The Baseball Trip 2011 / Day 4

Thursday, July 21, 2011.

We ride into NYC via the George Washington Bridge. It's an $8.00 toll, but no one is manning the toll booth in our lane! A toll worker waves us through without cost. O! Luckiest of men!  On this day we will cross no less than 4 toll bridges, a small one-laner that costs a dollar to cross and three larger, more expensive bridges: The GW, the Whitestone, and the Throggs Neck Bridges. It's like they built this city on a series of islands or something.

Random observation from Randy:
"This will be a good day. My grits at breakfast were perfect."

New York City is giant tangled mass of humanity, combustion engines, bridges and noise. It is loud, boisterous, and thoroughly enticing. Engines are loud, voices are loud. It is the only place in America where I've heard this at a ballpark: "Give me three knishes."  And it has two ballparks. This will take more than one day.

Oh boy! it's 95 degrees at 11:00 am. Hydrate, ask an usher for help if you start to feel bad. Seek out areas of shade. The Mets oblige with a quick 2 hour and 11 minute game. Unfortunately, they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals after beating them three straight games. The last time we saw the Mets play, it was the longest 9 inning game in their history. This time, it's the shortest game we've ever witnessed.

More Giant Things:

The big apple in The Big Apple.

They saved the big apple from Shea Stadium when they tore it down and stuck it in front of Citi Field. Random observation from Randy: "It looks like a big tomato. It's not an apple."

After the game we took a walk into Flushing Meadows, the site of the 1964 World's Fair. It was only 97 degrees, so it was ok. I took a picture of the Unisphere, so you could see what a giant metal globe in topographical relief looks like.

Unisphere, Flushing Meadows Corona

It only took us 3 hours to get 20 miles out of town. The temperature at 6:00 pm reaches 100 degrees. A man of Eastern European descent (dissent?) took exception to my lane change and said something nasty to me after he went out of his way to pull right up next to me. "Oh yeah?" I said, "Well I don't even understand what you said, so there." I showed him.

Random observation from Randy:
"Home of the Chocolate Goat. You've probably wondered about that before, and now you know where he lives."

The highway follows the Hudson River north away from the city and into tourist towns like Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown with quaint little tourist shoppes like English Tin Tea House and Great Expectations Wine Tasting and Sales. Tourists stagger across the highway without regard to traffic and stumble into You Pay Half and Thomas' Tees and Dominic's Family Pizza.

Favorite town name: Fishkill, NY.......where we find a hotel.
Favorite sign: Air Conditioned

Tomorrow - the fabled Yankees.