The Great Baseball Extravaganza ... Day Two ... New York City

First of all you need to sing to me. It's my birthday. Today at 2:59PM in 1955 I was born in a little log cabin in Detroit Michigan. Ok, most of that sentence is true. There's one lie. See if you can catch it. Anyway, that makes me 52 years old. That's not a bad thing. When my age is the speed limit on I-55 I'll start to worry.

So today began in Baltimore and ended in Weehawkin, New Jersey. The drive was b-r-u-t-a-l. Scott can't drive the rental because he's 5 months short of being old enough. He can get married, go to war, drink ... but he can't drive a rental from Avis. And by the way, Avis is ticking me off. They have been 100% RUDE and I just thought I'd tell you that. Do with it as you will.

So the drive around Philly looked a lot like this ...



Ugh. Solid traffic with constant tail lights. That made us 8 minutes too late in our arrival in Jersey to turn in our rental. That means I have to get up at 8:30 in the morning to return it. Again ... Ugh. But our hotel is pretty cool. It's on the shore of the Hudson River on the New Jersey side. We have a view out the window of lower Manhattan. It looks a lot like this ...



I know that there is a lot of good things to see in NYC but, never having been here, I can't get away from the fact that the room we are in right now had an unimaginable view of the terror and tragedy at the World Trade Center in 2001. They were at the far right end of lower Manhatten in the picture very near to the Hudson. We took a water shuttle across to Mid-town Manhatten and then a bus to lower Manhatten where we walked all of the way around "ground zero. These days it looks like a construction zone. Actually, it looks pretty much like this ...



And every now and then you run across things like this ...



Or this ...



It makes you wonder. Who put those flowers there? Who did they lose? Are they healing? And who spray painted the note? What is there story? We will never know. We grabbed a piece of pizza at a little restaurant directly across the street from the former towers. You eat the pizza (which is very good) but you mind is wondering what that site felt like ... looked like ... at those moments? You actually have to force yourself to walk away from there or it will consume you. I found myself looking up at what used to be. Thinking. All of those people. All of the loss. For no reason other than hate. You have to walk away.

Then you find yourself in places like Times Square where I do believe there is probably more neon lighting per square foot than any other place in the nation. It is amazing. It boggles the mind like this ...




I actually looked for a nurse to kiss. You know, like in the famous picture on taken in Times Square on the day the US won World War II. The sailer grabbed a random female on the street and laid a big time smooch on her. She happened to be a nurse. I was determined to relive the scene (at great risk of getting punched out or tossed in the hoosegow) but there were no nurses in site. There was a cute policewoman on horse back but she had a really big night stick so I backed off. I'm not stupid, ya know.

So there you have it. We also managed to navigate the cities subway system. Now THAT is a journey.

New York is cool in a lot of ways. But ... it doesn't compare to my sweet home Chicago.

Tomorrow? Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Bombers. Stay tuned! (and check out www.flickr.com/photos/rotola for more NYC wierdness.)