Today, our last day in NYC, had no family support. My sister had flown home and both of my folks had to work. I wasn't about to drag the kids around the city all day by myself, so we became one with the country.
Not really, more like the suburbs. Actually Paramus, New Jersey - the town with the most shopping malls per capita in the United States. But also home to the New Jersey Children's Museum. For the record, the third children's museum we've hit on the tour.
It was a pretty good way to kill a couple hours. Lots of hands-on practical things - my daughter probably manned the register at the grocery store for a half-hour. But also creative play and role play.
So after a long day at the construction site, we did what any New York-area union workers would do - take a long lunch. Burger King and Baskin-Robbins did the trick sustaining us through heavy traffic back into the city, where we packed and split.
It is 13 hours back to Savannah, so this has been planned like everything on the trip, thoroughly plotted out and segmented. Like any good producer would.
Gramps came with me and the kids as the first leg went from Central Park South to Aberdeen, Maryland. This was a good stopping point for the pivotal journey to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg tomorrow.
We pulled into the hotel in Aberdeen just as the crowd from Ripken Stadium was exiting and the lights were still on.
So it would seem that Aberdeen owner/proprietor Cal Ripken Jr. continues to work hard and do things the right way.
The Ripken work ethic will serve as inspiration for me on the last 48 hours of this family journey. It's been just one fortnight in the books which begs the question, "how did Cal Ripken do it?"
First was the Asser Levy Recreation Center on Manhattan's Lower East side. It was a very clean outdoor pool setting, and very tightly run. It was if Mayor Bloomberg himself made sure that nobody brought a cell phone, gym bag, or water bottle poolside.
Or checking out where the Bergen County buffalo roam.