Field of Dreams Tour: New York City
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We started travel midday on Tuesday, arriving in Philadelphia that night. We got up bright and early the next morning to drive out to Wyomissing, PA (near Reading) to visit Cherie's Aunt Elaine. Elaine is the youngest of the four Ackerly girls (Cherie's mom, Merle, being the third of four) and retired to Wyomissing about ten years ago after a career in New York City, working for Manufacturer's Hanover Trust. We had a lovely visit with Aunt Elaine, who I'd never met and - more importantly - had never met the kids. Unfortunately, we completely spaced and took no pictures! Doh!
Before leaving the Reading area, we hit up the local Whole Foods to stock up on things like almond milk, gluten-free bread and other food stuffs friendly to Zack's dietary needs as well as some snacks for the road. We were amazed to discover
the same Driscoll Farms organic strawberries grown in Watsonville that we reguarly eat cost half as much in Pennsylvania! Yeah, we have to travel 2500 miles to eat food grown 30 miles from us at half the price. Can you say "demand price elasticity"? I knew you could... We then hightailed it back across Pennsylvania and New Jersey toward New York City. Supposedly, this is a two and a half to three hour trip...and it was, until the last ten miles from roughly Newark (oh yeah, its still as beautiful as you all remember) where the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel took us two hours. You think San Francisco Bay Area (or even Los Angeles) traffic is bad? This was the reverse commute into the City. 
Eventually, we made it through and sped uptown to our tiny hotel on 71st, just off of Central Park West. Once ensconsed in our spacious 10 ft. square space, we ventured out and found a lovely neighborhood Italian restaurant - Il Bello Giaradano - that was kid friendly, high end food and reasonabley priced. We'd hoped to get in early enough to take the kids to the Empire State Building but it was too late and we were all pooped.
So Thursday was really our only New York City Day. After breakie, we headed ten blocks north to the Natural History Museum. Not surprisingly, Zack and Zoe were busy looking for all the things they expected to see from the movie A Night at the Museum most of which didn't exist. But we were all duly impressed by the dinosaurs, the amazing mineral collection, the full sized blue whale hanging from the ceiling!
Then we hit the D train uptown for the Bronx: 161st Station/Yankee Stadium. Cherie scored us tickets for $5 a piece the day Yankee's tickets went on sale. Sure they were the top tier, but they were right on top of first base and - as you can see - in a stadium built that vertical, you're right on top of the action. We had a great view and a great time. Somehow Zack, the only Yankee fan in the family, manage to seduce Zoe away from her Red Socks fandom (she became a fan when the Giants traded J.T. Snow to Boston) over to the dark side. It could have something to do with the fact that her parents put up a constant protest about having a Yankee fan in the house. It was a fantastic game - we arrived late, showing up in teh top of the second where the White Sox had already exacted some revenge from the previous day's drubbing by the Yankees by jumping to and 8-0 lead. But the boys in pinstripes quickly grabbed back six runs in the bottom of the second and had tied the game up by the bottome of the third. The Yankees would go on to win, but we hightailed it out of there before the end of the game, needing to get back across the Hudson River to head north to Cooperstown, New York.
