My butt cheeks hurt, calves are tight, and legs are jello-ee

What causes these afflictions? Nine hours of sitting on a plane and walking many many many miles through Manhattan with 18 pounds of baby on my chest and a diaper bag on my back. Galen and I tagged along with Shanna for a business trip to New York City. For those that understand, we stayed about 1/2 mile south of Central Park at the Sheraton on 7th & 53rd. Can you believe there is another Sheraton just across the street? Unusual.

Sunday we all went to Liberty Island to visit the Statue of Liberty. That thing is TALLLLL, one of the awesome symbols of our country. And the security procedures to visit were ridiculous, you must x-ray a wallet??? - just the opposite of the message the Statute offers to us all. Galen was unimpressed. Chinatown was afterwards - we ate in some hole in the wall. Once again Galen was unimpressed.

On Monday & Tuesday it was pretty much just us guys. We spent most of Monday walking through Central Park. We looped up past the Sheep Meadows, visited Strawberry Fields, strolled through the Rambles, and ate lunch next to the Turtle Pond with Luce's Castle reflecting off of the water. We went west to Park Avenue and walked right by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the Zoo, and by dozens of horse drawn carriages. We barely got halfway north only walking along the southern edge of the Great Lawn. I found it far hillier than expected, and very beautiful. How come there weren't more people? We got to the hotel and rested. That evening we took Shanna back towards the park and enjoyed a carriage ride...

Tuesday we were all over the place. In the AM we visited downtown Manhattan - the center of commerce and history. By the way, subway rides make Galen sleepy. He doesn't know it, but he visited Ground Zero, St Paul's Chapel, Trinity Church, the New York Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank, Federal Hall, and many other site seeing stops. It was somewhere on the way there when I realized I forgot his bottle. I even got a call from Shanna while at the Reserve pondering such a thing. No matter, he swayed in the carrier, flirted with the women, snoozed occasionally, and was a very good man.

After I ate lunch in a downtown deli, while he slept, it was back to the hotel for the forgotten lunch. And on the way we bumped into the Ed Sullivan Theater the current home of Letterman. After a brief respite we were off again. This time we went walked around the immediate area - and I use that loosely. We went past Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building and to the UN. Then back to the NY Public Library, and Bryant Park - the American Radiator Building is beautiful - back through Times Square and to the hotel. Upon Shanna's return we went to the Empire State Building and then had dinner at Los Dos Molinos. Los Dos is an Arizona based family restaurant, the daughter wanted to live in NYC, with awesome food. We needed a bit of home, tequila, and good spicy food.

Wednesday was a travel day home.

Observations:
Galen is a fine traveler. Not too fussy or demanding, he watches everything, eats, shits, and sleeps like a baby should. He is a flirt with the ladies, reserved with men. Cold breezes make him sing. Planes, trains, and automobiles sway him to sleep.

Diapers take up a great deal of luggage space.

Diapers are hard to find - where do NY babies excrete their stuff?

Manhattan is noisy. Not once during my visit did I hear my tinnitus.

Manhattan is diverse, exciting, vibrant - along with dirty, smelly, and oppressive.

NY style Cheesecake made in NY is overrated.

Bartenders give ya a funny look when asking for a pint with a halfpint attached to your chest.

They have some wayyyy cool old buildings. I need a good architecture/photo book of the buildings of New York.

Nice place to visit, could us a few more weeks, but wouldn't want to live there.

It's good to be home with the doggies and kitty, and sleep in my own bed.

I love my wife for making such things possible.