By My friend likes to attend the Westminster Dog show in New York City every year. This year she invited me and a couple of other ladies (not the same travel buddies from London and Germany) to tag along. I’ve never been to a dog show, but I was intrigued. Two things pushed me over: 1) Winter doldrums – I had no trips on the calendar and 2) This was the 150th anniversary of the Dog Show, so I figured there was going to be lots of special celebrations. We were supposed to travel Saturday through Wednesday.
God has other plans.
A huge cold front was scheduled to arrive in Atlanta on Saturday, bringing snow, ice and total chaos. Delta was emailing and texting me with increased urgency. The first notification was ‘you may be impacted with weather…’. The last notification was ‘you WILL be impacted’. On Thursday, after a few panicked texts and phone calls between the gang, we chose to leave a day early! My nice relaxed plan to do laundry and pack on Friday were thrown out the window!
And so we found ourselves leaving a day early (thank goodness the hotel could accommodate us). Ruth’s husband was our H-Uber (Husband Uber), which meant I could leave my precious new car in the garage. Yay! I did some last minute shopping for warm clothes and overpacked for the trip. The flight was uneventful. One of our travelers does not have TSA, which made some logistics a challenge. She also had THE heaviest carry-on I’ve ever experienced. I know, because I offered to help her and was shocked at the weight. It’s like she was carrying a kettle ball!
Anyway we arrived to brutally cold weather in New York. FRIGID. Even the New Yorkers seemed shocked/angered by the cold and by the new mayor’s handling the snow. Streets were not getting plowed. And the snowball (hee hee) effect was that garbage trucks couldn’t get down the streets, so trash was piling up. I watched Room with a View on the plane. There’s a great quote from it.
The character Eleanor Lavish tells Lucy, “Smell! A true Florentine smell. Inhale, my dear. Deeper! Every city, let me tell you, has its own smell“.
I’ll let you imagine what smell New York City has (at least it wasn’t summer time!).
We arrived at the hotel and were headed to our rooms when I noticed a screeching squawk from a suitcase. Out loud I said ‘Well someone has a squeaky suitcase.’ The words are still in the air as my mind jumped to …maybe it is me. And it was. My lovely blue TravelPro of unknown age (at least a decade old) had a completely crushed spinner wheel.
I had missed lunch, so was starting to get hangry (which made the luggage damage much more dramatic). In spite of the cold weather, we scurried out to Long Acre Tavern for a quick bite (Shepherd’s pie potato skins). One of my friend’s ordered Sweet Tea, which challenged the Yankee staff…but they were able to come up with something close. And we sat at Rod Stewart’s table, which is pretty cool.
Back in the room after dinner, I noodled what to do. Rather than sacrifice vacation time searching for the perfect suitcase in a store in NYC, I ordered online at Walmart, mostly because they said it could be delivered by Monday. Proud of myself for the use of technology to solve a problem, we turned out the lights. but not to sleep for me. The heater was rattling like crazy so I didn’t sleep much.
The hotel was the Marriott Rennaissance Times Square. Rooms are very spacious by NYC standards. The location is great to get around (if you’re not in sub-freezing temps). The Times Square lights (and sounds) are obnoxious, so bring your eyemask and ear plugs.
Just a few pics to whet your appetite.
