A word of warning, this blog entry is extra long as there were lots of stories to tell today.

This morning Ed and I rode the bus to NYC. The bus arrived at the stop a couple of minutes before we expected, the traffic wasn't too bad allowing the bus to make good time. We were nearing the Lincoln Tunnel when Ed and I heard beeping noises coming from the bus --- sometimes fast, sometimes slow. The bus shut down the driver restarted. After a minute the beeping began again and the bus stopped and the driver restarted it. After the 3rd time, the driver pulled into a large parking lot just outside of the Lincoln Tunnel. We overheard the driver talking to dispatch saying that the bus kept stopping on him and he had a full load of passengers that wanted to get to NYC. Turned out the bus was loosing water so to protect itself it wouldn't run. After approximately 15 minutes two buses pulled into the lot to pick up the stranded passengers. First lesson in patience.

The plan today was to take the Hop On Hop Off bus to the stop at the American Museum of Natural History (about the middle on the north side of Central Park) and walk across the park to the Guggenheim Museum. After what felt like forever but was probably only a 15 minute wait a bus arrived. Second lesson in patience. We got good seats on top and started our third lesson in patience. The bus turned the corner onto 8th Avenue and all you could see in front of us were stopped vehicles. For the first 5 minutes or so I was thinking we should have walked it would be faster then I realized we weren't on a time schedule. I relaxed and enjoyed the sites and sounds of New York. It was actually quite interesting looking down at the traffic (we were in the top of an double decker bus). It takes a lot of driving skills to drive a tour bus in NYC. We found out later that a number of roads were closed for the Labor Day Parade putting extra traffic onto 8th Avenue.

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When the bus is stopped a lot you see a lot more. This fire station has expertise with sky scrapers. Unfortunately that meant they lost a number of their fire fighters on 911.

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The turret on one of the old homes on the Upper West Side and the statue of Teddy Roosevelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History.

We've been to the Central Park Zoo but we haven't actually walked through the park. So another first --- a walk across Central Park.

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The red line approximates our path through Central Park. As you can see we missed huge areas of the park but we did determine that park is well used. Lots of baseball games, picnics, walkers, riders, joggers, dog walkers plus people doing a lot of other things. For a minute or two it actually feels like you are out in the country away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

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We walked through a couple of gardens.

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The city was never far away.

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The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir is 106 acres, is 40 feet deep, holds over a billion gallons of water and covers a full one eighth of the park's surface. The shoreline is a walking / running track that a lot of people use.

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The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

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The inside of the Guggenheim is a spiral. The current exhibit on display in the spiral is Giacometti. "The Nose" must be an important work by Giacometti as it is on the cover of the book Giacometti.

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The fountain in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pattern of the water kept changing making it interesting to watch.

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It was easy to spot the hot dog trucks.

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Back in Central Park we found Conservatory Water. Here you can rent a model boat and sail it in the pond.

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There was a "Natural Area" which at first glance appeared to be a field full of grass and weeds. On closer inspection we found some beautiful flowers including this one. First one layer appears then a second layer and finally the third layer. I don't have a clue what this plant is. Outside the park we see this building near the Park Plaza. I think the building looks really nice but don't have a clue what it is called.

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We walked past the Stardust Dinner with it's singing waitstaff and couldn't believe the line up to get inside. We passed on this restaurant as I didn't feel I needed a fourth lesson in patience today.

On the bus tour we were told that there are a lot of restaurants on 9th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen. The information was correct --- every type of restaurant was represented. Ed found a Brazilian Restaurant and boy was I happy we ate there. The food was excellent. We sat near the open front of the restaurant and were entertained by all the activity on the street.

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While we were eating our dinner a bicycle pulled up, showed the waitstaff his phone, he was handed a bag of food which he put in his insulated back pack. You can order food from a restaurant and it is delivered by a "courier". While we ate dinner we probably saw at least 25 of these bicycle couriers. Night time falling at the bus station.