Heading South

The flight out to NYC from London Heathrow was smooth & on time, the foot was reasonably comfortable,able to be elevated for the entire time, due to the club seat/ beds. For some reason I was personally welcomed on board by the chief steward (?).

I had a wheelchair service at both of the airports which was really efficient & amazingly the Clexane syringes weren't even questioned. The scanner guy's comment on my hand luggage as it passed through the scanner was " Wow ! That's a lot of drugs." But everyone was kind & courteous, which made it much less of an embarrassment.

Swelling only became noticeably painful during the descent to landing in Newark.

So the weather was hot & sunny in Manhattan, around 78c on average. I spent most of Friday around Wall street, Seaport & Pier 17. Whilst sitting on the pier enjoying the sunshine, a couple of men who were engaged in slightly high pitched dialogue, were edging along towards me. One chap was moving backwards with the other a "Jackie Chan" lookalike moving towards him holding what looked like a flick knife. To start with I watched them with mild bemusement & wondered if they were acting out some sort of street theatre .......
People around me started to back away from them & move along the pier, getting their mobile phones & cameras out of their pockets etc while they did so.
As I looked at "Jackie Chan " I noticed his eyes were bulging & he had a deranged expression fixed on his face, the other guy was wearing an amiable smile, whilst speaking softly. He was big built but quite young I thought. Anyway, after watching these two dance around each other for a few moments,it became apparent to me that "Jackie Chan" clearly was wired, unhinged & serious ! I then noticed that I was the only person left sitting on the steps & considered to
myself how quickly I could move away from them on my crutches looking as inconspicuous as possible. I looked upwards & the upper levels were lined with crowds of people filming & taking photographs!
I got up slowly & inched my way along the pier sideways, crab like really, all the time
watching "Jackie Chan's" wild eyes but trying not to meet his gaze full on. Two lads ran past & then wrestled the Chinese guy unceremoniously to the deck in seconds. One of them sat on him while the other wrestled the suspected weapon from his grip. I looked at it, as it was thrown to the ground but i couldn't really make out what it was exactly other than it had a bright green plastic handle. Then the NYPD arrived, trussed up the little China man like a chicken ready for the oven & carried him away.
I mused for a while about the "what if's" & then headed to the Pacific grill for lunch which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The rest of my day was pretty uneventful after that, a bit of shopping, the Brooklyn bridge & a little bit of Little Italy & Chinatown.
We had dinner that night at The Waters Edge restaurant in Long Island, it has a complimentary water taxi service from the Skyport marina which provides stunning & romantic (take note Glenn) of the Manhattan skyline at night along with a complimentary glass of champagne The food is pretty good too !

Next morning the sun was shining high in the sky as we headed to Central Park. After a taxi ride we entered by the Lake & Boathouse & walked to them via Strawberry Field. I took the obligatory photograph of the Imagine mosaic & some great close ups of the bridge & staircase down to the fountain, before we hobbled around to the Loeb Boathouse. I couldn't believe our luck, we got a great table by the lake for lunch. The view was so beautiful, of people trying to row their boats around, of the sun glinting on the water & glowing through leaves on the trees. I ordered the Maine lobster roll & it was delectable, slightly sweet but not too chewy, delicious, the glass of bubbly complimented it perfectly too !

Afterwards another taxi ride, but this time to The Empire State building. Although I have been up it before (2005) I wanted to watch the sun set & hopefully capture a bit of it in some photographs .

We finished the day by heading to some bars just off of Broadway & the foot & I boogied to
Michael Jackson before heading back to the hotel.

Yesterday we drove over 700 miles (after getting lost) through West Virginia & along the Blue
Ridge to arrive in Greensboro NC. Lovely chappie has a two day course to attend before we can continue onwards to our next destination which is Cherokee.
Whilst chilling out & watching daytime tv in the hotel room I saw an advertisement for a male grooming gadget, it had a bright green plastic handle & looked very familiar ..

I'm hoping to be able o visit an Indian reservation & maybe have a pow wow with the Chief !