NY Day 1

Our first full day in New York we got up and hit the continential breakfast and then checked out of the hotel. We hopped in the rental car and powered up the Nuvi and trekked to visit the OCC shop. It was about an hour away and one of the most beautiful drives I've ever been on. Here we are at a scenic rest stop overlooking the Hudson river. Baby too of course!

The GPS didn't know the address for the new OCC shop, so we had to call them when we got to Newburgh, but it was easy to find. Here is Aaron standing in front of the building.I didn't mind going there especially since Aaron really want to, but really didn't think I'd enjoy it. I was wrong though. It was neat to see all of their special bikes and we were able to go to a "viewing area" to watch them working on bikes. The only person from the show we saw was Rick. We heard one of the workers tell someone else that everyone was there, but we had looked online and Mikey had an event the next day somewhere a ways away and then I heard one of the sales people talking to one of the mechanics about how Paul, Sr was gone. So, I'm guessing that none of them were there. It was alright though since they have so many bikes on display.
After OCC, we got on the road for NYC. We had planned to go back to White Plains and take a train to Grand Central Station and then a taxi to our hotel, but the lady at the rental car station talked us into taking the car into Manhattan to a drop that was close to our hotel. We left OCC at 3pm so we could make it to the drop by 5pm. It was a little longer than 1 hour drive according to the GPS and we figured we needed to add a bit for traffic. To start it off, I had changed the settings on the GPS to avoid tolls. Bad idea because apparently the only way to get to NYC without tolls is via Cleveland! We thought the GPS was going haywire and spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out where to go. I finally realized what happened and it routed us right to the drop, no worries. We headed on the road and the drive was still very pretty up until about the time we hit New Jersey when it turned into city. About the time we were able to see the NYC skyline we hit traffic. I could tell right away that it was going to push us to the time limit with the car, so I called the rental station to give them a heads up in hopes that we could avoid a fee ($33 per hour for the first 2 hours and then a full rental fee for longer than that). Of course they said, "tough". We figured we could stll make it before 6 and figured we'd just have to eat the fee. Well, 6 rolls around and we had gone 1.5 miles from 5. I kid you not. I don't know if it was normal for Friday evening to go to Manhattan island, but it was horrible. We finally made it to the Lincoln Tunnel at around 6:45 (it was 1.5 miles from where we were at 6). After we got to the tunnel things started moving and we got into Manhattan and quickly found the rental station. It was just before 7 and we were trying to get into the booth to check in before 7 to save some money, but they were busy. Aaron had to move everything out of the car while I waited in line. It finally got to me and I politely asked if they could remove the late fee. The guy working laughed and said no that's not something they can do. He had to take a call right then, so I sat and waited. Well, in my pregnant hormonal state (wink) I started to tear up. Ok, I was pretty upset and was probably really was close to tears out of frustration, but I probably could have hidden it better than I did. While he was on the phone he was finishing up our check-out. He got off the phone and told me the total -- which did not include any late fees. Who hoo! It was so funny because he was so grumpy when I got there, but after that he was all smiles and really friendly. It was really nice and make the beginning of our time in the city a lot better. We headed to our hotel, which was just a few blocks away. We hailed our first taxi, which was pretty exciting. We were staying at the Hilton that was located just south of Central Park and a few blocks east of Times Square. It was a great location and I got a great deal on it. When we got there, we asked them to add Aaron's points to it (he stays at Hilton hotels a lot for business). When the lady was adding it, she said she was going to upgrade us to an executive level, which we think moved us from a lower floor to a higher floor (the 40th! out of 44) and gave us access to the executive lounge which included free continential breakfast and access to wireless internet in that area. We both had some vertigo when we looked out the hotel room!

After we settled in the room, we headed out to find dinner. It was pretty late for me, so I wanted to find something fast. We just wandered aimlessly hoping to stumble across something that looked good. What we didn't realize was that we stumbled into Times Square! It took us walking around a while in that area to realize where we were. We found a pizza shop that our chiropractor had mentioned and tried it out. We carried the food out and walked towards our hotel. We found a nice fountain on the way and stopped and sat on its edge to eat. There were a lot of people walking by, but it also felt like we were alone. The pizza was great and we were tired, so we headed back to the hotel for bed.

I had hoped to update you on our whole trip tonight, but it is way past my bedtime already, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn about the rest of our trip!