For Darlene’s birthday we went to see a performance of the musical Hamilton at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco – in costume of course. The smiles are mostly due to the very enthusiastic and zealous person who insisted on taking our picture for us afterwards!
Darlene and I enjoyed a weeklong trip to New York City over Christmas this year just doing a lot of sightseeing. It wasn’t a first visit for either of us but there was still plenty to go see and do. We started off with a midnight visit to the top of the Empire State Building – and discovered that’s the way to entirely avoid any lines or crowds.
We enjoyed thoroughly exploring the lower half of Central Park and we walked around mid-town a lot, taking in the Christmas shops at Bryant Park, visiting the gorgeous Grand Central Station as well as the New York Public Library – home to specters from the movie Ghostbusters, which kicked off a hunt to seek the other filming locations including the Ghostbusters firehouse HQ, the “spook central” apartment building on Central Park West, the Tavern on the Green, Lincoln Center, etc.
Of course we visited Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas displays there and along Fifth Ave. We also saw two musicals on Broadway over our visit: The Lion King, which was just completely fantastic and amazing, as well as a repeat of Cats which happened to be the first musical each of us had ever seen. I found I didn’t care for Cats at all this time though – I guess my tastes have changed a bit in 30 years!
We did the VIP tour (tip: not worth the extra) at One World Observatory and stayed for dinner after sunset. The ride up the “time traveling” elevator was very cool (see YouTube video) but over too quickly to enjoy all the detail! We saw the 9/11 memorial that night as well – really well done.
We walked the High Line (an elevated rail line converted to a green space) and walked around the financial district and down to Battery Park where we discovered and rode the wonderful Seaglass Carousel. We slipped in a visit to the art collection at the Frick museum and we finished off with a lovely trip on the Staten Island ferry on our last crisp cold day.
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For Darlene’s birthday this year, we went to Old Town Sacramento for the weekend and stayed on the steamboat-turned-hotel “Delta King”. We spent a good part of Saturday checking out the fantastic California Railroad Museum which makes up almost all of the pictures in my gallery:
No pictures, but we also spent time wandering around Old Town and checking out the shops. That afternoon we participated in another “escape room” and successfully solved “The Study” at Escape Sacramento and then, after dinner, went to a fun play put on by the B Street Theater in town. (Take note: skip the Suspects Mystery Dinner Theater option on the Delta King – it gets terrible reviews on Yelp and TravelAdvisor.) Sunday was filled with a long bike ride out and back along part of the 30+ mile bike trails along the American River.
Several pictures from a night out in SF with Darlene to see the musical Wicked – in appropriate costume, of course!
A day’s hike up and down Mt. Tamalpais to see a wonderful production of the “Wizard of Oz” by the Mountain Play Association in Mill Valley, California.
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