Day 5. See Ya next time, New York!

We had an afternoon flight back home, so this gave us a couple of hours in the morning. The kids wanted to head back to Mc Donald's in Times Square, so we walked over for breakfast. This town is never dead. Times Square is always lit up.

Never a shortage of cabs.

Mc Donald's was pretty empty at that hour, so we were able to get some pictures. There was a small replica of Times  Square.

And since we were in Times Square, of course they had neon signs inside.

After breakfast, we just took a leisure stroll through Times Square, then headed back to the hotel.

Finally, a needle I could thread!

We spent the remainder of our time packing up. We had a car service take us to Newark, NJ for our flight home. It's about 45 minutes outside of NYC. We had an uneventful flight home, and were back in our own beds that night. We had so much fun on our trip. What a great experience for the boys. I'm so glad we went. What a blessing it was to just have a good time, without having to struggle with anxiety. This was definitely one of our favorite vacations.

Day 4, part 3. A walk in the park.

After exiting the museum, we decided to talk a walk through Central Park. I think if I lived in NYC, I would probably spend all of my free time in Central Park. It really is a beautiful place to go for a walk. And even on a hot day, there are so many places to sit in the shade and escape the heat.

You really don't get a feel for how big the park is until you walk through it. It took quite a while to get from one end to the next. At one point, we stopped at a vendor and bought ice cream cones for the kids. We probably should have found a bench and took a break, But it was getting late, and we had been on our feet all day. So we just headed back to the hotel. We were exhausted.

We spend a couple of hours in our hotel room. But soon it was time for dinner. We headed back out to Times Square to both have dinner, and do some people watching. The Taste of Times Square was going on, and the area had tons of tables set up. Taste of Times Square is an annual food and music festival. As if there isn't enough going on in Times Square. There were tents where various restaurants had booths set up for people to taste their food. And various spots where musicians performed. When we first got there, it wasn't too crowded. It was drizzling, so that may have effected crowds.

M&M as King Kong climbing the Empire State Building.

Noah checking out the action on Times Square.

Canopies lined Times Square for the festival.

We made our way to Junior's for dinner. World famous for their cheesecake. We had a great waiter. He was friendly, funny, and very attentive.

This is what my hair looks like when it rains.

The food was pretty good. The portions were huge, but we all managed to share one slice of chocolate swirl cheesecake. It was delicious. The total came out to $86.48. Not too bad, considering it was Juniors and right on Times Square.

After we were finished, we wandered around Times Square some more. We came across this truck. 

It had stopped raining, so more people were venturing out to check out Taste of Times Square.

The crowds weren't too bad, unless you tried to get closer to the canopies. That was fine by us. We just wandered around and kept our distance from the crowd.

TKS booth. This is the place to go for discount Broadway tickets.

Normally, the red staircase is filled with people. They close off the area when it rains.

After spending time walking around Times Square, we wanted to check out the Lego Store on Rockefeller Plaza. So we headed over there. It was pretty empty around that area.

Once inside, we realized there was nothing special about the store. It had the same Legos you could buy at home. But the store did have some neat displays.

We weren't in there for long. The kids didn't even want to buy anything. So, we just headed back to the hotel. It was late. We were exhausted from a long day of museum touring. We showered and packed up to go home.

I think everyone in NYC was hanging out at Times Square.

Next up, our last few hours in New York City.

Day 4, part 2. A day at the museum.

Now that it had stopped raining, we were able to enjoy a nice walk back. We passed through a residential neighborhood. It was interesting to see people use their porches and balconies to further their living space. Some had chairs and lots of plants to turn the area into a nice place to sit, instead of being crammed into a small apartment. And the streets were equally crammed with cars.

Traffic jam on a residential street.

Here are some townhomes we passed along the way. Some had very pretty little gardens set up.

We reached midtown and decided to have lunch at Shake Shack. It was a weekday, so it was filled with people on their lunch break. We were lucky to find an empty table. The food was good. It reminded us allot of a place here in Kansas, called Unforked. We all had burgers, fries, and sodas, and Alex had a milkshake. The total came out to $38.

After lunch, we decided to hail a cab to take us to the Natural History Museum. Poor Noah slipped as he was getting into the cab, and banged up his shin pretty good. Poor little guy spent his last NYC cab ride hugging me for comfort. 

The ride to the museum was short. When we got there, we stood in a long, but fast moving line to pay admission. You must have a ticket to get in, but they only give a suggested amount to pay. You really could pay anything. I paid $59 for the 4 of us.  With tickets in hand, we were unleashed into the museum.

Sadly, I brought the wrong lens and could not get a good picture of the lobby. The ceiling was so pretty. And it had huge dinosaur fossils on display.

The boys both love museums, particularly Natural History Museums. But since a movie was filmed in this one, there were certain things that they wanted to check out.

There were so many things to look at, it was hard to get the boys to look at my camera.

I happened to look up at the ceiling and saw this guy looking down at us.

The kids were most excited to see the dinosaur exhibit. Noah is a walking dinosaur encyclopedia. We walked around and listened to him name and give facts for each dinosaur. He blew us away. And he didn't just know the popular ones (T Rex, Triceratops). He was able to correctly name things like Pentatriceratops,  Brontops, and Edmontosaurus.. 

Noah demonstrating how the dinosaur attacks it's prey.

I have no idea what that is behind them, but they did and loved it.

 

They were in love with the dinosaur exhibit. I think we must have spent an hour in that place. Of course, they really wanted to see the Easter Island statue from Night at the Museum. We had a heck of a time finding it. But we were finally successful!

They wanted to see the giant whale next, so that was the next thing to locate. Fortunately, we found it quickly, because we were all getting tired.

After we checked out the Ocean exhibit, we were wiped out. We did the walk through the souvenir shop and let the kids buy what they wanted, then we decided to head back to the hotel.

How do they fit so much into this museum?

Next up, a walk through Central Park.