This trip to NYC was not a piece of cake. It seemed like just about everything that could go wrong, did, from waking up New Year's Eve morning on through to past midnight. You know how some kids will find a trail of ants and put barricades in front of them, block them up, watch them find ways around it, and keep doing it? Actually, I bet anyone under the age of about 45 probably doesn't know any kids who did that. :D Anyway. That's what's it was like. I'm going to list out a lot of things that didn't go right, so let me preface this by saying that all in all it was a good experience, we had a really good time 95% of the time, it was an adventure, and not all adventures are perfect, but they're still adventures. At this point we find most of the obstacles pretty amusing.
Mine started with not sleeping well. I'd seen a weather trend I didn't like. We were in the Aerostar, and the 340 was stuck over in Illinois. The Aerostar isn't pressurized and can't go above 11,000' heading east, and there was an issue with one small part of the de-icing equipment. So of course the weather brought in ice, and not just a little, but a LOT. Moderate icing was being reported from 3000' on up to the flight levels, and the probability of it being there was hovering right around 50%, which is too high to ignore, even though it might not be there, either. So I woke up at 5 am thinking about it, and doublechecked, and it was still there. That left me an option of trying to find the best altitude and hoping for the best, but I'd have to climb up through several bad altitudes to get to it, and the weather stretched at some altitudes all the way across my route of flight. I didn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about it, but I kept trying to work the problem in my head. So I couldn't sleep. Down low it was mostly just light ice, but I'd have to stay at 3000' all the way to Pennsylvania and then climb up through ice. Etc. So finally at the last minute, I asked if I could use the Cheyenne, and they were good with that. It costs more, but without it, we might have had to cancel the whole thing, eat the hotel room and car service costs, and lose out on the whole experience. So I did feel better once the decision was made to take the Cheyenne.
The weather was so icky at Kokomo. The winds were gusting really high, over 30, and the taxiway and runway was slick from precip that had frozen. It was of course a stiff crosswind, and the wind pushing on the back end and tail of the plane kept making it want to slide on the ice and weathervane, especially on takeoff. Climbing up out of Kokomo, it was clear it was the right call to take that plane That airplane climbs like a homesick angel, and even as fast as we were climbing through the ice, it was accumulating on the airplane, rapidly, and it was obvious that in a slower, smaller airplane, especially with one part of the deice equipment not working properly, it would not have been good. So. That was the right call. I thought, and mentioned to Kaylee, how blessed we are to even have that option. Most people don't have airplanes. Of the people who do have airplanes, most only have their own airplane, or access to a club or rental airplane, and they'd have almost all been grounded with that sudden negative change of weather. Most people don't get to take a turboprop and beat Mother Nature. We are blessed.
I went up to 31,000', and cruised in clear blue sky, with a massive tailwind, and got to NY in like 90 minutes. I mean, c'mon. That's awesome. ;)
When we arrived, our limo service guy was in an older blue Suburban, and was waiting at the wrong part of the airport. He kept talking about how he'd never been to this small airport before and did we come in one of those (little trainers) and how he wouldn't go on a free trip to some island because the airplane was too small. Hey, he's the one missing out. ;) It took him 15 minutes to run my credit card and get set up before we left. He kept asking where we were going, which was not confidence inspiring, but he did get us there in one piece! Which is good, because I didn't have a working seat belt. In NYC. It was either me or Kaylee who could buckle up, and you know how that goes. I'm not leaving her unbuckled. He did a masterful job dropping us off in front of our hotel, which was right in Times Square, with a herd of cars and people already gathering. We got there 30 minutes before we could check in, but I went up to the desk and asked if they by chance had our room ready a little early anyway, and they did. We dropped our bags off upstairs, and then Kaylee looked out the window and said "Oh no, they're already barricading 44th St!"
See, we were told, and everything said, that they close down the blocks/streets as they fill up, and that usually you have until mid to late afternoon. We thought we'd be fine at 2:30-3 pm getting to the Square. Everyone was wrong. The weather was really mild this year. And a Korean K-pop band was playing, which is world famous and hugely popular right now, and everybody came out hard and early. We ran downstairs with our stuff to get in the Square. As soon as we got down there, they blocked off 45th St. So we went up, and there was a big line of people to get in. We got in line. And that's where things went downhill. The line moved painfully slowly. Every time we reached a new block, it was full and had been blocked off. We were on one block for 2 hours. It got dark while we stood in line. But people's sense of humor was staying intact. People around us joking, taking pictures, all of it. By the time we got to 52nd St, we were outside of the range of being able to even see the ball drop, and the line was still huge. We'd been in line for hours, and we had no chance to see the stages, see the ball, be in the confetti, watch any of the acts or opening ceremonies, none of it. Kaylee was pretty disappointed. We decided we'd get out of line, walk straight ahead, see what we could see at the next intersection, and then if nothing, just go back to our hotel, which was WAY closer to the festivities than we currently were, just across the street one block in fact, and go to a party at our hotel.
We get up to the next street, and we're in a group of people looking down the street, and all of a sudden the whole group surged forward, hard, and we were swept up in it. And I mean, I've never seen nor been in anything like this. We linked arms, and we were all pressed completely flat against everyone else. Somebody would move, and then people behind you pushed, hard, and your feet weren't always on the ground, and I kept thinking, "This is how people get killed". If you fell, and I almost did a few times, and there was a surge, you'd be trampled. When I was knocked over, the only reason I didn't hit the ground was because there wasn't enough space. I couldn't pull my phone out of my pocket, Kaylee couldn't turn her head because she was pressed up against some guy's shoulder. I am trying to describe how tight this was, and I can't. We couldn't hardly breathe, couldn't move anything but shuffling our feet, which sometimes were swept out from under us. The police at the checkpoint were saying "STOP PUSHING. The best view of the ball is on TV! Stop PUSHING!" But of course that did no good. We went through a security checkpoint, then a wanding check point, and then finally a second wanding check point, and finally we were in a "pen". At the front of the pen is a big TV screen showing you what's going on in the square, but we couldn't see the actual square itself. We're in a pen with a bunch of folks, with a pretty good view of the city. We hang out, have fun, we sort of made it. I bought a horn for Kaylee & Mer to blow, and they did, and their horn was the loudest ones out there. People would make tooting noises in a pattern, and someone would copy it. When Kaylee copied it they all turned and looked and laughed, because it was so loud. :D We stayed there for a good hour or so, and then it started raining. It wasn't supposed to. It was a COLD rain. We decided that if we couldn't see the real ball from here anyway, that standing there for 5 more hours and waiting on the countdown seemed tough. My feet were killing me.
So we decided to try to find somewhere to go and watch it, with a group. This is where things went downhill again. Most places required you be 21 to enter. Most places were sold out and booked up already. We looked into any restaurant anywhere around, and called a few, and no luck to even get in. So we thought, hey, our hotel said "Join us in the Stinger (restaurant) for a New Year Party here!" We go back to the hotel, change clothes into nicer ones, and go down to the Stinger. The guy says you can't just eat, you have to buy tickets as it's a private party. I say fine, where do I buy tickets. He comes back..."Sorry, we're all sold out." Now we have nowhere to go. We hadn't eaten. We couldn't get food at the restaurant downstairs. We were left with a pizza place or McDonald's across the street. We couldn't see the ball anywhere but on TV in our hotel room. Kaylee was sad, she had been so excited and eager to see the ball in person, celebrate with a crowd in New York. We were hungry, tired, and bummed out. Steve suggested room service, which I hadn't thought of because it was from the restaurant downstairs, which they told me wasn't serving food. But of course they'd do room service. So we started there. We ate like Queens. That improved our spirits. Then a crowd was forming at 44th St, even though it was barricaded off and even though you couldn't see anything from there. So we thought, what the hay. Kaylee wanted to be around a group of people, do a countdown, and celebrate the new year. So we walked right out our hotel and into the crowd.
We had a good time out there. There was a building there with a lit dome that looked like a ball on top of it. People were holding their camera phones up there waiting for the countdown. They didn't realize that wasn't The ball. We were cracking up. We took photos there, and I wanted to hashtag it #NotTheBall. So we stood in the large crowd, and when midnight hit, confetti went off in the square in front of us, and you could see it floating up taller than the buildings around it. Everyone cheered, and the girls honked their horns, and there were lots of "Happy New Year"!s, and it was fun, even though we didn't see anything, or hear a countdown. It was funny in its imperfection. I tried to live stream it on my phone, and I had a countdown, but the live stream must have been delayed, because it was already after midnight when my phone said we had 30 seconds left. I wanted to do a TEN, NINE, EIGHT count, but totally missed it. lol We went back to the hotel and this time we watched the live show from the Central time zone, and watched that count down and fireworks. Hit the bed after 1 am.
None of us slept great, in a quiet room with NYC noises and lights out the window, so when 8:30 am came, I got up first and showered to try to wake up. The girls followed shortly after, and we went downstairs for breakfast. It was an awesome buffet. The Intercontinental Hotel is a known high end hotel, and you could really see it in the buffet. Egg white and asparagus scrambled eggs. Fruit infused iced water. Tiny yogurt and fruit parfaits, quiche, I mean, all the stuff. We ate a bunch of food, which was good because it was one price no matter how much or little you ate. So we ate a lot. ;)
Our driver came to get us, a different guy in a shiny new black Suburban. There were three of them lined up in front of the hotel and I couldn't find ours at first, but he found us when I said we were three ladies standing out front. Picked up in style, and driven to the airport.
At the airport there was one worker there on New Year's Day, alone, who didn't know how to work anything. He couldn't get the credit card reader to work for 20 minutes, and when he finally did, and I signed it, I realized he'd overcharged me for two nights' stay when I was only there for one. So he had to undo and redo. Finally we were on our way home.
The girls passed out in the back for the first hour or so. Then they woke up and started messing around and having fun. Kaylee blew that dumb horn in the cockpit and it startled me for a second. So to pay her back, I pushed the nose over fairly hard and floated her and Meredith briefly. Then she asked if Mer could come up front and sit through the landing, and I said sure. She came up, I let her fly for a little bit after I canceled my IFR, and then I landed and we were home.
I put the plane away, Meredith's mom came and picked her up and everyone hugged and said thank you and what an amazing experience, and then I drove to Culvers and picked up food, came home, ate, and Kaylee and I Crashed on the couches. I think maybe 2 hours, we slept hard. I unpacked my bag, finally, and have just been hanging out ever since. I thought I'd be going to bed early because I'm still really tired, but I have things I want to do, like this post, so I just keep plugging away. And I don't have to get up early tomorrow, so that helps.
I'm amazed that I didn't end up with a bad headache. We deliberately had to dehydrate ourselves. There are no bathrooms in Times Square and you can't leave or you can't get back in. So we dehydrated ourselves from the night before. We didn't eat all day until like 10 pm other than a Subway sandwich in the plane at 11 am on the way over. I hadn't slept well. We hadn't gone to the bathroom since 2:30 pm and we went about 6 hours without a bathroom. Lots of noise and people. And there was a BUNCH of smoke around all the time. Mostly pot. Put all of those things together, and you have a perfect cocktail of how to give Laura a headache. And yet it somehow managed to not be. I was prepared in case it did, I knew it was a likelihood, but...it didn't. Thank the Lord.
We did have a possessed elevator! We got in the elevator at the hotel, and it would Not take us to our 4th floor. Once it went all the way up to the 26th floor, stopped there, where nobody was, and then took us back to the lobby. I had trouble multiple times getting an elevator to stop on our floor. One time it would only stop there when someone on that floor hit it and needed to go down. Another time after going up and down past it, we just got off on the 10th floor and walked down the stairs to our floor! It was weird, man! And it was more than just one elevator! Super expensive hotel with possessed elevators! :D
The only real disappointment was that while we were technically in Times Square, we weren't anywhere close to where they dropped the ball or the action was. Our HOTEL was close, but we couldn't get there, and we didn't miss it by much, as we saw them blocking off the roads as we were coming down. So close, yet so far. But like I said, we had a good time anyway, we had a major experience. I'm not sure I could have stood out there until midnight anyway. My feet were dying by 8 pm. When we started walking back to the hotel, I could hardly walk. When I went to bed that night, my feet were shooting sharp pains all over. My. Feet. Hurt. Bad. I don't think I could have done another 4-5 hours out there standing. I'd have ended up sitting on the dirty concrete, and I'm not sure there was room for that. I am 30 years older and probably 30-40 pounds heavier than those girls, and my feet were like "Are you crazy, lady??"
Kaylee still wants to be where all the action is. She's probably going to try again some year, with a plan to get there the night before and show up out there so early she gets her spot up front. Where she will have to stay, all day, no bathroom, no food. I don't think I'll be joining her for that one. I'd like to be there from say 10:30-midnight. But not 10 am to midnight. I don't think I physically can. She's nuts. ;)
That's all I can think of off-hand. Other than a flying thing most of you won't care about. I was cruising along in the Cheyenne when the GPS failed at 31,000'. It said "Use Dead Reckoning". It lasted long enough I started setting up my VORs, because I'd filed airways there, and I was like "Greeaaat." But then it came back on. Then the heading bug quit working for a long time. Without the heading bug, you can't really do vectors to an approach, so I had to hand fly the Localizer approach into NJ. I kept trying the bug, no joy. But then once I was on the ground and tested the heading bug again, it started working. Of course! :p Again, folks, be prepared to have to hand fly your airplane and go old school on your navigation. You never know when something won't work for no known reason.
These pics are out of order because most are mine, a few are Kaylee's, and Meredith has a couple as well. But you'll get the idea. :)
Waiting in line to try to get into the "pens" area
Great shot of Kaylee in the "pens"
The girls on the way to NY
I like the wider angle lens. I can get the whole panel in one shot now.
Blue skies.
Us in the Suburban on our way to the hotel
The line of people behind us in line to get in.
More people waiting to get in.
Now it's dark and that's the same tree from before as we wait to get in. ;)
Wider angle view of the street--and the guy behind me cheesing it for my photo.
NYC IS beautiful at night.
Meredith getting "wanded" by the NYPD
Us in the pen in the square
Laughing girls enjoying themselves
They had a "practice" countdown every hour. Here's 7 or 8 pm's countdown. ;)
Those stinking loud tooters
Here's where it started to rain.
Kaylee sadly looking out the window
Meredith happily looking out the window
This is the crowd outside our hotel right around midnight, all blocking the street.
Us laughing hard at "#NotTheBall"
A wider view of the whole street and some of the people.
In this shot you can see the confetti out there, in the lit up area. The confetti goes up higher than the building around it.
My view out the window after they released the hoards of people to go home.
This was after it calmed down some.
Flying home today. The difference between the wide angle lens
And the normal one. It looks weirder wide angle on this shot.
The girls passed out on the way home.
The top red circle is where we ended up in a pen. The bottom red circle is where the ball drop happened. Our original hotel is right next to the ball drop, one block over and one block up. lol
Me & Mer in the front seat of the Cheyenne today.
Look, no hands, she's flying it.
She thought that was pretty cool
Excellent shot of the girls before we left for the trip
Kaylee in the Cheyenne
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