A Winter’s Day Walk In New York City

This morning I woke up with the urge to blog.  After working for a few hours, I brought my computer outside and sat at our table overlooking the pool.  Looking in my “Blog” folder on my Mac, I decided to blog more about my trip to New York City last month.

In February, I flew up to the Big Apple to spend a weekend with friends, including my Thelma and Louise buddy from San Jose, DeDe Ebner.  Don’t remember Thelma and Louise? The film trailer was 26 years old!

Wondering what happened to Thelma and Louis?  Check out their reunion interview from last April. I loved the conversation they had about George Clooney during the interview.

Let’s get one thing straight about DeDe and I.  Our husband’s don’t “let” us do anything.  John and Nick would both nod ‘YES!’ if we asked them if we were control freaks.  But when DeDe and I travel together – it’s always super laid back and fun.  Neither one of us has a desire to be in charge.  We share a love of country music and red wine.  On our trips in the past, we sampled a few cocktails and listened to a lot of Darius Rucker, but we never met a guy like Brad Pitt, broke the law, or shot our gun at a police radio.  When our husband’s call – we answer.  Full disclosure: I did get in a little fender bender once in Santa Cruz and DeDe split a full carafe of wine in Paso Robles, but both incidents weren’t our fault or related to each other.

Looking back at the photos from our previous trips made me smile big enough to pop out my dimples.  Our past trips were good for three things: constant conversation with a lot of laughs and a few tears, an Uber ride at the end of the night, and healthy hangover the next day.

When we woke up that Friday morning in the New York City apartment overlooking Times Square, I knew I was in store for a fun day!  We started by making a breakfast of Canadian bacon and eggs, cranking up Russell Dickerson.  Russell played at DeDe’s 50th birthday party for her husband – he’s a big Nashville up and comer!  A really nice guy (a big SEC football and baseball fan), he is touring with Thomas Rhett, Kelsea Ballerini and Ryan Hurd this summer.  We jammed to Yours and other tunes on his Yours EP.

After we cleaned up, we set out to explore New York City on foot.  Like every tourist in the Big Apple, we stopped for a few snaps in Times Square.

Neither one of us had an agenda or a specific store or restaurant we wanted to go to. We were just going to go where the day took us.  Because DeDe lived in New York City for a couple of years, she was a great tour guide.

We walked to Central Park to see the new snow from Thursday’s storm.  It was cold, but we were dressed for it.

I couldn’t stop taking pictures!

We kept walking until we came to that iconic path in Central Park that’s featured in a million movies and shows. We stopped and snapped a couple of portraits.  I’m sorry to say my cheetah gloves did not match my leopard scarf, but we don’t judge each other ever, so we kept moving.

Freezing, I enjoyed throwing pieces of ice on to the ice and watching skid across the pond.

DeDe said Ryan, her oldest son, use to go to story hour in Central Park when he was little (now a sophomore at Santa Clara University).  Ryan loved to sit on the statue, so I convinced DeDe to hop up there for a photo of her own.

I love all the architecture and statues in Central Park!

We walked along Fifth Ave. and enjoyed people watching. The statue below always reminded me of Sex and the City because it’s right next to the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Ave.

During one of the Sex in the City episodes, Carrie had the Hubble conversation with Big in front of the Plaza Hotel right after he married Natasha.  Who didn’t cry during this one?

In case you miss Sex and the City, watch the top 10 serious moments of Sex and the City.  I included it because the No. 1 moment ties in to this blog about fun friendships that include serious moments and conversations.

We then walked on to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Both of us Catholic, we stopped in to say a prayer.  Mine was for my parent’s health as well as my husband’s battle with cancer.

We then jumped on the subway to go to Chelsea Market.  I hadn’t been there in a long time and it looked really different.  We enjoyed walking through all the little shops, talking and also spending time alone, just taking it all in.

It was past five o’clock when we decided to walk back to the apartment on the HighLine. The HighLine is a set of old train tracks that have been remade into an amazing walking path above the city.  Click here to read more about it.

When we got back to the apartment, we took off all our winter coats, gloves and boots; and hit the kitchen for a refreshment. A chilled bottle was waiting for us as we were ready to celebrate the day. The bottle of Veuve Clicquot hit the spot – the perfect bubbly for a lovely day of friendship.