Happy Detour

Gretta knew she was in her kind of city when she saw this sign. Actually, we weren't in the city we were supposed to be in. When we landed in NYC last night, we looked for the gate for our flight to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and discovered the flight had been cancelled. There was a big storm in NYC. Virtually all the flights were down and all the rental cars were gone. With a hurricane whirling up the East Coast towards Nova Scotia, and Delta flights flying to Nova Scotia only once a day, we figured it might be Monday before we could get north.

We considered our options and decided to stay in NYC for a couple of days, till the storm blew over. Through Priceline, we got a (relatively) cheap room at the Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue--not such a bad place to wait out the storm.

We hurried to Times Square to buy some discount theater tickets. One choice was "In the Heights," the 2008 Tony Award winner that Michael Spendlove like so much he saw it twice. We loved it, too. It was the story of a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Washington Heights, a NYC neighborhood, and was flavored with a bit of break dancing and rap music. We want to see it again when it comes to Salt Lake City in five years or so! Times Square had another riveting attraction--the Naked Cowboy. David had seen this gentleman on CNN a few months ago. The song he kept singing as we watched him today was, "I'm the naked cowboy. You have to do what you have to do."

The NYC streets have endless attractions--curious signs and curious activities. Gretta saw a group of well-dressed young people speaking Japanese and picking trash off the streets with long tweezer-type tools. One of the street cleaners said, when Gretta asked what they were doing, "We're just volunteers."

Gretta was tempted to become a "walk-in" for the resident 42nd Street psychic.

We were lucky to find a street fair on 6th Avenue. "The fair moves from place to place around the city," a gyro-seller told us. There were wonderful stalls selling spices, $2 jewelry, and all manner of food. Dave and Gretta splurged on big glasses full of fresh fruit, including even lichee nuts, mango, and papaya, for both lunch and dinner.

Tonight we'll see the musical "Hair," and tomorrow Gretta will report on the museums we've seen and will see--the International Photography Museum, the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We hope the family is doing well!