Goodbye New York

I didn't have too much planned for my last full day in New York.  I thought about going to a baseball game, but tickets were priced at close to $60 for decent seats.  So I decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art instead.  They have a suggested ticket price of $25, but to make art more accessible to the masses, they use a "pay what you can" price.  I paid $10 for my ticket & spent about 4 hours inside the museum.  They had a nice collection of Van Gogh paintings along with paintings of many other well known artists.

    Van Gogh - Wheat field with cypress painting.

After the museum visit, I headed over to Times Square for a final visit & to get some dinner.  Afterwards I found a sports bar nearby to watch game 7 of the NBA finals.  I have been a Cleveland Cavaliers fan since the mid 1970s, so there was no way I was going to miss this game.  The crowd in the bar was split 50/50 between fans of the two teams.  I was glad to see the Cavaliers win the series & to bring home the first major sports championship to Cleveland in 52 years.

I headed over to the bus station after the game to catch the bus back to New Jersey.  I was a little worried when the doors to the area that I needed to go were locked & several buses were out of service.  Luckily I was able to find the right bus & I got the second to last seat on it.

There is a lot of competition on the NYC-Charleston airline route, so I was able to get a cheap ticket ($95) a few months ago for a direct flight back home.  My flight was at 2:00 pm, but I left very early for the airport since there have been delays of 2-3 hours going through security this summer.  I got lucky & when I arrived at LaGaurdia airport there was only a short 10 minute wait to get to the terminal.  My flight home was uneventful except for a screaming kid in the row behind me & we actually arrived there 40 minutes early.  I got picked up by an Uber ride a few minutes after I contacted them & was home 20 minutes later.

It was great to be home after being on the road for 2 months.  I really appreciate my friend Steve checking on my place while I was away.  I had a very enjoyable trip & feel fortunate to be able to travel for such a long period of time.  Now I just needed to sort through 8 weeks of mail.