Day 6 - The Guggenheim and Chelsea

Our last day... one last museum on my list for this trip.  We headed uptown toward Central Park (again) to see the Guggenheim.  As we arrived there was a film crew on the corner getting ready to film something... not sure if it was a movie or what but we hurried on past to get out of their way.

Once we got inside we were told that the ramps were closed while they were setting up for their upcoming exhibit.  It was a disappointment but we were able to see many of the pieces at a distance as they were placing them along the walls.

We still were able to see Motherwell's early collages.  

Lasting Images installations

and Kandinsky In Paris 1934 - 1944

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We took the subway and headed south to Chelsea where there were many art galleries listed in our travel book, but we should have looked more closely.  We might have seen that they were all closed on Monday.  It's ok, though.  We still enjoyed walking around and I even found this really unusual car park (pictured below).  Since parking in NYC is at a premium, there are these vertical parking decks where you can rent a space by the month.  I was fascinated, wondering how they got the cars in and out of there.  I'm going to keep it a secret and let you use your google skills to find out for yourself.

We had skipped lunch so we had an early dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp.  I had a burger.

We then spent the rest of the evening running around Midtown while I posed in front of all of the tourist spots, just so we could make sure we had the photos of the various places.

Times Square

Fox News

Fox News - with Bill O'Reilly

Rockefeller Plaza's Ice Skating Rink

Rockefeller's Atlas Statue across from
St. Patrick's Cathedral

MOMA by Moonlight

Now, biggify the photo below and see if you can find me in this Times Square crowd!!

In the spirit of "Where's Waldo?" ..... Where's Kathy??  

There is still much of the city that we didn't explore and art exhibits are changing every month.  I have to say, all in all, the trip was great!  The city is a fun place to visit and believe it or not, I'm looking forward to going back!  

Our Great Adventure - Arrival at the Big Apple!

Our arrival in NYC via a Puddle Jumper was uneventful.  We took a shuttle to our hotel and that was also uneventful.  Our hotel was directly on Times Square.

If you have seen the ball drop on New Year's Eve, you know that Times Square can hold a whole lot of people.  The only difference between the night of our arrival and New Year's Eve is that the crowd was mobile and on New Year's Eve they are standing still.  

                            

We were bumped, jostled, tripped, and nudged, but Randy didn't let go of my hand and I didn't get lost.  We arrived around 6:00 and I looked out of our hotel room window and saw "Virgil's BBQ" a couple of blocks away.  We had tried to find a BBQ place on the way to the Charlotte Airport before we left NC but couldn't find one on Google that would be convenient for us to stop.  I was craving BBQ and so we figured, what the heck, if it didn't look ok ww would find something else.  

Welcome to Virgil's BBQ

The sauce was a little sweeter than I'm used to and a little more tomatoey but I added some of Virgil's XXX Hot Sauce and I'm going to tell you, it was pretty doggone good.  (Biggify that picture and you'll see that it was good).

After dinner we walked around times square and sat on the bleachers just watching the crowd.  We marveled at the fact that we heard more foreign accents being spoken than American accents.  Other countries may not appreciate the US but they love to visit our decadence.   

My personal tour guide

The above photo is the view from our room.  Thank goodness for blackout draperies! That large building all covered with light panels was dead center of Times Square with the ball on the top that drops.... guess what is at it's base on street level..... Walgreens!  Ha!  Imagine that!  A little triangular drugstore surrounded by a churning sea of humanity!  Now we were off to get some rest because tomorrow our adventure would start in earnest!