It's up to you, New York, Newww Yoooooork!

Okay, for this post, we're traveling back in time a bit, but I just got these pictures from my mom and I didn't want to post about our trip to New York till I had the pictures.

In early September, my mom and dad, Reed and I, all headed out to New York (state not city) to visit my mom's side of the family. (I gave Gerry the option of coming with us, or taking the time to go backpacking and he seized the opportunity to get out into the woods.) I hadn't been to visit them since I was 2, and the only members of the family I remember are the few who have made visits to Washington, so my visit was LONG overdue! It's always been a bit strange to me to know that I've got cousins whom I've never met.

Once again, I was a little worried about all the plane travel, and once again, Reed proved himself to be an excellent traveler. I thought about bringing a few new toys to keep him entertained but didn't wind up doing so, but that wound up being fine as we were seated directly across the aisle from a 17 month old boy who was WAY more entertaining than any toy could be (time to find Reed a playgroup!)

We stayed in a small town called Hyde Park, which is in upstate New York. The town is conveniently located near the homes of my NY relatives and is also the home of FDR. The purpose of our trip was to visit family so, we made that our first priority!

This is my cousin Laurie with Reed on our first full day in Hyde Park. If you look at Reed's eyes, you can see just how exhausted he was. He did a great job traveling, but it took him the better part of the week to adjust to the 3 hour time change. He pulls his ears when he's tired, and he was pulling he's ears so much and with such force, I started to worry that he might be suffering some ear trouble in the aftermath of the flight. Thankfully it was just because he was tired.

This is the rest of Reed's generation on my Mom's side of the family. I'm out of place here as these are all of my cousin's kids. Can you tell I'm the youngest of my generation by a good 10+ years?!

As I said, we made it a priority to visit family, but we got out and visited some sites too. This pictures was taken on a day when we visited FDR's presidential library and museum. I know the picture is a bit boring, but it tells a good story. When we got there, the helicopter pictured, was circling over the grounds. We had no idea what it was there for, but my mom snapped this picture. Later, I saw a rather official looking fellow and asked him what the helicopter was about. He replied "Well, it's 9/11 isn't it? Heightened security...". With a bit of forehead smacking and "oh, of course!" from my family and I, we went on with our day.

It wasn't till later, when we were visiting the Vanderbilt mansion, that we discovered the real reason the helicopter was there. We overheard a couple saying that they had run into Donald Rumsfeld at the FDR museum on the same day we had been there! It was then that we realized that the helicopter wasn't for heightened security, it was for Rumsfeld, and the official looking fellow I had asked about it was (I'm almost positive) a secret service agent. I told Gerry, it was just as well that we didn't run into Rumsfeld as I was pretty sure that the secret service wouldn't have taken kindly to me shouting obscenities at Rumsfeld to which, Gerry assured me, that he would have flown out to New York to bail me out of jail. :-)

The weather turned from summer to fall while we were there. When we arrived the days were warm and humid (though not unbearably so). About halfway through our trip, the weather turned cool and rainy. It rained on us here, the day we visited the Vanderbilt mansion, and of course, us Washingtonians were the only ones there without an umbrella. Grandpa improvised here to keep Reed dry.

We did manage to make it to the big city for a little while. We took the train down and arrived at 11 in the morning and had to take the 4:40 afternoon train home to ensure Reed got to bed at a reasonable hour, so this was really a whirlwind trip! Here we are, right after we arrived, with the Empire State building behind us.

We decided that our first priority was to see Central Park. As a bunch of outdoorsy people, this stop had a lot of appeal for all of us. The bonus was that my mom had never been able to go through central park while growing up in New York because it was too dangerous being a favorite haunt of violent gangs at the time.

The other stop we made was the Empire State building which was a great choice as it allowed us to get a good view of the city. We had great visibility because of the recent rain and could see a long way, which apparently is a bit of a rare occurence. This was about as happy as Reed ever got while we were at the Empire State building (which if you click on the picture to see it full size, is not very happy). I know he was tired, and he may have been a bit hungry too, but I also suspect he may have been afraid of our lofty altitude as he stopped screaming and crying when we got back down to the ground.

We're back from the city at this point, and while this picture may look lovely and benign, this was probably the most dangerous place we ever visited. The area that we were visiting has one of the highest rates of Lyme disease in the country and we are standing in prime tick habitat here. Most of my family there have had at least one bout with the disease and in fact, one of my cousins was bit at the very park we're standing in and in the midst of her battle with Lyme, she told us there were times that she prayed she would not wake up. Scary stuff. New York state far exceeded my expectations for scenic beauty, but it was strange to not feel comfortable in the woods for fear of being bit by a tick carrying Lyme. I'll take Washington anyday thank you very much!

The other thing that is telling about this picture, is who is holding Reed. Reed got REALLY attached to my dad while we're away. Now certainly a part of this is that my dad is really good with kids (I call him the Pied Piper of our neighborhood because all the kids are drawn to him). But I think the other part is that Reed recognized that a very significant man was missing from his life and latched on to the closest one he could find.

Reed and I were in New York for 10 days, and Gerry left two days before we departed which left our family divided for just short of two weeks, which felt like an eternity. I really enjoyed the trip and absolutely fell in love with all my family there and I can't wait to return. I'll just have to talk Gerry into coming with me next time!!