my friend's pool so I was interested. As it happened, the Yankee game went into extra innings but ended almost simultaneously with the kickoff. I asked the bartender if he minded changing the channel to ESPN and the big gentleman sitting next to me popped up, waved off the bartender and said in a thick Irish accent, that he'd take care of it cause he wanted to watch it too. I ordered some food and a beer and eventually came to find out that this guy owned the pub, was a huge Steelers fan becaus the Rooney family was from the same town in Ireland as he was, had been to the last three SuperBowls and had quite a bit of money on the Broncos to win this game. Because of that last item I mentioned, he was pretty excited when Eddie Royal gave San Diego "the royal treatment" and returned that kickoff. So much so that he announced that if that happened again, he'd buy a round for the bar. All I can say is, thank you, Eddie, and I guess it was nice that he counted the punt return the same as a kickoff return. Anyways, it was a fantastic night, I probably stayed out a little to late, but whadaya gonna do?

The next day was conference in the morning and then off to the airport to head home. Not much exciting in this portion of the trip but I did witness two things worth mentioning.

While heading to the airport, I witnessed a fender bender right in front of our cab. A Mercedes ML550 had pulled out and crunched in the left rear corner bumper of a BMW M3. The BMW driver got out, looked at the damage a moment, then shrugged it off and got in his car and drove off. Wow, that corner was totally inverted. You could probably fit half of a basketball in it and he shrugged it off. Such a different attitude. Many thousands of dollars worth of damage just occurred and he acted like someone from Colorado does when getting a chip in a windshield. Later, after I was back in Denver and on the shuttle to go back to my truck parking lot, a bus pulled right in front of our shuttle bus effectively blocking us in. Our driver honked and honked to no avail and finally tapped the rear end of the other bus. Just a couple of strange things.

All in all, I had a fantastic time on my trip, but was surely excited to get home and see my beautiful wife, my smiling baby and our dog with the wiggly butt.