Blizzard of 2010

We woke up bright and early and turned on the news to watch the aftermath.  It seems that NYC was paralyzed, but a check of the Radio City website showed that the show was still on.  So, we packed up, loaded our luggage and went to the hotel breakfast bar.  We felt really bad for the staff that made it in to serve the guest.  Their regular food delivery didn’t come because of the blizzard and they had to shut down the limited breakfast they were able to serve an hour early.  We were lucky to each get some juice and a bagel with some cream cheese.  On the way to the subway, Dean & Deluca was open this time and we made a quick stop for some coffee and pastries.

Next stop, 7th Ave & 53rd street on the E train and a short walk to Radio City.  We trudged through the unplowed streets and sidewalks, picked up our tickets at Will Call and went in.  Staci and I felt relieved to have made it and the looks of excitement on the girls’ faces made the trek totally worth it.

The show itself was great!  A 3D movie, Grey Line tour bus trip through the city, a Live Nativity and of course, The Rockettes, made for a great show.  It was completely different than I remember from my childhood!  Afterwards, we tried to find a place for lunch, but much of Manhattan was still snowed in.  So we took the girls over to see Rockefeller Center and the Lego Store on the way to American Girl Place. After spending a few hours in AG Place, we saw the city start to come to life as more and more people came out.

We walked up to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to light a candle and then walked down Fifth Ave to 42nd Street and headed towards Times Square.  While the snow had stopped, the wind didn’t and was still gusting past 40mph! It was a very hard walk down 42nd, but the girls were happy to see Times Square and the hustle and bustle starting to come back to the city!

Knowing that the roads would only get worse after dark, we decided to head back to PA.  We noticed a burnt out taxi cab in front of our hotel that morning and were surprised that it was still there.  But I shouldn’t have been.  The amount of abandoned cars (and even an MTA bus) was amazing.  It seemed that someone got stuck overnight or in the early morning and just left their car!  Thankfully we have a SUV and are proficient in snow driving- so our ride home was uneventful.

And by uneventful, I mean white out conditions, blowing snow drifts, cars spun out on the NJ Turnpike and people driving too fast. I bailed on the Turnpike at Exit 9 for US1, while slower moving was definitely the better choice.  Once we hit PA, we saw that there was much less snow and the PA Turnpike was even dry!

We decided to treat ourselves to one last dinner out and decided to hit Sullivan’s Steakhouse in our snow clothes.  While we normally dress up for a place like Sullivan’s- not on this night!  It was a well-deserved nightcap to an exciting couple of days.  And we were able to send Katherine back to Florida (and Abby back to school) with ‘Blizzard of 2010’ stories!!

Here are some pictures of our adventure…enjoy!!  Thanks for reading this long travel diary!

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