A mid-morning breakfast at Westway Diner was very well received by all concerned. Yeah, it was really good, especially since it was a spontaneous choice I made while the boys were still waking up. Convenient that it was on the way to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.
A 15 minute walk got us to the pier, which is a lovely area. The Intrepid is a decommissioned aircraft carrier that’s been converted into a museum. You can walk pretty much all over the ship. They have a cafeteria set up in the galley. And there have to be at least 20 aircraft parked in and on the ship.
The Growler is a military submarine that we also got to take a tour of. We all agreed if we had to serve we’d rather do it on the aircraft carrier. Those subs are really tight!
There was also an exhibit with the Enterprise shuttle. The real thing. Which is actually pretty huge. There were plenty of information panels and several interactive activities. Of course they also had a mock up of the U.S.S. Enterprise’s shuttle Galileo there too. MUCH smaller than the Enterprise Shuttle.
And then of course there was the Star Trek Exhibit. Always cool, but really busy. Each section had interactive quizzes and tests to complete from which they determined the appropriate track for you to follow. They were supposed to have two of each console so people weren’t waiting too long, but some were not working, so that was a little disappointing. The exhibit ends on the Enterprise D bridge where your final test is the Kobayashi Maru. Your task is to save as many people from the Kobayashi Maru as you can before the Klingons destroy everyone. It’s a no-win situation, so you’re going to die anyway, but Dan saved 15, Jarod saved 60, I saved 65, and by some impressive feat that I still cannot explain Zak saved 160. He is the Man! In the end, Dan and Jarod were both assessed for sciences, Zak was assessed for engineering, and I got navigation this time. We’re not sure why Zak didn’t get straight into the command track…
About a half hour break at the hotel to let our feet recover, and then we walked to Madison Square Garden to watch the New York Knicks play the Washington Wizards in a pre-season match. The place is huge, and yet we managed to get seats that had a great centre court view. It was pretty perfect. The seats are a little tight, but manageable. The food was fine. We didn’t get on the big screen. And we didn’t snag any t-shirts, but that wasn’t for Zak and I failing to try. The game itself could really have gone either way from the get go, and wasn’t decided until the last second, literally. I managed to keep the boys smirking at me every time I mixed my terminology up with hockey references. It’s admittedly been quite a while since I’ve watched any basketball.
We took a slightly different route back to the hotel so that we could see some new sights. Glad we did because we found Cupcakes by Melissa, where they sell bite size cupcakes in multiple flavours, and a comic book store that we may try to go back to.
Guigon Travels 