Whew!

Last weekend, two cheerful Minnesotans - Andrea and Michelle - paid us a visit! Although we had to work for part of their visit, we had a great time over the weekend when we could all be together. One of our first stops on Saturday morning was the South Street Seaport, an area we discovered a short while back.





We also walked around Wall Street, and checked out George Washington's old stomping grounds, i.e., the location of his inauguration.



After seeing the business side of the city, we checked out Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village.

Loooooong line at Magnolia Bakery!

Michelle is a huge BBQ fan, so when we read about a BBQ restaurant in Chelsea that was supposedly one of the best in the city, we had to take her there. We were going to a comedy show in Chelsea that evening, so it worked out perfectly. It seemed to satisfy Michelle and her high BBQ standards, so we considered it a success!

On our way to the comedy show, Andrea lured us into Tasti D Lite! Yum!

The comedy show was great and, as an added bonus, someone Andrea went to high school with was one of the improv actors! It was a total surprise to Andrea to see him there, so that made it even more fun.

Of course, no trip to NYC is complete without a nighttime stop in Times Square. Here we are, in all its glory.

The next day, we woke up and made our way over to the Upper East Side in the hopes of getting one of the first tables at Serendipity when it opened for the day. We arrived early and stood outside in line for a little bit, but soon enough we were in! It really is an adorable restaurant, and I think it lived up to everyone's expectations. You can't go wrong with that frozen hot chocolate!

The next stop was Dylan's Candy Bar, where we think we spotted Jon Cryer from Two and a Half Men. There was quite a bit of debate between us, so what do you think? Were we right?

We walked over to Central Park and enjoyed the beautiful weather and scenery.

Bryan's weakness - the Nuts 4 Nuts stand! He always has to stop and get some cashews.

After Central Park, we made the epic journey to Brooklyn. Brooklyn is so close on the map, yet it's always so difficult to get there on the weekend subway. After a lot of patience on our guests' part, we made it to the borough. We walked around the Park Slope neighborhood and ooo'ed and ahh'ed at the brownstones. I can't believe we didn't see Dr. Huxtable.

To end the Brooklyn trip on a calm and relaxing note, we hung out at a coffee shop in Park Slope called:

It was the perfect place to take a break before heading back to Manhattan to watch the Vikings/Packers game that night. You know why we aren't going to talk about that game.

We accomplished so much in the couple days we had together and got a lot of great pictures to capture the memories. It sure helps to have a built-in camera man like Bryan! Thanks for visiting Michelle and Andrea!

Connecticut and Rhode Island

For some reason, the trees have not really changed colors in New York City. Or maybe the trees have changed, but green smog is covering them and making them look green. Who knows at this point. In the hopes of seeing some real fall colors, we rented a car the other weekend and drove to Connecticut and Rhode Island. Our view from the car window was very pleasant.

We visited several adorable New England towns, with churches like this one.

We drove through an area in Connecticut called Litchfield Hills, which probably had the best fall colors of all the places we visited.

We almost had to check our map to make sure we were really in Connecticut, and not Redwood Falls, Minnesota!

We visited Mystic, Connecticut, which was near the coast and proved to be another picturesque small town.

Mystic is home to Mystic Pizza, which was apparently a Julia Roberts movie. Given my total lack of knowledge regarding pre-2001 movies, I haven't seen it, but I can say the pizza was delicious!

Based on a recommendation from a co-worker, we also stopped by the Book Barn in Connecticut. He said he couldn't describe the place, but that we had to go there. I didn't know what could be so difficult about describing a book store, but when we got there, we totally understood. It was an enormous used book store, with a very "unique" layout. At first we thought this building was the book store...

...but there were so many more random buildings/areas!

A few new books...

...and a few webby ones.

A couple of goats for good measure.

And several cats. This one was taking a snack break.

It was definitely an interesting experience!

While we didn't find a Book Barn equivalent in Rhode Island, we really enjoyed the state. We went to Providence first, and luckily arrived on the night of the WaterFire festival. It was amazing! Tons of bonfire-like stations were set up on the river, and gondoliers rowed people through the festival.

During daylight hours, we went to the Federal Hill area of Providence, which was kind of like a Little Italy.

After Providence, we drove to Newport, Rhode Island. Newport had several historic mansions to tour, and we saw as many as we could in our limited time. The mansions were so enormous, it really was difficult to see more than a few.

Honey, I'm home! It was crazy to think of our teeny-tiny apartment compared to these palaces.

One of the coolest parts about these mansions was the proximity to the ocean. As if living in extravagant quarters was not enough - you had to be able to hear the ocean waves crashing against the shore, too, right? I guess I don't blame them!

Newport was a very beautiful town. We would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Okay, so we have an admission to make. We made it seem like we went to Connecticut and Rhode Island to see fall colors, but in reality, we searched online for Dairy Queens and noticed that there were several north of the city. Because there are no Dairy Queens in New York City, this was quite the draw. We have been tortured by these Dairy Queen chicken strip basket commericals that keep playing on our TV station, and it was getting to be too much. We tracked down this Dairy Queen that served chicken strip baskets. Obviously the set up was a little different than in Minnesota (it was in a gas station), but we didn't care. We happily shared a six-piece chicken strip basket, got a blizzard, and hit the road back to the city.

A Farm In New York City?

With fall weather setting in, we felt like going to an apple orchard or pumpkin patch or something resembling our memories of fall in Minnesota. We read about the Queens Farm and decided it might be worth a try.

After a long subway ride and bus ride, we made it to the farm. Yes, there was corn, but because of the tall city buildings in the background, the farm had a tough time disguising itself as the real deal!



One of the main reasons we decided to visit the farm was because they had an apple festival scheduled for that Sunday. Because we couldn't find any apple orchards in NYC, we thought this might be the next best thing. I can hardly describe the disappointment we both felt when we were greeted with a few fenced-off crates of apples. Seriously! This was the apple festival?!?



There was also a pumpkin patch, but again, it was a little less than authentic. It was basically a small area of land that they set a bunch of pumpkins on.



As a bright spot, we both had to laugh when we saw the tables of trinkets and household decorations for sale. This felt very authentic, like a church fall festival or small town craft fair. It definitely made us feel more at home. We loved it!



It wasn't entirely clear what was going on here, but we think these guys were putting together some kind of apple dessert. All I kept thinking was that I wouldn't go near food that had been prepared with a rake.



The farm was also offering hay rides, which looked pretty fun and fairly realistic.



We later saw hay racks linked together, so apparently the subway concept extends to the farm!



As you can see, our trip to the farm had its ups and downs. It was an amusing way to spend the day (especially when we saw hoards of people crowding around a few little farm animals), but it was certainly not a substitute for a Minnesota farm!