Countdown

Five weeks. Thirty-five days. Eight hundred and forty hours. Fifty thousand and four hundred minutes. That’s how long before the family and I head off to New York for my first visit there in thirty years (I’ll spare you the weeks/days/hours/minutes break down of thirty years). But who’s counting? I am! It was roughly this time back in 1978 when my dad received a phone call from my uncle letting him know that my grandmother had passed away. Funerals are never fun for twelve year olds, and it's not fun to visit a place under such pretexts.

So I’m looking forward to going back to Long Island to visit old stomping grounds, hanging out with family, visiting Manhattan. My daughter insists on seeing the city and I’m okay with that—any opportunity to let her see the Empire State Building &Times Square, and dine on authentic New York thin crust pizza (not the crap that passes for NY style cuisine around here). What I'm really looking forward to is shooting pictures in Manhattan, especially the many examples of architecture to be found there. It'll be hard not to overwhelm my Flickr account after the trip is over.

At the same time I’m a little nervous about the trip. This will be the first time I’ve been to Long Island as a licensed driver, so some of my time of late has been trying to learn the major routes in order to navigate around the place. Although I’ve driven in the very scary traffic around Atlanta on a number of occasions, I’m wondering how well I’ll do in New York traffic on LI. I do plan on avoiding the Long Island Expressway if at all possible, and riding the railroad to travel into Manhattan. My maternal grandfather and my great grandparents are buried in a cemetery in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. I’d like to go pay my respects but I don’t know what kind of neighborhood is around there.

Nonetheless, this will be a good trip. And it’s only five weeks away!