NYC Day Four
We woke up rather early today. Yet, despite the early hour there was no breakfast. Sadness sets in; I’m missing my Weetabix. But Marcos’ home brew coffee helped make up for the missing energy. Thanks to the wonder of the Internet and Marcos’ knowhow, we had a car reserved (with GPS) from the Hertz a few buildings down.
The plan for today was to hop into the rental, drive to Caldwell Airport (KCDW) in Fairfield, NJ where where I had arranged to rent a plane from Mac Dan Aviation and then get the best possible views of the Manhatten area. And after that we wanted to try and check out Cooney Island and drive around Brooklyn and perhaps get out to Harlem and Queens. The plan mostly went as expected though with a few hiccups.
We navigated to the Caldwell Airport using the GPS, but the navigation functionality was somewhat lacking on the more complicated intersections (such as the NJ turnpike). As a result, combined with Marcos’ [crazy] race car style driving, we got ‘navigationally challenged’ a couple of times. Ali suggested that in the future we use road signs rather than the GPS. That also meant that we arrived at Mac Dan a little behind schedule and it was 12:30 by the time I had signed all the paperwork and had the engine started. The weather for the flight was perfect with almost no haze and no clouds whatsoever. We got a great view of all things Manhatten and when I get a chance I’ll do a separate entry about the hour and a half flight.
After the flight we headed back to Manhatten. The drive, though still done like we were rally car racing, went flawlessly and took no time whatsoever. We then headed over to Brooklyn where we headed to Coney Island. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the big wooden rollercoaster was closed so we settled for an ice cream cone on the boardwalk and called it a day.
We ate dinner in tonight (Marcos led the team with sous chefs Doug and Ali) and topped the evening off by enjoying two bottles of wine and a couple of cigars. If you are looking for a really good wine, check out Lafond 2002 Syrah (Santa Rita Hills).
Mon, 03 Oct 2005 04:32 Posted in General
