New York Day 2

Wow. I am tired. We started the day at the 9/11 Museum and Memorial. I found it very moving. No pictures from inside but here is one of the falls where one of the building stood…

Walked around the financial district a bit…

Saw an actual New York City rat in the subway…

Went by Grand Central Terminal (ate lunch there)…

Then we went next door to the Summit…

Walked down to St. Patrick’s Cathedral…

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Then back to the hotel to rest a few minutes. The we broke in to two groups. Vicky, Stephen and Shania went to the big Macy’s nearby and Michael and I went to the Harry Potter store.

Now I am hoping my legs get a good nights rest cause tomorrow will involve a lot of steps! Until then.

New York Day 1

So yesterday, Saturday, we drove to Dallas and checked in to a hotel near Love field. We met some friends for dinner…

 

Then we did an escape room (we got out)…

 

Went to bed after so we could get up and fly to New York City…

For simplicity, we hired a car service to take us from the airport to our hotel in Chelsea. After a trip to the store for breakfast food and waters, we grabbed a quick dinner. Then walked up to Times Square…

These two are celebrating their one year anniversary today!

Now back at the hotel to rest up for our first full day tomorrow. Until then.

We’re Back!

Well, hello there. It has been a while.

The Mashburn’s are taking off on another adventure. I debated if I would do the blog for this trip. Decided I would do one more since this may be our last full family trip. This trip was suppose to happen back in 2020, but we all know how that year went. Since then, Stephen has gotten married and Michael has graduated college and working full time. I was fearful that there was no way we could coordinate 5 peoples schedules to do another trip together, but it worked!

We are headed back to New York! We went back in 2009 so it has been a while. The big difference now is there will be five of us! Our awesome daughter-in-law, Shania, will be going with us. They say you never really know someone until you travel with them, so hopefully she will still like us when this is over.

Here is our plan…

  • Saturday, April 15 – Drive to Dallas and spend the night
  • Sunday, April 16 – Fly to New York City
  • Monday-Thursday – Explore New York City
  • Friday, April 21 – Depart Penn Station on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited
  • Saturday, April 22 – Arrive Chicago Union Station, change trains to the Texas Limited
  • Sunday, April 23 – Arrive back in Dallas and drive back to Amarillo

We are only doing the train one way to save time. In the one week that we had, would not have left enough time in New York.

No idea if the email notifications will work now. It has been years. Hopefully!

Day 9 & 10 London trip

Yesterday was quite the day. Our first flight was suppose to be from London City Airport to Edinburgh, then to Washington DC then to DFW. We got up early and left for the airport (on the opposite side of London) at 6:15am. We get to the airport to find out the first flight was canceled. No problem, they put on on an earlier flight. We get to the gate and they tell us the flight is over weight (it was a propeller plane) so we do not get on that flight. Get our checked bags back and head to the check-in desk. They put us on another United flight,  but it leaves from Heathrow on the other side of town! So they paid for a cab to take us. It took over two hours cause they do not have freeways so we had to drive on regular streets right through the heart of London. This drive also made me glad I did not have to drive in London. There are just so many unique things they do, not to mention being on the wrong side of the road.

Well, because we took so long, we missed that United flight. United said they did not have anything until maybe the next day. So we went to the Flybe airline desk (they were the airline that canceled our flight). They kept looking and looking, made a phone call and got us on a direct to DFW American flight. Oh, and it was in BUSINESS CLASS which are little pods with lay flat seats!

Oh, it was at a different terminal so we had to hike to that with all of our luggage. After getting checked in with American, the agent said we could go to the Admiral Club and wait for our flight. (because we were in business class). It was awesome. We were able to eat a full meal in there since it was now around 2:00pm and we had not eaten since before 6:15am. Then we went to our flight to enjoy the awesome seats.

 

It was as enjoyable as a flight could be. We were fed like kings. I ended up not sleeping at all. Really never wanted to and I thought it would help with the jet lag to just wait.

After landing, we took a shuttle to terminal C where we parked the car. If you have ever seen the Seinfeld episode where they cannot find their car in the parking garage, that was us. For around 30 minutes in the heat and humidity and hauling our luggage, we searched and searched for our car. Finally, we realized we had departed and parked at Terminal E. So back to the shuttle and straight to the car. I felt stupid.

We then went to a hotel and spent the night. I slept well. Up this morning and drove back to Amarillo.

This was not a relaxing vacation. Every day was pretty tiring and some were downright exhausting. We may never go back to London so we knew we had to see everything we wanted to see and knew that would take lots of energy. We were happy to do it. It was a good trip and we are blessed we were able to go. London is a cool city to visit and we enjoyed meeting many Brits.

Until next time.

Day 8 London Trip

We started our last day in London going to the Tower of London…

Got to see the crown jewels…

And the armory…

Michael finally got to see a guard somewhat up close…

Picture of the Tower Bridge from the Tower of London…

For lunch, we had to grab some fish and chips…

We then took a bus down to St. Paul’s Cathedral…

We climbed 500 billion steps to go to the top of the dome (then came back down those steps). Guess it was worth it for the views…

There was a small viewing window down to the floor from the top of the inner dome. It is the very small square at the top in this pic…

We then went to our final place to visit, the HMS Belfast…

Stephen had to take a timeout in the brig…

That concluded our time in central London so we grabbed two more pics. This is the Tower Bridge…

And this London Bridge. For all you Yanks who think the Tower Bridge is London Bridge, you are wrong. To be honest, I learned this just the other day our our Thames river cruise. It has been rebuilt several times so I guess technically it has fallen down.

Tomorrow we get up early to head to London City airport which is on the other side of London. Our first flight is from there to Edinburgh Scotland. Then to Washington DC, then to DFW where we will spend the night before driving home.