Universal With Mia and Gina

Mia and Gina took me to Universal Studios / Islands of Adventure as my birthday gift from them! What a fun day we had! The above pic was taken as I was driving across the Howard Franklin Bridge heading into Tampa on my way to Orlando. I love the drive across the Bay.

Universal was first.

First stop was the Simpson's Ride. It replaced the Back to the Future Ride. It's a simulated roller coaster gone wild . . . fun stuff, great animation and action. It was the longest wait we had all day.

We did Mel's Diner for lunch. Bacon cheeseburgers and fries. Actually was pretty good, and we were in within minutes! The guy who waited on us at the register looked and talked like Mel Brooks!

The Hulk roller coaster at the Islands of Adventure.

The Lucy exhibit/store.

This is a model of the set of the I Love Lucy Show.

The Dueling Dragons roller coasters at the Islands of Adventure. We chose "Ice" (the blue dragon). These type of roller coasters are fun, but I don't think they're as thrilling as the old wooden ones with the death defying drops!

A "roller coaster" for the faint of heart. :-)

This area is being torn down and will be the new Harry Potter attraction which will open in 2009 or 2010, I can't remember what the sign said.

Dinner at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.

Who Trims Those Palm Trees?

Answer: No one.

Editor's Note: This is a re-enactment of the scene found this morning.

NYC Part 2 - The Show

The main reason for the NYC trip was to see my daughter-in-law Joy in her one woman show in the Midtown International Theater Festival. It turned out to be a mini family reunion in that my family of origin and adult children came down for the same performance.

Joy is amazing! When she was visiting us in Florida last month she expressed fear that after we saw the show we would divorce her! Joy . . . not gonna happen!

Her performance venue was a small "Bohemian" theater, which appears to be a person's apartment, er, commercial space. But it was small and intimate which made the whole experience that much better. And it was cool that half the audience was relatives and friends.

I've known Joy for almost five years now. The more I get to know her, the more I love her. I knew somewhat of her past, but this filled in many of the details. And I was amazed at how it all flowed thru time and from character to character. It was so smooth and flawless. I am in awe!

I didn't use a flash and was afraid of disturbing Joy (I think Joe did a good enough job of that but Joy didn't blink. :-) ) so this is without a flash. I was very self conscious trying to take a picture from the front row!

Here are some shots of the house. Intimate, eh?

And a couple more shots of our table at Carmine's.

And Jeffrey enjoying breakfast at Starbucks.

NYC Part 1 - Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

Arrived in midtown Manhattan after a looooooonnnnnggg ride in on the subway from JFK. Cheapskates that we were, it only cost us under $2 apiece since for some reason, AirTrain was free that day. (Needless to say, we decided to take a cab back to the airport on Sunday.)



As you can see, the weather was beautiful, at least up until the hour our plane was to take off for the trip back to Florida. We had an almost 2 hour delay on the ground because of the lightning and torrential rain. Takeoff was like a roller coaster and tilt-a-whirl combined.


We decided to head down to the Village to get something to eat. Joe had texted some addresses of a few places that they like. We ended up at a place called "Lenny's" . The food was fresh and plentiful. Actual turkey breast and lots of it.

This is a shot taken along 10th Street. We walked past Ruben Hall on 5th Ave and 10th St. That's the dorm where Joe lived when he was a freshman at NYU.

We took the subway up to 59th to do some browsing and people watching at the Apple Store. The line for the iPhones was unbelievably long. And every computer, laptop, iPod and whatever other device was there was being test driven by all the kids in the candy store.


On Saturday morning Sean and Jeffrey came down from Albany (I found myself all weekend still saying down to NYC even though for the first time I came 'up' to it.) We hung out at the Starbucks up the block from our hotel. Man, it's sooooooo difficult to find a Starbucks. It been almost a year since we've seen each other. Had a great time (Part 2) while they were there with us.

Later we went with my extended family to Carmine's for dinner. There were 17 of us. Boy did we eat. And NO Titanic for dessert! I don't think any of us had a bit of room for it.

After dinner we headed over to Long Island City to see Joe's and Joy's apartment. Some shots looking up their street with their building in the background.

Some views from the windows in their apartment.

After leaving their apartment Wayne and I took the subway back to Manhattan and walked around Rockefeller Plaza and Times Square and 42nd Street. After about 3o seconds (that long?) we couldn't wait to get away from people!

We waited a while for this Ugly Betty to display again so that we could get a shot of it.

And we think we were being stalked by the paparazzi. This guy seemed to be everywhere we were . . .

On Sunday morning we met Joy and Joe for brunch at the Popover Cafe in the UWS. Love that place. Wayne is thinking about opening one here in St Pete . . .

Yes . . . the pepper mill was moved and then moved back . . .

That stalker caught me in the subway.