Eating my weight in cream cheese and other things I love about New York City (part 1)

The list of things I love about NYC is not in any ranked order, just my usual "whatever mayhem springs to mind" style.

This city has an attitude that is all its own. People who live there have probably forgotten that, people who visit, never do. As a first time visitor I always thought it was best summed up in the Dustin Hoffman quote from Midnight Cowboy "Hey, I'm walkin here", meaning don't piss me off. But my second visit has led me to believe it is more like, "I'm doing my thing, you do yours, and we'll both be fine". People will talk to you if you talk to them. People will help you if you ask. People will leave you alone if you want. I love it!

I was lucky enough to arrive on International Women's Day, when the Defiant Girl was placed in front of the Bull on Wall Street. Sadly, due to (damn) tourists crowded around the Bull, I was unable to get a picture of them together. New Yorkers have always struck me as defiant to hardship kind of people, sort of "throw what you want at us, we will thrive".

I also saw another famous land mark although for less than stellar reasons. I didn't go any closer because I didn't want any orangeness to rub off on me! However, when I was in Washington DC, just prior to arriving in NYC, I did cross the street in front of a police officer holding a shotgun who had traffic stopped. A large cavalcade of vehicles drove by just as I was entering the restaurant. Bystanders said it was the Tangerine Nutsack, but since the news supposedly had him in Florida at that time, maybe not.

I love the traffic in NYC. Before you groan so loud you shatter some eardrums, let me explain further. I am a tourist and never in a hurry to go anywhere and I don't drive nor take taxis because the Metro is the best! What I love so much is the fact that you don't have to wait for the walk light to cross the street. Just look to make sure you can make it and go! If you are too slow, the cars coming at you full speed are going to honk and let you know you better pick up the pace. You can even cross right in front of the police and they won't even look at you funny! Caveat here... look both ways before crossing, even on one way roads. Below is the site of my near demise when I crossed WITH THE LIGHT (I know.... it was my first day and I forgot I could cross against the light) and forgot to look the wrong way down the one way street. The dude on the bicycle with quads of steel had lightning fast reflexes or I would have ended up as a rather large blob smeared all along the lane line.

I celebrated my ongoing communion with life by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Why? Because a) It was forecasted to be the best weather day of my entire trip, b) its a thing New Yorkers sometimes do on lunch and c) why not? The main reason to go on a trip is for the adventure of the journey, not the end destination!

My first selfie attempt with my camera where I discover.... a) I'm kinda artistic with the sunlight in the back b) selfies with cameras are a lot harder than with phones where you can see what you are taking before you take it and c) you need way longer arms for camera selfies.... these were themes that continued throughout ALL the selfies I took for the entire trip.... cuz..... it's no fun to learn a lesson on the first try.
The bridge was crowdedish, and the weather was warm (as evidenced by the fact you can see my entire face and some of my cleavage) and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not enough to walk back across too,,, just enough for the one way trip. I did turn around though to take this picture of Manhattan.

The other side of the bridge (the Brooklyn side) has this carousel down below. But since I had zero idea how to actually get down there... this is all you get of it....

I returned to Manhattan via the subway because I had booked a tour of the Federal Reserve which is a bank for other banks. There are no private holdings in the bank. It is where other countries can store gold reserves. Things that help me choose tours I go on.... price, coolness factor, off the beaten path.... I don't do just anything.... So this tour you had to reserve tickets for 30 days in advance. there are only two tours of 25 people each on weekdays (none on weekends... hello..... it's a bank....). You show up at the employee's unmarked entrance on a side street, basically indistinguishable from all the other doorways around it except for the armed security person guarding it. You present your printed ticket and your id to be allowed into the foyer. Then you go through the metal detector and have your belongings searched (jokes on them..... I carried everything on my person and they didn't get to xray any of my stuff). Then you get escorted down a hall and swiped into an elevator to another floor where you follow the arrows past another guard and into the "museum" area. They let you wander around this area for a bit while you wait for the others to show up. They weren't kidding when they said to arrive 30 mins early for security screening and no one is allowed in if you are late. There were some university or maybe high school kids in my group, dressed in very nice clothing that included 3-4 inch heels for the girls.... one question... why? I'm in my cargo pants and runners and my feet were still aching (I bet they hadn't just walked across the bridge though... and if they did.... then I should shut up about my aching feet). The tour guide started off with the blah, blah... and then took us down 80 feet to where the vault is situated on the granite bedrock of the island. According to the guide the vault has never been broken into.... guess she didn't see Die Hard 3. An auxillary vault was open because someone was doing business there - two cages with a couple of billion in gold in each of them... I joked Oprah must be there to make a withdrawal... which wasn't as funny as I thought since the guide reminded me that no private person has holdings there :-( The cylinder into the main vault rotates, drops and seals when they close it to create a water and air tight seal. We were inches away from billions and billions of dollars in gold. Although ingots can be made of any size, the standard ones now weight 28 lbs each. Workers have to wear magnesium shoe covers to prevent smashed feet from dropped bars. Sadly, for obvious reasons, no pictures were allowed.
     I walked over to the 9/11 memorial afterwards. There are tours you can take of the museum (again requiring advance ticket purchase) but since it failed all three of my tour choosing factors, I just wandered through the memorial. There are two pools with the names of the dead around the edges.

It is a very somber place. I was astounded at how many first responders died.

Here is an (I 100% waited a very, very long time and sweated over the composition so much I could barely sleep, fully intended) artistic shot of the Freedom Tower from the memorial.

The only thing disappointing about this day was I had cream of wheat for breakfast instead of cream cheese something. I did however manage some New York style pizza for supper!

31 072 steps today and my feet are well aware of each and every one of them!

Bathroom Conversations

Obviously women go to the bathroom in pairs when possible so they can talk about the people they're with in private. This is a transcript of a conversation I overheard (and I say that with tongue in cheek since the two of them thought the 2 feet and short tile wiall separating them necessitated raising their voices. Both women were over 60 and were a mother and daughter. 

Daughter (D): Dad is being a real pain!

Mom (M): I know! All he had to do was shower and put on a clean hat. He's been driving me crazy lately.

D: Because of the lot?

M: yes. He just put $3000 worth of gravel down there and now he wants to build a slab.

D: why?

M: he's just like Kennedy - convinced if he's not building something he's going to die.

D: I have hemorrhoids from being constipated.

M: Me too. When we get home we'll each have a 1/2 cup of some magnesium citrate and that'll fix us (along with a bunch of cramps....but I didn't add that)

D: what does he do down at the lot?

M: I think he just uses it to get away from me. He could be working up at the house. The window is broken and (lengthy monologue about all the people who were going to fix the window but haven't shown up).

M: He expects me to come down there and live in that little trailer. He thinks I should just go without my oxygen while I'm there.

By this time the daughter has come out of the stall and is washing her hands. I've gone into the vacated stall and don't see Mom but she exits and promptly leaves WITHOUT WASHING HER HANDS!

Bathrooms are fun..... People are crazy.....

If Only the Incessant Screaming In My Helmet Would Stop....

It's pretty much a given that motorcyclists like twisty roads. We don't usually like the straight route to anywhere and in fact will seek out the twistiest road we can. First Lobster and I have covered twice the distance of the straight road to go someplace by the twisty road and been happier for it.

However, I pretty much suck at corners. FL has spent a lot of time on the side of twisty roads in various parts of Canada and the U.S. waiting for me to catch up. He has a bike which is heavier and has a lower centre of gravity, and...he's a better driver than me, so he rocks the corners.

This year I took a cornering course to see if I could improve enough to keep up. It was held in a church parking lot in Edmonton, so, not a lot of corners to practice on, but still, I learned and practiced the 10 steps of cornering. I was ready when vacation rolled around to.. Well.... swiftly roll around some corners.

So let me tell you what it was like..... And keep in mind, this is after a full day of practice in the parking lot.

FL's rule of thumb while cornering in the USA is to take the "suggested" cornering speed in miles per hour, double it, add 10 or more percent and then take the corner in that number as kilometres per hour. He LOVES 35 mph curves and routinely takes them at about 90-100 kph. Sometimes he rolls around them with his feet still resting up on top of his pegs, although occasionally he does actually condescend enough to put his feet on the foot pegs the way they are supposed to be.

This is how I take a 35 mph curve... "OK, 35 mph. Am I in a state that is conservative in their estimate of suggested cornering speed (Idaho), one that haphazardly decides to or not to put up a sign whenever they want (California) or am I in the state that really MEANS the suggested speed (if only I couls actually remember which state that was)? Ok, I'm almost at the corner, I'll downshift two speeds.... No.... That seems a bit fast....downshift another one just to be safe.... Better safe than dead right? Quick-10 steps of cornering.... Inside foot with the toes on the peg (cuz if I am slanted so much in the corner my foot touches the road - that's a BAD thing (and NEVER gonna happen)), knee out, slide ass off towards the inside of the curve, pick turn point, eyes into the turn and.... Ok, now I'm in the turn, ummmmm. Oh yeah, relax the outside arm (and the neck and the face), push with the inside arm. Wait... Relax the thighs too (that's not actually one of the steps, but my thighs are gripping the tank so tightly I'm leaving dents in the tank). NO! My brain screams- you can't relax legs and arms...you might DIE! Next step- big picture vision - head up and look around the corner, not at the road in front of you! Unfortunately- all I can see is the sky... There's a gigantic cliff off the side of the road... My brain is instantly flooded with thoughts of sliding off the road and dying on the long drop to wherever. I hate corners with gigantic drop offs, and corners that are hairpins downhill, and hairpins uphill, and every corner downhill, and all corners I can't see the exit before I've started the corner...so pretty much every corner that is not on the flat part of the desert!

And now the corner is over and it's time to catch my breath from the scream that started way, way back before step one and petered out in a small whimper just as I accelerated out of the turn. And time to start the next turn..... 15 mph? What? No you can't really mean that! And it's an inside turn, so if I skid out I'll slide across traffic and either get run over by oncoming traffic or slam into the rock face Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh .......

The "Gang" experience...

I have ridden with a group of three and four motorbikes before, but most of the time it's a "gang" of two or a motorcycle "duet" of my husband and me.

So what is it like to be a part of the duet...?

When we ride, First Lobster (FL) rides in the front - it is his job to tell the GPS where we want to go, then follow the GPS, and try not to let it kill us... Which it pretty much tries to do on a daily basis. He sets our speed, watches for the tax collectors, and picks the "correct" lane.

As the follow behind, I don't have to watch my speed or figure out where to go to follow that damn GPS... I also have more time to look around at the scenery and read some of the road signs...which means sometimes when the GPS tells us the wrong way I can see the sign telling us the correct way to go. Alas, that means it is too late to get us growing the correct way. Sometimes FL and I have choice "words" about things when we get lost, but not very often.

As the rear rider, it is up to me to be ready at all times to follow FL if he decides at the last second to take the exit, or speed up into a gap or come to an emergency stop on the side of the road (where I also then hang out just a bit more than him and put on my emergency lights). 

This means the majority of the time I have nothing more than a vague sense of where we are going. I have absolutely no idea how long it is going to take us to get there, and if we get separated, I am basically lost.

I could take my turn riding at the front, but if the GPS succeeds in killing us, I don't want it to be my fault.... We even park in the same order....

But what do you "do" on vacation?

When we had young children we used to take them to Kelowna or Vancouver, one year to Las Vegas. Vacation never really began until we got where we were going. All the whining and complaining (mostly from me) about how loooonng it took to get anywhere ensured that vacations were never fun until we had arrived! People say they are going to Los Angeles or Las Vegas or wherever and they have a thing to do there...go to Disneyland or go shopping or the beach or ....something.

Now First Lobster (my husband) and I go on vacations where the end point is just the point on the earth where we will turn around and come back. We came to Los Angeles again this year....why? Because it has good roads to ride our motorbikes on that we haven't been on yet.

Other people can drive to LA in 24 hours, switching drivers and driving straight through - their vacation begins when they get there. We take 6 days to get here (which includes one really light day, or entire day off) so our butts can have a rest.

We will not go to Disneyland. We will go shopping this year, but only because we went to the mall where they filmed Bad Santa or because we "needed" something from the cycle store we don't have in Canada. We will spend our days in the nearby hills/mountains riding twisty roads just for the joy that brings. Yes, there are twisty roads nearer to home, but we've been on a fair number of those and there are a few bragging rights to saying I road my bike "all the way" to LA (and home again too actually).

So see you laters the twisties are calling me to nothing more than drive them!

The Weather and Forest Fires

Riders are very concerned with the weather....or at least we are.

Truth, you will be too hot or too cold at some point- possibly in the same day.

I try and dress for the majority of the day, which in August in the U.S., is hot. So I wear long underwear bottoms and top (special stuff called Heat Out), mesh over pants, mesh jacket and mesh gloves. This is a fantastic option when it's 20C or over, otherwise the jacket is a bit breezy. 

As we climb up into the mountains, the weather can drop by 10 degrees, which means I'll be cold for a while. Sometimes that's nice, sometimes not. I have a thermometer read out on my dashboard and I watch the temperature climb and fall.

Interestingly 2C change can be noticeable. Also there are air pockets like the warm water pockets at the swimming pool, all of a sudden you can feel the temp change even though the thermometer isn't registering it.

In mesh, on the highway, 23-27C is the perfect riding temp. However, in the traffic, 20-23 is great.

We hit 36C yesterday afternoon with a dry wind. My lips were stuck together. I left them that way, because it kept the spit still in my mouth. Today we are riding through the Oregon dessert, because it is less hot than riding through the Nevada dessert. Weather forecasts are no rain and a high of 31, so it might be ok...

The other thing we watch is where the forest fires are and where the smoke is blowing. So far so good this trip but parts of California look bad and might alter where we go.

Here we are, just about to enter the Idaho part of the Lolo forest. Fantastic riding!

Packing for a motorbike trip

People have a myriad of questions when you tell them you are planning a long trip on your motorbike. 

So, yes....my butt will hurt. Yes, I am hot or cold....depending on the weather. Yes, I get wet if it rains.

Now on to one of the other questions....what do we take with us.

I am a master packer...... Even approaching Jedi Master status.

I start with a list divided by function and location I will pack it. So tools in the left box, or electronics bag in the right box. The key to remembering everything is a great list. The key to finding it on the trip is consistency and logic.

In the left box we store things we don't need everyday, such as rain gear (hopefully), tools, and the bag of everything. This has .... well....everything in it. Maps, Lysol wipes, visor cleaner, owner's manual, flashlight....you get the idea. This way we don't need to take the box off at night and haul it up the numerous stairs to our room (which is always on an upper level if the place doesn't have an elevator.  Cuz, you know... There's nothing I want more, after 6-7 hours of arse numbing riding in the heat, while wearing full crash proof clothing, than to haul my luggage up the stairs.

The right box has clothing, meds, electronics, swim stuff and sandals (you only get to bring one pair of shoes beyond your riding pair). So the stuff we need in the hotel room at night. 

The top box has food, drinks, extra gloves and other things we may need to access multiple times during the day. This box also comes into the hotel room...(cuz it might occasionally have alcohol in it).

We bring 4 days worth of clothes (that is all we have room for) and of course, there is laundry soap in the bag of everything!

We don't buy souvenirs usually, but do have expandable space....just in case.....