The Empire State

Looking up the One World Trade Center. You can't even see the top.

As noted in my short post last week, I was on vacation with my family (parents, sister, and niece) for the past week and a half in New York State. On Wednesday, July 18, we boarded a red-eye flight to New York City.

That was our first mistake.

We couldn't check in to our hotel until the afternoon, so our only opportunity to sleep was the four-hour plane ride. And while some people have no problem sleeping in planes and cars, I have a hard time. So by the time we got to NYC, I was running on about two hours of sleep. That was literally the most sleep deprived I have been in my life. See, I have made good life decisions so I have never had to pull an all-nighter before finals or worked the graveyard shift. Some people function with little sleep, but not this guy.

After arriving, we bought metro passes, but then we had problems with getting them to work. Our first subway experience was not good. We arrived just in time for the morning commute. There was a crazy lady yelling to herself, and she looked like this:

We crammed into the Subway, toting our luggage, and every time it stopped I hoped people would get off. A few did, but even more got on. Even one of the natives kept saying, "There is no room!" Fortunately, that was the only time we were so packed on the subway.

We went to the eightieth and eighty-sixth floors of the Empire State Building. That building was crowded with tourists. I could tell they were tourists because the crowd was less diverse than the subway had been. It cost extra to go to the top floor, so we didn't.

 Later we went to get tickets for a tour bus. My mom and sister and niece went in the building, but when my dad and I tried to follow them, a man at the door forbade us and told us to get in a line, even though they had entered that way. That experience, and the crowds, and the oppressive humid heat, and the lack of sleep, left me flustered, and when we got in line, I proclaimed, "I hate this city so much! I never want to come back here again!" I felt better after catching up on sleep and spending more time in the city, but what I said isn't entirely untrue. I wouldn't mind going back, but that doesn't mean I want to go back.

The next day, we boarded a tour boat up the Hudson River. It was so hot that day. I had put sunscreen on my arms, neck, and face, but none on my legs, so my thighs just above my knees were fried. They showed us various landmarks, but the only one I really cared about was the Statue of Liberty. I'm a little sad we didn't get to see it up close. You know, give me your tired and all that.

The rest of the day, we took a tour bus around the city.

We unexpectedly came to the temple. There were lots of beautiful cathedrals in the city, so I found it a little sad that ours was boring.

The playgrounds of Harlem are very sad looking, with no green space or sand.

 On our last full day in the city, my niece (Allie)'s birthday, we went to the pool monuments at the World Trade Center.

Allie loves people and celebrities, so we went to Madame Tussaud's, but I'm not a fan of chains of tourist attractions. (I call it a chain because there's one in every major tourist city.)

There was a Tony Bennett figure ten or twenty feet from Lady Gaga, so why didn't they put them together?!

 The highlight of our time in New York City was probably seeing Wicked on Broadway, at the Gershwin Theater. Before this trip, I always thought Broadway was a theater that had different stages on it for different shows--like a movie theater but for plays. I had heard all good things about Wicked. As the show started, it was hard to understand/hear what the ensemble cast was singing. If this (Broadway) was the gold standard for musicals, is there ever a chance to understand what they're saying? But the rest of it was fantastic. Even though Wicked has been out for a long time, I was pleased that I never had any spoilers. I was also happy that there was little or no foul language and innuendo, unlike so many other musicals.

Our hotel room was on the 24th floor. which is almost as tall as Salt Lake's tallest buildings, and yet we still were dwarfed.

We truly were tourists in a tourist city. I work in Salt Lake City, the biggest city in Utah, but compared to New York, SLC is just a tiny baby. And I truly am a West kind of guy. I don't like there being that many people. I was also surprised that NYC wasn't more ecofriendly. There were few recycle bins, and even fewer drinking fountains, which encourages the purchase of bottled water, which I can't stand. I never bought water (though my family did), but I did occasionally run out of water in my reusable one. If I had to be in a ginormous city, I would prefer San Francisco.

The rest of the trip was in the more enjoyable upstate New York. We rented a car in the city and drove up through New Jersey (my first time in that state) and Pennsylvania. We made a stop at Watkins Glen State Park, a lovely little gorge. Everyone raves over its beauty, though I don't think you need to make a special trip to go there. We went when I was eleven, and I remember the gift shops having ugly t-shirts with exhausted people bragging about climbing all 832 steps (meaning stair steps). Even then, when I was a chubby, nerdy kid, I didn't think it was that hard. It's only like a mile and a half (one way) with an elevation gain of about 500 feet. We parked at the top and the girls in the family walked down, while my dad and I went down and then back up to get the car. It was easy for us.

On Monday, we spent Pioneer Day at Niagara Falls. (I was sad to spend Utah's holiday not in Utah.) We signed up for a tour bus so we wouldn't have to worry about parking and seeing everything. We had a charming tour guide named Rita who could remember everyone's name on the bus. We went to Cave of the Winds, which allowed us to go right near the base of the American falls.

We were able to be near the top of the Canadian falls.

And we boarded the Maid of the Mist VII to see the falls from the bottom.

I was a nonconforming yellow in a sea of blue Maid of the Mist raincoats, because I thought it was wasteful to get another one when I already had one from Cave of the Winds. But if I were truly ecofriendly, I would have brought a real rainjacket. Or gotten wet.

That night and the next morning, we visited spots in Palmyra, where we had guided tours from sister missionaries. It was interesting for me to visit them, both as a returned missionary and as an employee of the Church History Department. I thought the tours were a bit more devotional than historical, even as the scholarship of Mormon history (including official Church history sites and museums) has gone in the other direction.

The Smith frame house

The Smith log cabin

A bright red bird in the Sacred Grove. There truly seemed something peaceful about the grove.

And then we headed to the highlight of our trip. My great-grandmother, Grandma King, lived on Little Sandy Pond (or South Sandy Pond) near the village of Pulaski, New York, near Lake Ontario. (Grandpa King died a month before I was born, so I never knew him.) We used to visit her every few years; I visited her four times in my life, though the first time I was just a baby (and not counting the few times she visited Utah). When I was twelve, Grandma King died, so the following summer we had one final trip there to close it up and say goodbye. My grandparents at one point had bought the property so Grandma King could live in an apartment in town during New York's severe winters. It was no longer practical for them to own the property, so they had to sell it. One of the owners tore down the original cabin and built a new house.

Little Sandy Pond today

We rented a cabin/house on the shore of the adjoining pond, Big Sandy Pond (or North Sandy Pond), to recreate the romance of those old summers. (We had initially rented a place on Little Sandy Pond, but there was a septic tank problem, and it actually worked out better for us that way.) The little place was simply charming, and we spent four nights there. My grandparents drove out from Utah and stayed with us. In the evenings, I would go kayaking on the pond; the last night I went swimming, but it was a little chilly, and it was green underwater. Most of the time we just spent relaxing.

There were sandbags because the water was the highest it had been since the nineteenth century.

This was the little place we stayed.

One day we took a boat trip along the 1000 Islands of the St. Lawrence River (of salad dressing fame). We stopped at Boldt Castle on Heart Island, an enormous "house" that a businessman was building for his wife, but it was never completed because she died prematurely.

Seventeen years ago, my brother pointed out to me that this display case said "cork installation" when it probably meant "insulation." It still does.

 We used to swim in Lake Ontario, but it was too cold and impractical on this visit.

This really was primarily a family visit. I tend to think most about my ancestors who settled in Utah, but this region of New York is just as much in my roots. We got to visit with my two great aunts--Aunt Mary Lou, whom I hadn't seen since 2001, and Aunt Lynn, whom I had never met.

Aunt Lynn, Aunt Mary Lou, and Grandma Ebbert

This is the name of the road where Grandma King's house was. Ebbert is my grandpa's last name; Grandma King was my grandma's mom. According to my mom's telling of the story, when they decided to name the little streets around the pond, they were going to name one for the longest resident of the area. That was Grandma King. But since the property technically belonged to my grandparents, she told them to name the road Ebbert, rather than name it after her.

Foot selfie: my mom, Allie, my sister Susanne, and me with my pasty, hairy legs.

This is a welding mask that belonged to Grandpa King on display at a town museum where Aunt Mary Lou helps out.

New York state is lovely. Trees are everywhere; when there aren't as many trees, you know you're near civilization, while the opposite is true out here. Our lakes are tiny compared to the ponds of the East; glaciers didn't have as big of an impact out here. It was delightful to be able to visit.

But I'm glad to back in my own dear mountain home.