Chapter 5 - Day Trippin... The Big Apple

One of the reasons we were drawn to this gypsy lifestyle of living on the road was because it afforded us the opportunity to see the good old U.S. of A. in intimate detail.  What better way can you explore this country's rich regional wonders than by living right smack in the middle of them for extended periods of time?!

But because we have the responsibility of caring for people's pets, we can't just take off for days at a time and hope the animals don't get into trouble while we are gone, like by throwing a huge kegger for example. You just can't trust them like that. Instead, we see our sites by taking little day trips to the surrounding areas... sometimes with the pets, other times without (the exception being when we spent the weekend in NYC with some friends and we hired a friend of the owners to house sit for us).

A big benefit of site seeing through day trips is the lack of stress about the visits. For example, when you're on vacation for say, 7 days back-to-back, you feel an obligation to cram as many things into each day as possible so you don't leave anything on the table when you have to return home.  Here, we simply pick one nearby destination or event, visit for a few hours and head back home. Easy peasy! Not once have we felt disappointed that we didn't get our visit's worth.

A favorite day trip for us has been New York City. Just a short train ride in and BAM!... Manhattan! Just like that.  You hop in a metal tube in rural western CT and emerge in another dimension. Ok, Grand Central Station... but same thing.

Here are some of the things we've seen over the 5 times we've visited, including the extended weekend with our pals.

Homage to John Lennon

Strawberry Fields Monument

The Dakota, Lennon's apartment building

Times Square!

Me and Charli in the Kiss Cam!

Neon City

Staten Island Ferry

A gray and foggy day

 Rockefeller Center

  

From the Top of the Rock

Central Park

 

 

 Broadway!

Other things we did that are not shown here were the incredibly powerful 911 Memorial Museum (allow yourselves no less than 6 hours if you go), the Brooklyn Bridge, St. Patrick's Cathedral, numerous subway adventures, and of course the best restaurants we've ever experienced, including one of the most important items from my personal bucket list... a slice of authentic NYC pie from Gino's Pizza, on E 83rd and 1st.

Mushroom and cheese... SO good!

Yeah, you could say we like NYC a little bit. Ok a LOT! In fact, we are constantly watching for house sitting gigs right in Manhattan, which have come up several times already, but unfortunately didn't fit our schedule.

So there you have it.... a little snapshot of the opportunities we've been afforded through house sitting. Stay tuned for the next post where I'll show you other day trips we've taken around Connecticut!