Quist World Tour

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 ca...

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 particul...

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...