FAMILY TIME in NYC, BALTIMORE AND DC Nov. 25-Dec 1, 2017

We arrived back in NYC on Saturday evening after a 14 hour flight from Belgrade, Serbia. Our stay for the next two days was in an AirBnB in Brooklyn near Prospect Park. A lovely location and a perfect studio apartment, quiet and comfy. It's always wonderful to be in a neighborhood with small cafes, restaurants and corner grocery stores.  

Sunday morning we walked down the street for a morning coffee and the best little breakfast of pancakes with fruit, then stopped at the local farmer's market. I picked up a large bundle of eucalyptus to take with us, we were meeting our niece Heather and Sam for a brunch later that morning.

 Wonderful to have another couple of hours visiting before PK and I caught the subway to NYC and an afternoon matinee to see Anastasia.

 As we walked towards Times Square to find the Trump billboard, I was stunned to see these huge concrete blockades at every corner to protect walkers. It had been long time since we'd been to the city, and with all that has happened in the world over these years, I guess this is now the norm.

With an extra hour before the show began, we went looking for the Impeach Trump billboard in Times Square.  It took a little bit of time to find it, but once it cycled through on this wall, it was pretty awesome. The number of individuals who have joined the movement kept increasing just in the fifteen minutes we were there. Thank you, Tom Steyer.

Our afternoon was delightful, a fun musical and story. It was terribly cold and windy when we got out of the show, so a quick walk to the subway and back to our cozy apartment.



Monday morning we had a quick breakfast at the little deli/cafe then called Uber for our ride into NYC.  We had decided to give the Mega Bus a try rather than a flight from JFK to Baltimore. A great decision!! The bus has a central location not far from Penn Station. An Uber ride to the bus location and boarding about 45 minutes later we were on the bus and heading to Baltimore. Wonderfully inexpensive, comfortable, wifi and within three hours we were unloading at the Baltimore location. It's so much easier and faster than the hassle of flying.

Again, another Uber ride taking us to spend the next few days with our Baltimore family. Our  nephew, Wes, and his family were retuning the next day from Thanksgiving in Minneapolis. We arrived Monday afternoon to spend two days with my sister in law, Peggy and her sister, Patty with visits to the waterfront and walking on a fantastically beautiful day.

Late Tuesday evening, Wes and Alena  and their two sweet little guys arrived back home.. but they were really sick with the flu.

The boys seemed to be fine, so we enjoyed the next morning with them before deciding we better save out visit with Wesley and Alena for anther time. With more travel plans ahead for us, we needed to stay healthy.

Harvey with is beautiful smile.

Loudon tucked into the doggie's bed.

We did get a short little visit with Wes before saying good bye about noon.

Plus, we needed to spend the afternoon at the Apple Store nearby since I had bought a new laptop on line and it was ready for pickup. I'd found a fabulous deal on the Apple website with a "refurbished" MacBook Air.  With our experience earlier in Denver where I'd returned a larger laptop, we'd learned that once the package has been opened it can no longer be resold in the store. It goes to some Apple location for a complete check then it's resold on the website. Lucky me! I now have a brand new smaller and lighter laptop that has fantastic capability, and it was definitely time to retire our 2009 oldie.

After four hours at the store transferring files and learning some new things we found a hotel nearby for the night. Then it was time to make a new plan for the next two days so we chose to drive over near Annapolis where I found a perfect AirBnB at Cape St Claire. The beautiful apartment was above the garage and very private. We checked in and then a late lunch at the darling River Bay Roadhouse Grill. That took care of both lunch and dinner.

I was up early the next morning to take a walk out to the front of the house for a morning sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay. 

We spent the rest of the morning visiting and walking all around Annapolis. A lovely city with a pretty waterfront historic neighborhood.

This statue is of Thurgood Marshall, a native of Maryland and Supreme Court Justice from 1967 to 1991.

The Annapolis State House

By mid afternoon it was time to drive another hour or so to visit our nephew, Lars, in Arlington, VA. Lars works for NPR and had recently moved from Dallas to Arlington and with our flight leaving from Washington early the next morning, we had an evening to spend catching up with his new life there.

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He loves Korean BBQ so we met up with him and enjoyed a delightful evening of food and talk.

Just the table setting for the dinner is a feast to see! We laughed and talked and even stopped for a nightcap before saying goodnight.

Our 8AM flight the next morning took us to our next destination; San Miguel de Allende and another pet and housesitting experience.