Saturday July 13 in NYC dawned and we headed to the "Top of the Rock" observation desk at the Rockefeller Center. We watched a cool video and went through some information about the construction of the tall building. Then we took the elevator to the top.
Sam is NOT a fan of heights and he was SO nervous. There was an observation area that was indoors and one that was outdoors. With some coaxing and when he was ready, he did join us outside and even posed for a few pictures.
We are so thrilled to have grandma and grandpa McKneely on this trip with us! We're making some wonderful memories with them!
After the views from the Top of the Rock we did a bit more sight seeing: Radio City Music Hall, the Rockefeller Plaza, we ate a small lunch at Potbelly's down in the mall. We also popped into a few stores including the Nintendo store where Sam got a great sweatshirt as a souvenir.
The Lego store was a memorable stop. Matthew saw this chess set that he really wanted. We did some quick internet checking and discovered that it was cheaper there in the store than ordering it online, so he got it for his souvenir. It was an oddly shaped box so it had to be put in a rather large bag which he proudly carried all over town for the rest of the day!
That afternoon we were super stoked to go see a matinee of The Lion King!
It was our Christmas gift from 2018 to have really great seats to see Lion King while in NYC. It was amazing! The costuming was incredible, the people on stilts walking through the aisles becoming the animals. The acting and singing was amazing. Rafiki stole the show! It was so good. I've decided I want to come back to NYC someday and just see Broadway shows.
After this show we'd hoped to hit Carmines Italian Restaurant for a good meal. When Stephen initially went over to check on the wait it was going to be 45 minutes but then at the last minute they said that if we could all be seated right now we would have no wait. Someone was in the bathroom but we hurried and got seated. The food was awesome and so was the service.
Kaitlyn is pretty talented with lettering.
After dinner we decided to hike on over to see Grand Central Station. We stopped at the food court and had some ice cream.
At some point in here Sam realized he'd left his hat at the restaurant so we had to walk back to Carmines in hopes we could recover it. We were able to recover it, but the restaurant was a zoo. The power was out and when we arrived the staff was struggling to process payments without internet or power. Stephen actually went back to the table where we'd sat and sure enough Sam's hat was still there.
This power outage turned out to be a really big deal. This meant that the subway was out and we'd have to walk 4-5 miles back to the hotel. It was CRAZY! Times Square was black. There were emergency vehicles and personnel all over the city. People were stuck in elevators. And there were so many people on the streets.
Then we started getting messages about the second night of MCO Concerts in Carnegie. They were eventually cancelled. As they waited for the power to possibly come on, they began singing in the streets and the videos of that went viral on the internet. Sadly half of those who came to NYC to have their moment to sing in Carnegie never had that opportunity, but their music was heard by thousands more.
We were grateful that when we arrived at our hotel we found that it did have power. And we were grateful that we'd had tickets to the matinee show of The Lion King instead of an evening one because it would have been cancelled.
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