We Take Ourselves With Us

It was the morning after Thanksgiving, and all through the room, most of the family wanted to sleep until noon.   But, instead, we dashed away, dashed away, dashed away all ... the way to the corner of the next block for some breakfast before setting off for the Lower East Side.  Two things I've never gotten to in NYC that I wanted to do this trip: the Tenement Museum and the Ellis Island Museum.  The latter is still being reconstructed after Hurricane Sandy, but I was able to book a tour of the former.  It's fair to say no one--but me--was very excited by the prospect of touring a tenement.  But, they were being good sports. Since we were heading away from all the Black Friday crowds, the subway was completely empty, which enabled my monkeys to work up some energy. Our foray to the museum got off to a rocky start: we jumped into the long line on Orchard Street that we assumed was for the tour, only to learn that it was a line...

This was the day that brought us here: Thanksgiving.  We built this vacation around the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade .  I've been watching that parade since I was a little girl and always wanted to go.  When I realized that one could get grandstand tickets through online charity auctions, it was all over but the shouting.  In the end, a Brooklyn public school got a nice return on its four grandstand seats, and we got to get up at 5:30 am on Thanksgiving morning.  By about 6:20, as this photo reflects, everyone was up and sunshiney ... okay, they were up and dressed.  Good enough. We were literally the only people in the subway station that early, but by the time the train came, we had been joined by a few others who were clearly parade goers (revealed by their lawn chairs).  The kids had perked up a bit on the walk, probably because it was freezing cold, and contrary to all weather reports that had predicted a dry Thanksgiving, it was also d...