New York, Day 6

Let's see how much of this vacation I can still remember...

While the Steeds were making multitude servings of orange "juice" from their beloved orange trees, Brad and I were still steeped in American history in New York City. On our last full day of travel we visited the September 11 Memorial Museum. It came highly recommended, but we both knew we were walking into a very serious, hard memory for the world at large. I felt as I have at funerals - the knowing that I'm where I should, all the while strongly desiring to run away and pretend such evil things do not really occur.

We had to be there quite early in the morning (for vacationers) and since Brad isn't much of a breakfast-person I voluntarily forewent my morning meal in hopes of being hungry when Brad was hungry, which proved later to be a foolhardy decision on my part.

The museum indeed was a very hard truth in which to be immersed. It was full of artifacts of the original World Trade Center buildings and the time.

The museum did an excellent job honoring those murdered on September 11th. They were successful in putting a face to each name. While the blue tiles in the mural above represents the 2,996 people killed that day, there were further exhibits that shared with you their lives, their crushed/burned belongings found in the rubble, and voices from their remaining family members.

The museum, while extremely well put-together and powerful in story, seemed to go on and on and a couple of hours into the tour, my stomach was growling.

Being the wise husband that he is, Brad began to inch us toward the exit, but at every turn we found ourselves in more exhibits. Brad could have read every word on every surface. Probably an hour later he asked how I was doing.

I answered truthfully that I was on the verge of fainting or getting very angry. There it was... on the celebration of our 15th wedding anniversary our marriage could have taken a downward turn all due to the drop in blood sugar and energy. It was nearly 2:00pm by the time we made it upstairs to the museum's cafe and I ate the best soup and grilled cheese sandwich I ever did eat. Brad says my taste buds were probably a bit biased as I was very hungry, because it was the "most disappointing meal" Brad ate while in New York.

However, the disappointing meal was worth the happy marriage.

It rained on and off that Monday... or whatever day it was... and after a few hours of walking on sore feet, we decided it was high time to watch Netflix in the hotel room. What can I say, the day was just full of good decisions.

After several episodes of House MD, we again ventured into the beautiful, wet city and enjoyed the sights of...

...the New York Public Library...

...the burst of colors amidst the gray concrete...

(my phone was inspired to show me what my picture could have looked like should I have played with their editing tools)

...and the lovely little pockets of parks.

Our dinner that night was a chocolate covered waffle with peanut butter and banana. Another good decision minus the cold of the air turning our chocolate syrup so hard that it nearly broke the plastic prongs of our fork.

We meandered into Saks on Fifth Avenue. Never have I felt so out of place.

I took a picture of these pants for Kaeley and her fashion role model, Melanie. Had I a mere thousand dollars lying around I could have brought them home a pretty awesome souvenir.