text: After a quick drive through the beautiful historic Mystic to take some pictures, we were headed to New York City. We’ve both been to NYC before, heck I’ve been there several times including just last summer for a couple days, but this time was different. This time we had Broadway tickets, we were seeing â€œWickedâ€! Of all the times I have been to the City, I have never gone to a show. For that matter, I have never stepped foot in Central Park either. Needless to say we were both really looking forward to this day. I was even more so than my wife because I had a surprise lined up for her, but more on that later.
  Without traffic this is a 2 Â½ hour drive, with it it can take you hours longer. This day it wasn’t too bad as we got to the City in plenty of time to find a parking garage close to the George Gershwin Theatre and we were able to walk around for a while before the show started. We enjoyed looking in different stores and heck we even tried a knish from a street vendor. We eventually ducked inside of an Irish bar to cool off and have a couple colds ones. Heck, before we make it to the theatre, we actually hit a couple different Irish bars. Was a lot of fun.
  As we got back to the theater and took our seats, we were both so excited to be seeing a real Broadway Show in New York City… mark that one off the bucket list! If you have never seen â€œWickedâ€ and you get the chance, you simply must. It was incredible!
  As we left the Gershwin Theatre on a ‘Wicked’ high, we were able to walk to the restaurant where I had us dinner reservations. That was planned. As well as the fact that we were just a short walk into Times Square, with the thought that after we ate we could stroll down that way and enjoy NYC at night, however unknown to my wife I had other plans… more on that in a bit. Dinner was great. We ate at a top rated, according to Zagat, Italian restaurant called â€œBasso56â€. Everything I tried there was amazing. I had the seafood risotto and holy cow! First, I couldn’t finish it but secondly, it was simply incredible. This was also the first time that I had ever had sangria. I kinda liked it actually. Not much of a fan of those types of drinks, I’m obviously a beer guy, but it was good.
  All through dinner I was watching the clock because I knew we had to be somewhere at a specific time and I didn’t want to be late. I couldn’t tell my wife that otherwise it would have spoiled the surprise. I had read reviews of Basso56 saying even with a reservation you might not get your table for a while, so be prepared for that. I was. Yet what I wasn’t ready for was getting the table as we walked in, getting our food rather quickly and being pretty much ready to go early. Like 40 minutes or so early. I knew I had to stall, so I headed to the restroom to buy me some time. I dilly dallied around, washed my hands 2 or 3 times, then went back out. Knowing we had time, even though I was stuffed, I decided that maybe we should get desert after all. After making our choice, my phone rang! It was a New York area code and I just knew it was going to be the surprise and sure enough it was and he was 20 minutes early. Before we ordered desert, this would have been fine. But not now. So I explained to my wife that it was a wrong number (I only talked to the guy by saying â€œUh huhâ€ and â€œSureâ€ a couple times as he told me he was out front ready for us). I’m not really sure she bought it, but that was fine as we finished up, I took care of the check, we each used the restroom and headed out front to see a long black limo sitting there. She looked at me and said â€œNow, which way do we go from here again?â€ I pointed at the limo and said, â€œI think we should go this way.â€ Needless to say she freaked out and all the little things along the way that I might have said to tip her off came back to life, especially the phone call.
  A week ago today was our 6th wedding anniversary. We spent the day with friends of hers from work, then that night I flew out of Seattle headed on this trip. We don’t really ever do anything for our anniversary, but I kinda felt that since she allowed me to go to Minneapolis early to catch those games at Target Field and since we were in New York City, a place we both love to come… why not?! I had the limo booked for 3 full hours with no real plan in mind except for the driver to just go everywhere he could so we could see the city from that vantage point.
  After driving around a while, with Yvonne calling just about everyone she knows to tell them what I had done and where she was, we made our first stop at â€œMcGee’s Pubâ€ on West 55th. It is the bar that inspired the bar, McLaren’s, on one of my favorite TV shows called â€œHow I Met Your Motherâ€. While the inside looks nothing at all like the bar on the show, it was a pretty cool little neighborhood pub there in Midtown. We each had a couple drinks, beers for me including a Goose Island IPA, then it was back out to the limo and we headed downtown to go see the Statue of Liberty lit up. On the way down there Yvonne decided she wanted to go to Brooklyn so we asked the driver to take us there. He took us across the Brooklyn Bridge and dropped us off at this little park along the river with an amazing view of not only the Brooklyn Bridge but Manhattan as well. It was so beautiful. After spending a while there, we grabbed an ice cream from a vender close by and got back in the limo to head back into Manhattan. Our time was running out, it really is amazing how fast 3 hours in New York City can really go, so we decided to have the driver drop us off as close as he could get us to Times Square. I can’t really speak for my wife, but I can say that the entire day/night was simply incredible. From starting the morning in the beautiful coastal fishing town of Mystic, CT, to seeing Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre, dinner at Basso56 and then a 3 hour limo ride all over the city… it was magical! Thank you to my beautiful wife for sharing that with me.
  The rest of the evening we spent in Times Square enjoying how they have blocked off a couple streets to traffic and allow people to walk out in the road. It’s crazy, but really cool. Once we left there we headed back to get our car and over to New Jersey to check into our hotel. The night might have been over, but the memories will last forever…
  P.S.. let me add that if you ever get a limo in NYC and wanna trade the whiskey that comes with it for good beer, and you have to pay extra for it, don’t do it! I asked and gave detailed instructions on getting me anything IPA. I had to pay them $20 to go get it, plus the price of the beer. We get there, and they got Heineken! Are you freakin’ kidding me?!?
  July 24th, 2010 | Category: 2010 Road Trip(s) | Print This Post | Email This Post | Subscribe to comments	| Leave a comment | Trackback URL