{"id":13939,"date":"2016-07-31T19:22:58","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T00:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/?p=13939"},"modified":"2016-07-31T19:22:58","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T00:22:58","slug":"final-post-from-trip-to-wales-friday-sept-4th-sat-sept-5th-nyc-the-train-and-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wales-2015\/final-post-from-trip-to-wales-friday-sept-4th-sat-sept-5th-nyc-the-train-and-home\/","title":{"rendered":"final post from trip to Wales – Friday, Sept. 4th & Sat. Sept. 5th – NYC, the train, and HOME!"},"content":{"rendered":"

the nice thing about disembarking from the Queen Mary is that it’s fast and efficient. \u00a0we walked to our assigned place for disembarking…it was the Winter Garden again. \u00a0Our scheduled departure was\u00a09:50, but when we got that at 9:30, they started herding us out! \u00a0we stood in a huge customs line once we were in the terminal, but then got called out of line and into a tiny little line because we’re American! \u00a0yaaay for being american!<\/p>\n

We climbed into a cab, and he was a speedy driver who knew what he was doing, and soon we were buzzing up the west side, and got to Penn Station by 11:00! \u00a0amazing. \u00a0we found an elevator to get down to the main level – we’d had to try to maneuver up the escalator with our too many bags when we’d arrived in NYC on the way to wales.<\/p>\n

We dropped all our bags at the Amtrak lounge and walked over to the\u00a0High Line<\/a>, a relatively new park in NYC. \u00a0the first part of it was opened in 2009, and the final section in 2014. \u00a0here’s what wikipedia sums up about it:<\/p>\n

The High Line is a 1.45-mile-long New York City linear park built in Manhattan on an elevated section of a disused New York Central Railroad spur called the West Side Line.<\/em><\/p>\n

it was kind of cool, and here’s kevin, before we started encountering masses of people.<\/p>\n

\"w941\"<\/p>\n

on the left is a cool part on top of the street – there are steps on it that you can sit on, and watch the traffic go underneath you. \u00a0there’s a clip on the “saturday night live” opening of one of the guys in the show hanging out there. \u00a0we didn’t see him.<\/p>\n

\"w942\"<\/p>\n

this gives you a better idea of all the people, and there were even more as we continued to walk.<\/p>\n

\"w943\"<\/p>\n

the view from the steps.<\/p>\n

\"w944\"<\/p>\n

it was a hot day, and got hotter, and we walked around a while and stopped into a vintage poster shop because they had a poster in the window of a vintage “grace line” ship poster. \u00a0it was $900. \u00a0we didn’t buy it.<\/p>\n

more walking, more heat…we just wanted to get on that train! \u00a0we got a delicious burger a some outside food happening\u00a0near penn station, then went inside and relaxed til our train started boarding. \u00a0we were happy that this time we’d checked our bags all the way to springfield, so we didn’t have to deal with them.<\/p>\n

we got into our tiny cabin, and this fabulous pick was resting there. \u00a0i just saw it in my bedroom the other day, because i took it home.<\/p>\n

\"w945\"<\/p>\n

the train pulled out of the station, i think it was about 3:30, whoo hoo! \u00a0but after about ten minutes it stopped. and then they had to pull it back to the station! \u00a0i don’t know what was wrong with it. \u00a0we decided to go to dinner even though i wasn’t hungry at all, because the train was full and the train steward said there would be a stampede for the dining car later.<\/p>\n

the power went out a couple of times as we ate, but our waiter was prepared and gave us a glow stick.<\/p>\n

\"w946\"<\/p>\n

a little less fancy dinner than those on the queen mary! \u00a0dessert was no-sugar vanilla pudding.<\/p>\n

we were still sitting in the tunnel, mind you, but the train finally started moving at six.<\/p>\n

we passed the scenic\u00a0Hudson River, and there were lots of people out enjoying the day, and i realized it was Labor Day weekend (only because i saw it on the news).<\/p>\n

we went to bed very early.<\/p>\n

when we got up on saturday, i realized that we were three and a half hours behind schedule – there seemed to be no chance that we’d make our 1:45 train from chicago home to springfield.<\/p>\n

i wonder why i took this photo? \u00a0maybe because i was thinking about all the beauty we’d seen, and how ugly this place was.<\/p>\n

\"w947\"<\/p>\n

ditto this…this is when we were heading into chicago, i believe.<\/p>\n

\"w949\"<\/p>\n

and now, sitting here exactly 364 days after we left for our trip last year, i can’t even remember what happened when we got back to chicago. \u00a0i think we just sat in the sleeper car lounge and hung out for a while. \u00a0ate some food.<\/p>\n

here’s the last picture from that day, the clock on the wall says 9:40, relaxing with a glass of wine and Winne, who was glad we were home.<\/p>\n

\"w950\"<\/p>\n

later in the evening, winnie was happy to move to kevin’s lap.<\/p>\n

\"w951\"<\/p>\n

and the next morning things were back to normal, with lester trying to relax as usual.<\/p>\n

\"w952\"<\/p>\n

whew. \u00a0i can’t believe it was so long ago, i can’t believe this is the final posting, i can’t believe i actually finished posting before a year passed, but also can’t believe that it’s taken me this long.<\/p>\n

in my journal on the last day, i wrote that i’d love to go back and walk other parts of the coast path. \u00a0i know it’s supposed to get more challenging the farther north you go, but i did manage to survive many up and downhills. \u00a0we could do it, and it’d be fun.<\/p>\n

but then there are also so many other places we could go…<\/p>\n

we’ll just have to see. \u00a0and i’ll have to start planning.<\/p>\n

ok then,<\/p>\n

mrs. finally finished posting about wales which was an entire year ago hughes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the nice thing about disembarking from the Queen Mary is that it’s fast and efficient. \u00a0we walked to our assigned place for disembarking…it was the Winter Garden again. \u00a0Our scheduled departure was\u00a09:50, but when we got that at 9:30, they started herding us out! \u00a0we stood in a huge customs line once we were in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[110,284,94,35],"class_list":["post-13939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wales-2015","tag-amtrak","tag-high-line-nyc","tag-les-paul","tag-winnie"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-3CP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13939"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13994,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939\/revisions\/13994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}