The hard drive crisis has been fixed, the photos have been downloaded, and so I can share the highlights of my trip with the kids to NYC this past weekend.

We drove north, stopping only briefly in Delaware, and only because the volume of red lights was unambiguous.

But mostly it was full steam ahead. The kids were in the mood for adventure.  We played guessing games as we drove, which made the time pass quickly.

A few hours later, our destination was in sight.

There were a few more red lights standing in our way.

But just a few.

Suddenly, we were in the West Village. And found a place to park on the street! Instantly saving hundreds of dollars that would have otherwise gone to the gods of parking.

Alden found a pile of discarded Christmas trees and paused to pay her sympathies.

The kids’ first request? To go to the grocery store with the kid-sized carts.

Their second? To load up on marshmallows, which they are prohibited from eating at home (a response to the great marshmallow debacle of 2013).

  

Their third request was to go to sleep, already. It had been a rather long day.

On Saturday morning we headed out, walking north, and standing on every protruding pipe we could find.

It was cold. A few blocks later, we experienced a donut emergency.

And a few blocks more brought us to the Children’s Museum of the Arts, a very cool space where kids can make stuff and play.

Of course, we started with the play, namely, a room full of exercise balls, where kids were free to crawl and climb and bounce to their heart’s content. The visit would have been complete had we never left the ball room, but there was so much more.

A hallway full of translucent plastic sheeting.

With a glowing treasure at the end.

A huge room with tons of fun stations, including one for building towers.

And one for making play doh sculptures.

And one for painting.

And one for making magnet structures.

Which is, if you did not know, six kinds of fun.

There were fun house mirrors.

And those beds of pins you can mush your face into.

And then see what your face looks like on the other side.

There was a “clay bar” where Alden had a chance to work with an artist to create a sculpture of her choosing.

Her choosing resulted in a legless dog.

I wonder if this was less about choosing and more about running out of time.

Outside the museum, there were more pipes.

Alden decided to get in on the action.

A few blocks south…another pipe.

The day was fun. The day was long. The day ended rather suddenly.

Sunday’s destination was somewhat more distant. And so we went underground.

Alden had been on the subway before, but it was a first for Kato and August. They waited with anticipation…

…and were not disappointed.

Subways (as you know) are unlike anything we have in Chestertown. But the various New Yorkers who were sharing the train were nonetheless amused by my insistence on documenting the occasion.

Once above ground again, the posing continued, Alden choosing this time to stand next to the pipe rather than on top.

Our destination was the Museum of Natural History. As we walked the long block to the front door, we caught a glimpse of the famous Hayden Planetarium.

Once inside, we caught a glimpse of the biggest dinosaur Kato had ever seen.

And various roaming beasts.

And many, many more dinosaurs.

Including this one dinosaur notable for having had the good sense to wear mittens.

The Museum of Natural History is vast. Children’s patience for any one thing is low.

And so we kept moving.

Perhaps my favorite exhibit was the life-sized blue whale.

We sat below him and ate Go Go squeeZ (until this moment, I had no idea that this is how one is supposed to spell it) while watching a calming movie about the ocean.

By this time, the kids were tired of looking at things, but we had heard that there was a discovery room where kids could actually DO things. We dropped by and learned that it is a limited access system for which you have to sign up for tickets hours in advance. But the nice lady there told us to wait until the start of the next session and that, if anyone didn’t show up, we could have their spots instead.

And , lo!, the gods of children’s happiness showed up. We got in. And the kids went wild.

Alden opened 400 drawers, discovering treasures inside of each.

Kato explored tiny nooks with a flashlight and magnifying glass…

…discovering treasures of his own.

August made friends with a frog.

Then took up a brush and chisel and looked for dinosaur bones.

Alden amused herself with masks.

Then invited me to join in the fun.

Kato played paleontologist with a previously untapped seriousness.

And Alden narrowly avoided being eaten by a dinosaur. By about 65 million years.

We had fun but had to pause to rest a few times on the way back to the Subway.

I’m a small-town guy but have to admit that New York can be beautiful.

Even when there were no pipes, the silliness went unchecked.

The kids slept soundly Sunday night, so much so that they did not rise until I pulled them from their beds on Monday morning and plopped them into their car seats still in their PJs.

It was a fun weekend in New York.

We’ll be back before too long, I suspect.

As for Robbi, she reports to have had a good time. She got some rest, ate some meals at the tables of charitable friends and neighbors, and finished our next Idiots’Book, which is about cats.

Now we’re buried in snow and wishing that school would reopen so that our children could learn (and so that we could get rid of them for a few hours and get some work done). But mostly so that they could learn. I will keep telling myself this until it seems true.