We find it easily enough at 241 West 42nd Street and are quickly seated by a friendly guy who takes our order: Pulled Pork platter for me and Baby Back ribs with baked potato for my dining companion, the lovely Ms. J. Lemonade for us both. The lemonade comes and it's like drinking out of a fish bowl, I kid you not - HUGE serving of lemonade here - kinda nice. The food arrived rather quickly and was of course - wait for it - a very large portion. I found the sauce on my pork sandwich to be tangy but not spicey in any way. Tasty...but lacking bite. But good. I even ate a few of the bread and butter pickels that were served with the meal and I'm not usually a pickles kind of guy. J. says the ribs are really good and is obviously glad we've chosen the BBQ - her choice all along. We finish dinner and walk back south through Times Sqaure and head back to our hotel. It is HOT now. We decide to hang in the hotel until around 4:30pm or so and then leave to get a spot for the fireworks.
Around 4:30 we pack up 4 large bottles of Evian water into a large shopping bag that I feel can also support a few lbs of ice to keep the water cool for a while anyway. It works...I dump about 5 lbs of ice in the thing at the hotel ice machine on our floor and it holds quite nicely. We're not going far anyway. We grab what's left of our travelling food, some beef jerky and Doritos, the water, the camera and set off for 34th street and West Side Highway. It is a prime viewing location and we settle in to wait for the big show at 9:20pm. It is relatively uncrowded when we arrive at around 5:00pm as seen in this first photo...looking north on the West Side Highway at 34th street.
But it began to fill in quickly. There were things to keep people amused. There were the constant flyovers of the area by large NYPD choppers...
Then this small plane comes buzzing up the river at one point, trailing behind it a rather large American flag...he flew up the river then back south again. People were applauding and cheering as he flew by.
By 7:00pm things had really started to crowd up as people packed in with chairs, books, radios, food, video games and card games to pass the time. We just sat there taking it all in, enjoying each other's company and the fact that here we were, in NYC for the fireworks, just like we'd planned since watching them on TV the previous year and saying, "Yeah...next year we'll be there."...and here we were...it was very enjoyable and fulfilling to have achieved our goal.
The ice in the water bag? That had melted just a short time aftre we'd arrived back around 5:00pm. But our water was still kinda cold and despite the crushing 98* temps everyone around us seemed comfortable as can be expected and looked to be having a great time waiting for the fireworks. There was no trouble that we saw anywhere around us.
Around sundown, the FDNY boats went up and down the main viewing areas a few times, spewing red, white and blue plumes of water as they went by...
And then the fireworks finally started at around 9:25pm. Unfortunately, my photos do not do them justice at all. Epic fail on the fireworks photography for me again this time, but I WAS battling street lights so thats my excuse. The photos are kinda "artsy" though, so I'm keeping them. You can see the full set at the NYCDreamin Archives over at Flickr.
25 minutes later, we were all "oohed and ahhed" out. It was definately the most incredible fireworks we'd ever seen. My 4th time in NYC for the fireworks and this was definately the best so far. We walked slowly out of the holding area where we'd been now for some 5 hours, glad to be up and moving, however slowly. We moved East with the crowd, which eventually thinned out a bit and made our way across to 5th Avenue at 33rd street. We decided a quick cheeseburger at McDonalds was all we really wanted to eat - so we ordered and ate and went back to the hotel. Relaxed a bit, watched the news for a while then dropped off to sleep, glad to have had a relatively easy day as far as walking was concerned. There would be more...tomorrow.
...to be continued.
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