Our 2011 Road Trip #29: The Season Finale — NYC Outtakes

Empire State Building!

One of several Empire State Building shots taken from the Top of the Rock. Collect ’em all!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we guided you through our first trip to New York in twenty-eight episodes — July 9-17, 2011. The original version of this travelogue was posted for friends on another website but was remastered for archival posterity here at my permanent internet hideaway on MCC. Dozens of never-before-seen photos were added. Several chapters were expanded, rewritten, or torn apart and glued back together in different order. And I fixed a sad number of typos I never caught the first time around.

Here, in our grand finale: a selection of outtakes from various chapters, most of these also new to readers far and wide. A few were technically deficient but held just enough quirk not to be junked. A few were redundant. A few that captured isolated moments were disconnected from the rest of the narrative. A few came out as pure settings in need of a foreground subject. One memento required me to scan a page from my wife’s NYC 2011 scrapbook with her gracious permission and the promise that I wouldn’t damage her own diligent handicraft. Enjoy!

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Our 2011 Road Trip #28: Last Call for Roadside Attractions

Flight 93 Born Hero's!

They did it! Congratulations! World’s greatest 9/11 marker! Great job, everybody!

The highway and back roads leading to and from the Flight 93 National Memorial included a few token expressions of belief. This was the most eye-catching. As a Christian, I wanted to cry. And to drive over it. Several times.

Setting aside questions of topical relevance and basic composition (is Jesus trying to catch the plane? or is the plane buzzing disrespectfully by his scalp like Maverick in Top Gun?)…out of all the townspeople it took to assemble and erect this heartfelt expression of free speech, not one of them volunteered to proofread. Or do focus-group duty.

I just…no. No.

Right this way for the penultimate chapter in this special MCC maxiseries!

Our 2011 Road Trip #27: Sacrifice-That-Was and Salute-That-Would-Be

Flight 93 Flags.

Once it was an unassuming plain owned by a local coal company. Fate would turn it into something else entirely.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Our next hotel was only a few hours from Weehawken in the town of Somerset, PA, but offered us grand luxuries that our previous hotel had denied us — free cookies, free coffee in the lobby, free stale popcorn, and (in a hotel first for us) an extravagant lap desk to use with our laptop. We settled in by the end of the afternoon, then walked away from all the amenities for something more important. We got right back in the car, headed north of the town of Shanksville, and paid a visit to the local must-see: the crash site of United 93.

By this time we were far from New York City, but no less connected to it by heart-rending 21st-century history.

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Wizard World Chicago 2016 Photos, Part 8 of 7: On the Occasion of Rosemont’s 60th

Rosemont 60th!

If you attended Wizard World Chicago 2016 and stayed at the Hyatt across the street, or at another nearby hotel linked through the same skybridge network, you missed this mural.

(Consider this entry the scene after the “Wizard World Chicago 2016 Photos” end credits.)

Though it’s named for the Windy City, Wizard World Chicago is held each year at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, which was incorporated January 20, 1956. We’ve done WWC eight times and still find something new in Rosemont every time we visit. That three-story mural in the lead photo adorned the free parking garage attached to our hotel for the weekend, known to WWC fans as “The Other Hyatt” — i.e., the one a mile north of the con and far away from all the good parties. It’s cheaper, quieter, and easy to make reservations there by accident if you don’t pay attention to the differing street addresses on Rosemont’s two Hyatts.

The Other Hyatt’s mural was our first notice about Rosemont’s 60th anniversary. On Saturday as we walked through the center corridor of the convention center parking garage, from the con over to MB Financial Park for dinner, we discovered another tribute to Rosemont’s 60th in the form of famous paintings brushed large but altered with homages to various Rosemont points of interest (some more interesting to the locals than to us out-of-towners). Anyone who didn’t walk the same walk, or who didn’t look closely while driving in our out, would’ve missed them easily. We caught a few of our favorites to share here for posterity as a sort of post-con epilogue. Enjoy!

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Our 2011 Road Trip #26: Hamilton’s Final Show

Hamilton Death Rock!

I haven’t seen a rock with this many compliments engraved in it since that time the Bedrock Bugle gave five stars to a new bronto-rib joint.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

We were finished with New York City for the year, but our road trip wasn’t over yet. Our Indiana home was a few states away, and nicer parts of New Jersey had highlights to share with us before we left.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #25: Our Last Times Square Parade

New Year's Eve ball!

This New Year’s Eve ball may be retired, but it’s still got enough magic in it to perform random countdowns to nothing in particular. Kids love countdowns.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Sooner or later, everyone who can’t afford to live in New York has to leave New York. With a handful of hours left on Day Six, it was our turn to start spreading the news and leave here today. We voted unanimously for one last walk through Times Square — one last chance to immerse ourselves in that vibrant hodgepodge teeming with life and lights and wonder and costumes and tourists needing directions and open-air claustrophobia, often not in that order.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #24: Washington vs. Columbus

Washington Square Arch!

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

After lunch at Peanut Butter & Co., we walked another block-‘n’-a-half northeast through Greenwich Village to Washington Square Park, one of those diverse, bustling, happy public places that all the best city parks aspire to be so they can attract the attention of Hollywood location scouts.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #23: Peanut Butter and Dragon Fruit

Dragon fruit lady!

This outgoing saleslady spoke just enough English to SELL! SELL! SELL!

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

When we had been brainstorming alternatives and last-minute requests the night before, a return to Chinatown was at the top of my son’s list. Those four hours of walking ourselves to death on Tuesday had yielded very little in the way of strange new foods for him to try. We can’t get him to touch pasta at home unless he can make eye contact with a Chef Boy-Ar-Dee logo, but he bore no such prejudice against the untested grounds of Chinatown merchants.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #22: Winnie the Pooh and Ghostbusters Too

New York Public Library!

Hi, we’re the lions at the New York Public Library! You might remember us from such films as The Wiz and Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow! We have a terrible agent.

Considering how many films have been made in New York, it wouldn’t be hard to create a vacation itinerary made entirely of sights Hollywood has already shown us. Retracing the steps of those filmmakers can be fun, but it’s especially rewarding when they lead you to unexpected treasure.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #21: Grand Central to Fifth Avenue and Back Again

Trump Clock!

It’s 7 p.m. Do you know where your billionaires are?

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

The back half of our Day Six was like a Family Circus cartoon where a dotted line struggles to keep up with li’l Jeffy while he cavorts and frolics and gambols and flits about from one distraction to the next until he ends his five-mile run roughly three feet from where he started. From Midtown to the East River to Fifth Avenue and back to Weehawken — we were all over the Manhattan map, alternating between those blessedly convenient subways and some overenthusiastic walking whenever the railways fell short of our goals.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #20: Welcome to Our World of Toys

Anne + Lego Harrison Ford!

As a lifelong fan of Harrison Ford, Anne accepts that Lego Indiana Jones is the closest she’ll ever come to meeting the real deal. But she can dream.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

When you bring a kid or two with you on vacation, assuming you don’t secretly hate them, and assuming you’re not one of those negligent parents who needs to learn a special life lesson about how not to be a selfish jerk, then it follows that your itinerary should have some stops that the kid will enjoy more than you do. And if you should happen to find something interesting about those stops for yourself, then hey, everyone wins.

Thus our family set forth on the trail of the last remaining FAO Schwarz in America. If nothing else, it would make a nice bookend with our visit to the Times Square Toys R Us.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #19: The Long Road to the United Nations

Chrysler Building!

Hi, I’m the Chrysler Building! You might remember me from such films as Armageddon and Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla! I have a terrible agent.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

On this trip we limited ourselves to two modes of transportation: walking and subway. Cabs and buses are popular options with some folks, but cabs are expensive and buses…frankly, I have no idea why we avoided buses. Soon we would learn that New York City’s subway system is extensive, but it doesn’t make every attraction an easy convenience, especially not in 90-degree temperatures.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #18: A Day at the Met

Chinese Tapestry!

After spending some time resting and admiring this Chinese mural, a trio of young European girls asked me to take their photo for them. One tourist to another, it was the least I could do.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

After the Sony Wonder Tech Lab, we returned to the subway, rode to 86th Street, and walked due west to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Seeing this entire ZIP-code-sized labyrinth of a museum would take months and require camping gear. In gracious deference to the member of our party with the shortest attention span, we kept a narrow focus on the Asian sections. On our next NYC trip someday before I die, it’ll be my turn to see what I want.

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Pokemon in All the Wrong Places

Rattata!

Teaser image of Rattata from Eli Roth’s next horror film I Catch Pokemon on Your Grave.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: while waiting at Indianapolis International Airport for our (delayed) flight to Manhattan, I downloaded Pokemon Go as an amusing experiment just to see what would happen. Three weeks later, I’m still toying around, curious to see how much longer it’ll take me to get bored with it and move on. Yep, that should happen any week now.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #17: The Empire State Building on $0.00 a Day

Empire State Building!

That precious sight everyone treasures whenever they find it in Manhattan: a real live tree.

Because every tourist is required to check in at King Kong’s favorite scratching post, pretend old-fashioned romance awaits us on the observation deck, and then run like crazy before Roland Emmerich finds six more ways to destroy it while we’re in striking distance.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Right this way for mandatory Empire State Building pics!

Our 2011 Road Trip #16: Bright On Broadway

Lion King Mask!

“MUFASA WELCOMES YOU AND REMINDS YOU TO TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES.”

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

After plumbing the depths of Grant’s Tomb we had an afternoon appointment for our very first Broadway show: The Lion King. But first we had to get there. The trip down from 122nd Street to 45th Street wasn’t a short one.

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Our 2011 Road Trip #15: Grant’s Tomb Raider

Grant's Tomb!

Literally the closest we’ve ever been to Harlem, which was a few blocks northeast of here.

There’s that wife of mine, once again on her quest to catch ALL the dead Presidents. It would require our longest subway ride of the week, but a special treat was waiting for us at the end of the line.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

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Our 2011 Road Trip #14: Chinatown!

Lin Ze Xu!

Lin Ze Xu welcomes you to the south end of Chinatown, but not your opium. His 19th-century version of the War on Drugs happened long before Nancy Reagan taught us all to just say no.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Chinatown was like nothing we’d ever stepped into before — block after block of overpacked mom-‘n’-pop shops, restaurants with all-paper signage, dingy dives with no English names out front, and respectable businesses stacked atop businesses with even more businesses crammed under and between them, their streets teeming with life and bootleg lady-shopper bait (useless against my wife, who’s not into fashion shopping) and the worst smells we hope we’ll ever know, whether from the deadliest spices known to man or from all the endless displays of fresh-slaughtered seafood, some of it still writhing. My son wanted to see every single block of it, even the blocks ruled by Vietnamese or Thai shopkeepers instead of Chinese.

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Ads of Darkness, Ads of Light

Suicide Squad!

Some movie posters want to sell you happy fun times using all the colors of the rainbow. In terrible times like these, not everyone wants to embrace the dark side. Sometimes even our creepiest antiheroes are redrawn to radiate with kaleidoscopic pop-art joy in hopes of convincing tourists and natives alike that our next trips to the theater will leave us smiling and cheering while murderers and other malcontents save the day. Apparently that’s why the Suicide Squad now stands tall above Times Square looking as far removed from murky Zack Snyder dystopia as possible.

Meanwhile in other universes, other antiheroes couldn’t care less whether you smile or shudder.

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New Jersey from a Minimum Safe Distance

One Anne!

I can see Springsteen from here!

Flying to this year’s vacation destination had its advantages — faster travel time; free tiny snacks; no road construction delays; no rental car to return afterward while we’re all exhausted; and no danger of accidentally winding up in Newark again on our way to Manhattan. Sure, they could’ve diverted our plane to the wrong airport, but thankfully that didn’t happen. We also reviewed the New Jersey hotel options that we took advantage of in 2011, but price variances in both states over the past five years leveled the playing field in our absence. So this faraway glimpse is as close as we got to New Jersey this year.

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