Road Trip to New York
Our family enjoys road trips and one of my favorite destinations is New York City. From where we live in Virginia, New York City is about a six and a half hour drive. We usually try to pack in as many activities and sights as we can and on this trip we included two MLB baseball games. We spent about four days in NY on this trip.
We stayed at the Belvedere Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The Belvedere was a very nice hotel and it’s location made it super easy to get to all of the sights that we wanted to visit. They also provide valet parking so we didn’t have to worry about where to park our car.
Our first day in New York City we did some exploring in Times Square and Rockefeller Center. My husband is a firefighter so no trip to NY is complete without visiting The FDNY Fire Zone, sitting in a fire truck and picking up some FDNY gear. I also love to go to the Yankees Clubhouse Shop in Times Square to pick up Yankees gear.
My favorite thing to do while in New York City is to go to Yankee Stadium to catch a Yankees game. We went to an evening game to see the Yankees play the Texas Rangers.
The next day Tom had a meeting in New Jersey so Logan and I did a bunch of exploring on our own. We started with a visit to Central Park. It’s beautiful and absolutely amazing that a beautiful park is located in the middle of New York City. Logan was eight years old at the time so I taught him how to hail a cab. We went to the Central Park Zoo first. Our favorite thing was watching the Sea Lions.
Our next stop was Victorian Gardens at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Victorian Gardens is an amusement park so we spent some time on the rides and eating junk food. After Victorian Gardens, we took a cab to the iconic Toys R Us store in Times Square, which sadly closed in 2018. The store was incredible! It had a life-size Barbie dream house, a 34 foot animatronic T-Rex, giant legos, an arcade, and the famous 60 foot tall indoor Ferris wheel. We rode the Ferris wheel and had a blast.
The next day we went to lower Manhattan to the 9/11 Memorial. At that time, only the Memorial was completed. The Museum and Freedom Tower were still being built. The twin reflecting pools and the names inscribed are sobering. The Memorial is a special place for Tom because he is a retired firefighter and went to New York for the funerals of fallen brothers in the fire department the week after 9/11. The memorial is a special, sacred place.
Our last evening in NY City we went to Citi Field to see a New York Mets game against the Washington Nationals. We were very lucky and got front row seats right behind the Mets dugout. It was the best time!
We were sitting right across from where the Mets players enter the dugout from the field and they kept giving Logan game balls.
We had a great trip to New York. Driving there for us was easy and staying in a nice, centrally located hotel was key. Sightseeing was a breeze and none of the places we went to were very packed, especially since we were there in June. We had a trip to New York planned for last Fall, but had to cancel because Logan got Covid. Hopefully, we’ll be back soon.
