Quist World Tour

I’m spending a long weekend with my sister-in-law in Colorado Springs, which might sound more exotic than it is. Normally, people go to Colorado Springs to go see the amazing Garden of the Gods or ride the cog rail up to Pike’s Peak. There’s the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center too. The upside of having a sister far away is that you get to visit that cool place a few times, and I’ve been able to do all of the above in the past—Colorado Springs has lots to offer. This time around, though, I’m just here to hang out with Julie. And Julie is a working mom with a couple of young kids, so life is busy! While she’s been working, I’ve been running some errands—getting boots for her daughter, dress shoes for her son for the Christmas concert, etc. Generally, when I travel somewhere, I find it sort of depressing when I see that I could go to all the same stores and restaurants that I could visit at home. However, when you are running errands, this simplifies things. I

Every time we go on a trip, we learn a few new things. This time I learned I can drive 12 hours straight with a very few quick stops, one of which was a 10 minute power nap at a rest area. Here are a few other things we learned: 1.       Staying in Newark to visit NYC is not such a bad deal, if you have 5 people to pay for. However, if we ever go back on a romantic trip for two, it will be in the city or not at all. But if you do stay in Newark, the Hampton Inn near Newark’s Penn Station is very helpful, and Top’s Diner right down the road is a great place for a family meal. It’s not cheap, but it’s not NY prices either! 2.        The CityPass is a good way to see a big city. Skip some lines, save some money. But only if you know you can use all the tickets.   3.       You can only use the subway cards for 4 people on one trip. Brian knew this, but I did not. And so, he used one card with a little left on it, and I used another to get the kids in and then myself.

One more day in NYC. Today we had reserved passes to the 9/11 Memorial. They are free, but if you get the online passes you can save yourself a lot of time visiting this place. At the end of May, the 9/11 Museum will open, and perhaps it will be different then—we think the memorial itself will be a park open to the public. And what a beautiful park it will be. There are lots of young trees, and then of course the two enormous sculpted waterfalls that fall 30 feet to a square bottom, then funnel into a second square and disappear into darkness. All of the names of the 9/11 victims are inscribed, and roses rise out of the carved names here and there where someone has come to remember. A “survivor tree”, a tree that grew from an 8 foot stump that was found in the bottom of the rubble, was full of buds and a lovely symbol of hope. Since I’d blubbered my way through an explanation of all that happened on 9/11 when we were in Shanksville last week, I avoided the brief emotional bre

Up early to catch the train to the World Trade Center today, passing once again through all the marshy areas on the way into NYC from New Jersey. It’s an interesting mix of natural waterways and rusty industrial buildings. Yesterday I saw a fox trotting along a railway. Today’s first event was the Statue of Liberty and the Ellis Island Museum. After the security line, complete with metal detectors like the airport, we boarded the ferry. It wasn’t terribly full, but there were more people than I expected first thing on a chilly April morning. Lady Liberty waited patiently for us, and it was interesting to learn that the statue had caused some controversy at its beginning. The French donated the statue; many, many French citizens donated money for the project. The U.S. needed to raise funds for the pedestal and the costs of erecting the statue. People in New York felt like the whole country should contribute, while people elsewhere in America thought it should be New York’s pro

Sometimes it takes a long time to wrangle 5 people out of bed, down to the free hotel breakfast, and onto a train. This process is not helped by an out-of-order elevator and the decision the night before to just “get going when everyone is ready.”    By the time we made it to NYC today, we were all ready for lunch already. We ate from the food trucks in front of our tourism target, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two NY hot dogs and three Nutella, banana and strawberry crepes later, we finally entered our first site for the day. Stepping foot into an art museum of any sort with a family of five distinct personalities is not something to be taken lightly. Here is our family in a nutshell, when it comes to art: two people who don’t really care much for art museums, one who used to go numb at the thought but now has much higher interest, one who loves art of all sorts and is particularly interested in unusual design and modern art, and one who loves art but particularly love

Today our family was reunited, but only after the kids and I drove to Newark. I’m very glad that it was Saturday morning, because I can only imagine what the drive from the PA/NJ border into Newark would have been like on a workday morning! Plus, there are signs all over that say the speed limit is strictly enforced. The speed limit was usually 55 or 65, but if I drove 75 I was reminded of riding a bike with training wheels while the big kids flew by on their Schwinn Varsity 10-speeds, or even the younger ones on their banana seat bikes. The only song that came on the Billy Joel channel that I could really relate to today was “Pressure.” And on a different note, it turns out there are limits to how much even a fan can tolerate listening to one song after another of the same person. When they announce a special “rare performance” and it turns out to be the same “Zanzibar” track that was on my record in the early 80s, it might just be time to change the station. When we made it t

This morning we woke up near Pittsburgh, where the prediction was rainy and 70. After this winter,  a rainy 70 sounded fabulous! I don’t think we got anywhere near 70, but the mid-50s were pleasant enough. And the rain held off while we visited Fallingwater. Fallingwater is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and it was designed as a summer home for a wealthy family from that city. They originally envisioned a cottage with a view of the lovely waterfall on the property they owned, but ended up with something very different. Wright designed a home in harmony with the environment, cantilevering the house built on/around huge boulders. The colors, lines and materials of the home reflect the natural surroundings, and that was the guiding principle. The wishes of the homeowners were a distant second. Their adult son was an architect who studied Wright’s work, and he talked them into going along with Wright’s plans. It’s an amazing work, an

Last night my whole neighborhood was lined with carrier-topped minivans and SUVs, while people loaded them with golf clubs and beach chairs. Must be the beginning of spring break in Grand Rapids. Most of those people looked to be heading south, to Gulf Shores or sunny Florida. But not the Quists, no. We took a different path, to a place that is likely to be almost as wet and cold as home! We are driving to New York. At least I (Kristy) and my three offspring are. Brian will be joining us later via air. Still, though it’s not any sunnier so far than home, we can already tell we’ve left the Midwest behind—we’ve been driving through the hilly east side of Ohio and southwest Pennsylvania. I might be the only one who has noticed the hills, actually, since we long ago made a swap, giving up group sightseeing in exchange for quieter, happier family members. Our kids spend their time in the car gaming together. This may be a breach of the sentimental version of singing travelling son