Day 18: Travel Day
Welcome
Yesterday we travelled from Nebraska to New Jersey.
In a rare turn of events, we had a very gentle late-morning lobby call for our travel day. I began my morning with a run along Little Papillion Creek, which has a nice path running along the bank to service pedestrians and cyclists. The festival shuttle took us to the airport, and during the journey I enjoyed a cold square of Backlot Taphouse’s Detroit-style pizza with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, and classic red sauce.
We wheeled everything into the terminal and began the check-in process, while at the same time enquiring about our lost giant inflatable fish, which had been redirected to La Guardia, in New York. We were a little aghast to discover that in fact the fish had in fact made it to Omaha and was waiting for us in a back room. A good outcome in the end, but we felt like we had dodged a bullet, which would have taken the form of chasing it around various airports for the next few weeks.
We had a direct flight to La Guardia, which was a nice treat, and it was aboard another small regional jet, a Bombardier CRJ900 Next Gen, fitted out with the classic regional seating configuration of 2-2. There were some scenic moments on our route as the easterly heading took us over the southern tip of Lake Michigan, and then alongside Lake Eerie as we overflew Cleveland. Of course, there was the beautiful descent into La Guardia which takes along the length of Manhattan, and then finishes with a steep banking turn moments before the final approach to the runway.
Every single piece of baggage made it to New York with us and we were grateful. There was a shuttle waiting outside to get us to the hotel and for the next 90 minutes we enjoyed a ride through this city’s busiest streets. Our driver took us on a scenic route that went through Queens, under the East River, through the middle of Manhattan and past the Empire State Building, under the Hudson River, and up to Hoboken, New Jersey.
It turned out that our hotel was in a pretty nice spot, perched right next to the river with a brilliant view of Manhattan Island. We were famished after this long transit, so we headed straight out to dinner after checking in. Not content with this bimodal day of transport, Tristan and I followed our dinner with a trip under the Hudson River on the 158 New Jersey Transit interstate service, which took us to the Port Authority bus terminal in Midtown. There we transferred to the New York City Subway, taking an A train down to the Blue Note in Greenwich Village. Notable jazz quartet The Bad Plus were playing, and Tristan had booked us tickets to see the 10.30pm set. It was a was a beautiful and expensive concert full of dynamic and creative playing, and our experience was only slightly marred by the cost of the tickets and the minimum drinks spend.
I’ll leave you in art corner where this week I showcase a series on display in the lobby of our Sheraton hotel in Hoboken. Our proximity to the river must have inspired the artist who has prepared eight close-up photographs of water.
