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Day Nine: Sunday, June 17, 2007
Our flight was delayed by two hours! Two hours which would have been much better spent in bed resting up for today's activities. Did we ever mention that we dislike air travel? If the two hour delay were not enough, Kismet's travel crib was late in arriving at the baggage carousel and we had to wait around for it to arrive before we could stand behind a rather hostile woman in the long queue to procure a rental car. Still, it was good to be back in New York!
Our first stop was at the 1964 World's Fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows, Queens. We were about 42 years late for the Fair, but were pleased to see the remnants of that event which still stand, including the twelve-story-high Unisphere and the even taller observation towers. You may know these landmarks as the globe and spaceships from the climactic battle scene in the movie Men in Black. While we were standing beneath the enormous globe (which looks even bigger than it did on film), we received a phone call from Andy's father, who used to live in New York and had difficulty understanding why we would bother visiting the Fairgrounds, when there's really nothing left there to see. "We're Andy and Kala! You know how we love giant things!" This yielded acceptance, if not understanding, from Dad and brought the questions to an end. We find that, "We're Andy and Kala!" is often sufficient to explain our choices to our baffled loved ones.
Although Kala was expecting the stop at the Fairgrounds, she was unaware of the awesome surprise that awaited inside the Queens Museum of Art. Andy, of course, knew all along that we would be seeing the Panorama, the best-maintained leftover from the 1964 World's Fair. The Panorama is a 9,335-square-foot model of New York City, including every one of the 895,000 buildings constructed before 1992 (when the model was last updated) in all five boroughs at a scale of one inch to one hundred feet (the model of the Empire State building is thus fifteen inches tall). Andy pointed out some of the city's landmarks, including several which we will later be visiting, and was able to answer the questions of many other tourists, as well. Kala even thought she might have heard him giving driving directions, using the Panorama as a map.
Following our visit to Queens, Andy took the wheel and bravely drove us into the heart of Manhattan, to the American Museum of Natural History. There, we parked in the garage (which ended up costing us almost $30 for less than three hours, and that's with validation!) and went about taking a quick tour of the museum, which was recently made popular again by the movie Night at the Museum. Unfortunately, the museum seems to be under renovation and many of the sights we were hoping to see had been moved to where we were unable to find them. Still, it is always cool to see the dinosaurs, the marine life, the Hall of Biodiversity (where jellyfish hang out with tigers, whatever that's about), and, of course, the giant whale. We spent a couple of fun-filled hours making our way through the museum and, while we probably could have spent a whole day there, felt that we had seen quite a lot during our visit and were satisfied when we departed.
After a long day of travel and touring, we were ready to go to Craig and Sue's house, where we spent the evening visiting with them and playing with our nephews. Victor got along wonderfully with the boys, and we are happy that he has found some playmates, as we will be staying around the house to visit for a couple of days before going back out on the road.
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