NYC Day 1

Pre-planning

Jon has always been a huge fan of Broadway musicals, so we've talked about going to NYC sometime in the future.

In November, we were in Boise at my brother Conrad's house, and we got to talking with him about how we wanted to go to NYC "someday" and especially to see Hamilton the musical.

Then Conrad surprised us and said: "We could go with you...." Between Jon and Conrad, they cemented the idea into reality. Jon and I along with Conrad and his wife Sarah would all be going together (though Jon and I would stay slightly longer). We got our airline tickets (free with United miles) and tickets to Hamilton (paid for with a bonus)!

This was really happening.

Over the next few months, we secured Airbnb locations (one in NYC near Times Square with two bedrooms for all of us... and then another one in Weehawken, NJ for just me and Jon for just two nights since we were staying longer), tickets to more shows, etc. Jon's mom was ready to watch our four kids so we could go have a fabulous time.

United Airlines eventually switched our flight, so we would actually be leaving a day earlier and landing in Newark, NJ around midnight, so we ended up getting a cheap hotel room near the airport so we could have a good night's sleep.

Everything was set. Our bags were packed.

Finally finally finally the day came!


Day 1: Travel Day

In the afternoon, we went to the Idaho Falls airport to wait for our flight to Denver, then a connection to Newark, New Jersey.

Jon and I were sitting at the gate when a man about our age started talking to us. He had all sorts of questions about living in Idaho Falls. Did we like it here? He was from Michigan and had just had a  job interview. He was very tempted to move here, partly because of how nice everyone was, and also all the outdoors stuff so close by. In the end, I think he'll stay where he's at. He has a family with two little boys and 10 acres of wilderness! I definitely wouldn't leave.

The Idaho Falls --> Denver flight was super bumpy but short. We had lots of time at the Denver airport, and United Airlines had sent us two free one-time use passes to the United Club, so we checked it out. Holy awesome food! It was so nice and quiet, too.

The Denver --> Newark flight was long, but felt short because we watched Hidden Figures. Such a great movie! I would watch it again. Also on the flight I read uninterrupted for as long as I wanted. Also Jon put his Reese's into the cell phone holder. The girl next to us thought it was hilarious and took a pic too.

It was nearly midnight. After we landed in Newark, we were at the baggage claim. Our introduction to the New York/New Jersey accent was this funny older gentleman who was on a cell phone, but didn't seem to know how to talk on a cell phone except so everyone else could hear him (even in a large crowd of noisy people).

In his thick accent he yelled, "She haaad to go to the baaaathroom!!!" We laughed so hard.

Jon and I grabbed our luggage and tried to figure out where to go. We had called our hotel, and the lady with a weird accent at our hotel told us to go to P4 at the airport to meet the hotel shuttle. Seemed easy enough.

Right by baggage claim was the parking lot, so there was a sign that said P4 (the 4th level of the parking lot), so we hiked it up there. Seemed like a weird place for a hotel shuttle to go. A guy up there told us to go to P4 instead, which was somewhere else. We were so confused. Finally after asking several people we got on the airport train/subway which took us to P4, a place where all the hotel shuttles went. Thankfully we made it there before our hotel shuttle did.

Our hotel shuttle was driven by an interesting man from Honduras. He told us how he doesn't like to tell people where he is from because they judge him. He specifically told us that a lesbian couple yelled at him because he was an illegal from Mexico. "But I'm not illegal, and I'm not from Mexico." Jon spoke to him in Spanish, but many times the man would flip back to English, even though his English wasn't very good.

On the way to the hotel, it was dark and the roads were deserted, except when a random drunk guy was wandering across the street right in front of us. and we had to stop abruptly. And then it happened again a few blocks later.

The hotel was... interesting. I'll just leave it at that. But we didn't care because we were tired.


Click here to see NYC Day 2 >>>>