The last stop on this year’s anniversary trip was New York, New York. Mike and I had both been there before (but not together), so we decided to try to visit places that neither of us had been to. The first stop… Central Park. It was a beautiful morning and we spent a good part of the day walking around the park. It was gorgeous! They were setting up for the New York City Marathon, which was kind of neat to see.

We headed over to Broadway that night to see “Phantom of the Opera”, my favorite musical. It was amazing… so cool to see a real Broadway show! Mike was ok with it… I think it got a little too operatic for him. Guess I’ll have to give up my dreams of him taking me to see the opera… I’ll have to stick with my classically trained friends!

We also visited the Museum of Natural History, which I highly recommend. We slammed through it in a day, but easily could have spent much longer wandering the halls.

We also headed out to see the 9/11 museum and memorial. The last (and only) time I was in New York was about four months after September 11th… it was a very different atmosphere. At that time, Ground Zero was still a pile… now it’s a very beautiful and respectful memorial. The footprints of the former twin towers are now infinity pools, with the names of the victims inscribed all around them.

The museum was pretty neat too… I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was expecting it to make me feel more emotional than I did. I think that’s mainly because seeing Ground Zero was such a moving experience and seeing it all in museum form felt more sterile.

Seeing the Ladder 3 truck that was destroyed that morning was especially moving… having married a firefighter, I’m far more aware of the risks these brave men and women face each day. Mike’s uncle (a member of FDNY) was actually sent there from Brooklyn to help out that day.

The new One World Trade Center is amazing… it makes you dizzy to look up at it!

We finished our stay in New York by visiting Mike’s family on Staten Island. I honestly wish we would have had more time with them… we had a blast hanging out for a few hours on Sunday before everyone got ready for their work and school weeks!

That, my friends, wraps up the 2014 Anniversary Road Trip! I’ll get all of my pictures posted to Facebook over the next day or so!