Mission Musings: FORTUNATELY or NEW YORK CITY

A favorite children's book of mine is Fortunately by Remy Carlip. The story begins this way:

Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.

Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.

Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane.

Unfortunately, the motor exploded.

Fortunately, there was a parachute in the airplane.

Unfortunately, there was a hole in the parachute.

That pattern could describe the beginning of our visit to New York City. Here's how it went:

Fortunately we left Monday morning for our trip to New York City from Sharon, Vermont, allowing plenty of time to get there. Unfortunately, we ran into lots of construction and traffic, at one point taking us 40 minutes to go 4 miles.

Fortunately we finally made it across the George Washington Bridge and into New Jersey, where we were staying. Unfortunately we weren't real skilled at riding the subway, but eventually we figured it out.

Fortunately, we had tickets to a Yankee's game. Unfortunately, because of the bad traffic, we didn't have time for dinner. Fortunately, we got a hot dog at the ballgame. It tasted good too. (Notice the Yankee's icon on the wrapper.) Unfortunately the prices were very high! $5 for a bottle of water.

Fortunately we had good seats in the stadium and were excited for the game to begin.

Unfortunately it was raining and the game was delayed for two hours.

Fortunately, we saw a spectacular sunset and . . .

. . .some very good plays, like this amazing catch by Yankee player, Mark Teixeira. Unfortunately, I was cheering for the other team, the Seattle Mariners. Fortunately, we saw both teams make some amazing plays and loved being at the game. Unfortunately, we had to leave after the 5th inning because the parking lot where we left our car was closing shortly after midnight. We got back to our hotel about 1:30 AM and I didn't get to sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Fortunately, we had a great time anyway! It's pretty special to be in the Yankee Stadium.

The next day we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spent several hours there. It is an incredible museum.

Steven spent most of his time viewing the armor and the Egyptian displays.

I spent my time viewing the work of 1800 - 1900 European artists.

It was a busy day at the Metro, as you can see by the people outside the art museum.

After we finished at the Metro we grabbed a bite to eat and then went to a Broadway production. We really enjoyed the singing and dancing and the energy of the performers.

I love crowds and really enjoyed walking through Times Square after the musical. It was fun to see the Mormon ad on the billboard there.

And, of course it was fun to see all of the other lights too.

Our last morning in New York City was spent on Ellis Island and Liberty Island. We were surprised to learn that about 1/3 of Americans today had ancestors that went through Ellis Island. Some 12 million immigrants came through here.

Religious persecution, political strife, unemployment, family connections, the lure of adventure; these were the circumstances of the greatest migration in modern history, when shipload after shipload of people, mostly Europeans, came to the United States. By the early 1900,s 5,000 people arrived at Ellis Island each day, with a record 11,747 on April 17, 1907.

After seeing Ellis Island we boarded the ferry and continued on to Liberty Island for a close up look of the Statue of Liberty. We had seen the statue before from a ferry, but it was magnificent actually being on the island and seeing the statue up close.