Made it to New York City!

I made it to New York!   Fog grounded me on Friday, but after many phone calls to Delta, I got booked on a flight out of Fargo, ND, instead of Grand Forks, ND, for Saturday. Doug got me there 3 hours early, driving 70 miles through thick, dense, fog.

And I was told I could get on an earlier flight! 

But wait! It couldn't be that easy! Oh, no! This was still part of my travel-weather-curse!

 I got the "earlier" flight", but that flight got delayed. Delayed to later than the original flight, meaning that I would miss my connection in Minneapolis to New York. (On the positive side, I got to try out the nifty, cool, new scanner in the Fargo airport. You get in this time-travel cubicle, agilely placing your stocking feet on the two painted feet on the ground, the plastic door of the cubicle is closed (why? to protect airport personnel??) and you have to put your hands above your head like some kind of airport ballerina. Then some zap happens, and you're good to go. No time travel; same time zone.)

 Anyway, multiple phone calls to Delta yielded the same results: they were sorry. Very, VERY sorry, but I could not get back on my original flight. Except the Fargo Delta personnel finally arrived, and said, oh, yeah, we can get you on the flight. And they did a little voodoo regarding balancing out weight of suitcases, 3 x the fuel in case we had to circle around Minneapolis because of fog, switching passengers from one side to the other of the itsy bitsy plane, and I was on!

 On to Minneapolis! And in the Minneapolis airport, I ran like a maniac across three state lines in the airport to finally get to the gate for my connection. They ALWAYS land North Dakota flights in nowhere land, and ALWAYS put the connecting gate a thousand or two miles away.

But I made it. But my boarding pass didn't work. But they got me on the flight anyway. Too bad my luggage didn't make it until Sunday of my weekend. . . .

And once I got to the hotel at 6 pm, Dianna and Brian, who had been there already for a day waiting for me, were ready to go. And go we did! Brian, one my progeny commando vacation planners, had us moving immediately to Bryant Park:

This park is fairly close to where Brian works in Midtown Manhattan. He knows the area where, and apparently this is where he eats many meals:

Tiled signs at the subway station.

Brian & Dianna

Ticket counters.

New York is such a fascinating medley! Grand Central had so many different kinds of foods, not what I would call "gourmet", but even this has a definite appeal:

Grand Central Station has a mix of people waiting for the trains or subway connections, of people grabbing a bite to eat, homeless people, people who decide it's just a good place to have a little drinking/sleeping party:

And there are people who are just making a living, one way or another. One man sang away, classics like "Hi Ho, HI HO, it's off to work we go!" while he rummaged through the garbage, collecting cans. His musical selection cracked us up, and we tried to avoid eye contact. He knew he had our attention, though, because he suddenly paused, changed from a very high pitched voice, to a strikingly deep (and lucid) voice for a little guy, and said to us, "Don't worry; I'm not crazy, just happy." We laughed, he proceeded to clear away the cans from the table of the drinking party. . . .

Next, I'll post more of the first night in New York City. . . .