At the Top of the Rock with our Italian Tour Friends... AWESOME!

So, after all morning with Live with Kelly and Michael, we walked on down to Rockefeller Center....The Rock!  We were meeting up with Bev, John, and Pat... three of the great folks we got to travel through Italy with!  Bev and John came from NJ, while Pat traveled in from Connecticut. After gabbing in the lobby for a while, it was time to go to the Top of the Rock... It wasn't the clearest of days, but we still got some great shots.  This first picture though caught my eye.  It's the huge tree they decorate that stands above the Ice Arena.  They actually build scaffolding around it to decorate that thing.  Made perfect sense... It's not a live tree growing there, but a tree brought in from the local area.  And, when it's decorated... massive number of tiny lights!.
 

The lobby circular staircase... all sparkly in person!
 

The elevator goes up, up, up... the ceiling is glass and you look up and see the lights... like a runway landing light... and, man, it was fast!
 

Looking North at Central Park
 

John and Jer probably discussing something very manly!
 

Pat, John, Bev, Jer and that purple lady would be me!
 

We're so cute, we had to take a few pics of us!  Jillian was the Photographer! 

 

Jer and I!
 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah... The Naked Cowboy!
 

We had a great lunch about 1:00... spent a bit of time chatting... then off walking again to find Lindy's for some of their famous Cheesecake... Course, Jerry had the Chocolate Cake... and a tiny piece at that... The East Coast Cheesecake is so much lighter than the stuff we get at home.  Reminded me I have a recipe of Mom's I should make... Like and fluffy... num...
 

Nice Work If You Can Get It! Fabulous show and wonderful day!

The life in the city.... you never know who you are gonna hook up with... In the first photo, we got snookered with these guys... after you pose with a pic, of course, they want a donation!  Oh well... didn't spoil our fabulous day!  Had a great lunch before the show...and then, the show!  I love musicals... and fortunately, my family loves them too!  So many good Gershwin songs...."S'wonderful, S'marvelous"; "Fascinating Rhythm"; "Someone to Watch Over Me".... The characters were all so fun... great, great show!  We ended up walking around a bit afterwards and just enjoyed the vib of the area.  The street vendors... the electric signs... Yup... it's the Big Apple!  Look at the street artist with the spray cans... The pictures he created, in less than 10 minutes were something!  and he only wanted $20 bucks for them... they went like pancakes!  We passed however...
Got home and decided check out the rooftop and garden in our place before we went out for dessert.  Lo and behold we found one of those golfing programs on the floor where the garden and workout room was... the kind where you hit the ball to a screen and actually play a course.  Jerry was frustrated... he was hoping playing electronically he wouldn't end up in a sand trap... dang, that was right where he ended up!
Tomorrow Live with Kelly and Michael and then on the Top of the Rock to meet up with our Italy Tour Friends.... up early, 6 AM... so, I'll say good night... Hope the weather in T-Town is not too wet... It is gorgeous here... Picture perfect! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow.... A long day... but we are here in our sweet little apartment!

Saturday was a long day!  We woke up at 4am to begin our journey.  Wasn't sure we would even go on this journey at the last minute: Thursday before we left, we found that Halley's birthmom had passed from this life... unexpectedly.... Jerry has been in touch with Halley's Aunt and worked quite a bit getting and putting in place plans for the Jackie's at Judi's request...  Jerry deteremined he had got enough in motion, that the rest can be done via phone while we are here.  Halley has lots of good support in Minneapolis from MLC/GLC, counseling, etc... and again, we are on the phone with her. So Jerry said, we are going!

The pictures below show our diggs... very nice.  We used VRBO and it's never disappointed us!  Same thing this trip!  We found a great little place for dinner after we checked in...Italian, of course!  Enjoyed some Chianti... got back to our room about 8:30... and we were all in bed pretty early.
Now here's a funny, I woke up in the middle of the night... looked at the clock... it said 1:00... I thought, oh my gosh, we've slept till 1pm and we have theater tickets at 3pm... I got up, started opening the curtains... Jerry said "What are you doing?"  I explained... he calmly said "It's 1 AM...not time to get up!"  I was so relieved, cuz, though I got up, I was soooooo tired!  Ahhhhh, back into bed I went!

 

 

This bathroom sink reminds me of a trough!  Mooooooo
 

View from one of our windows.... Thank heavens the windows here block out the noise... so we can enjoy being in the center of activity but it doesn't keep us up!
 

Time to go home... but still lots to see!

We really had a most charming cabin to stay in.  The wrap around porch, the fireplace, the comfy beds... Thank you D & M... your hospitality was off the charts!
We ventured out Sunday before coming home and checked out The Sleeping Lady Conference Center...Our family stayed there in the late 90's; we had one of our first Foundation Meetings there.  They have a gorgeous Chihuly Glass Work outside... beautiful. It sure brought back lots of fond memories.  They had new artwork too... unique fish sculptures, glass disks hanging in the apple tree... way nice to enjoy art that way!
Drove on down Icicle Creek and did a geocache.  The weather was perfect and the creek was in royal form.  There was a bridge, way down on the creek.  We tried to get our pic on it, but, no... the state has it all cordined off... huge gate and chainlink fence... you can't get on the bridge no matter what!
Our weekend came to an end... Bonnie and Tracy were so fun... this weekend was one for the memory books of our minds. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bridge we could not get on... dang
 

This was not from last summer's fire, but from a fire in the late 1990's
 

We live in the most beautiful state I think!

This is such a wonderful cabin. It's just beautiful. We didn't even get out and about till almost one. We ended up finding three different geocaches plus, poked our noses (well, at least Bonnie and I did) into alot of the stores downtown. Because of the geocaches, we found a couple different parks and a river walk, filled with all kinds of trees... yup, just call me a broken record... but, as my sister says, "it is what it is"... especially after our wine this evening!

 

View from our kitchen window....

Introducing Bonnie and Tracy to Geocaching

This was a walk we took near a fabulous Bed and Breakfast!

 

 

I love this stand of trees!

 

 

 

A fun dinner of Wine, Cheese, Crackers, Meatballs, Smoked Salmon,,,and a fireplace, crackling! 

 

Snoqualmie Falls on the Way to Leavenworth!

An unexpected, but certainly well accepted gift from a friend... a stay in their cabin in Leavenworth. Friends, Tracy and Bonnie, came along with us...We loaded up the car and decided to make a side trip on the way to visit Snoqualmie Falls. This past week there had been quite a bit of rain and because of that the Falls did not disappoint. Add to that the Fall Colors of the season, Gorgeous!
Stopped at a local tavern there for a burger... "Smokey Joe's"... Burger was delish, company was fun.... the service... took forever... but, hey, this was a weekend escape... we didn't have an agenda! But, really, someone should help them fix up their restrooms... Oh, I know, TMI!