On the Road Again!

With tickets in hand to New York, it seemed only natural that the news announcement shortly before our arrival was "Earthquake Rocks New Jersey and New York".

Karen and I have grown to expect this kind of welcome in our travels.

Of course, it was a little disturbing that, while we were in New York, the headlines were "Hurricane Irene Leaves Flooding and Destruction it its Wake as 11 Die and Millions Without Power While Storm Churns Up East Coast".

In between these two "natural" disasters (in the sense of "naturally, that would happen with the Barnums") we caught a couple of shows and had some nice meals. I think we might have been like General Gordon at Khartoum, "Seems like a nice morning for a pot of tea, might warm up in the afternoon."

We stayed at the Newark Airport Marriott Hotel. This may seem like an odd choice, but on actual days of travel, it is incredibly convenient to the airport (I suppose that comes with the name). On days when you're not traveling, admittedly, it is a bit odd, but inertia is a powerful thing when you have luggage ("an object at rest will tend to stay at rest" applies particularly well to me). As our bellhop told us, "It's the only hotel inside an airport in the United States." He was wrong, of course, but I let him live with the hope.

For our journeys to the City, we had Jose, our driver, to ferry us back and forth from New Jersey in a Black Escalade. It felt like the Sopranos, without cigars.

About eight years ago, Karen flew in to New York to meet me in early December. I was there for a conference, or work, or possibly just lost, I can't recall specifically. Because of the blizzard that was occurring, Karen's plane was the last flight in or out of New York City for the next three days. It was a freakishly early snowstorm which NOAA now just puts down as a "Barnum Visitation". While Karen was flying through the storm assuming the plane was not going to make it, the woman next to her recommended "Carmine's Restaurant" as a place to eat near Broadway. Karen took the fact that the airplane landed safely as a sign and we have been regularly dining at Carmine's ever since (with Karen gradually relaxing her hold on the table in case of air pockets). On our most recent trip, all of our evening meals were at Carmines.

New York was, as ever, a lovely place to visit. We were the last plane to fly out of Newark for the next several days. I think the Port Authority made a special effort to get us out of the area.