A Trip to NY City with My Dad

Its interesting how your dad can surprise you. Knowing that he had been making plans and not shared them with you. Turning into one of those pack your bags this is what we will be doing for the next few days. For me this was a trip to New York City with my dad. This fell into place about the same time I was finishing up my two year associates degree. Sort of a graduation present. But more than I had hoped for or ever expected.

It was a bit of a drive there but interesting the places we saw along the way. This Including the Roscoe Diner along Rt 17. I have only been there once but the deserts are what stuck out most in my mind. Add into that the amount of food that it brought with the meal. Desert was in a doggy bag. There was no way I was going to leave that behind.

Even though its been over 20 years the memories are still there and now I would enjoy sharing them with you.

The picture shown is of my dad on top of one of the World Trade Center Buildings.

Dad knew that my favorite pet was a cat. Add into that a musical about them and there was a great combination. He had looked into the prices of the show. We had even checked with a local vendor. Still a bit pricy. So on the day of the show we walked down to the theater and were going to check on tickets there. My dad held the door for someone as they came out of the theaters box office and then went in to ask about tickets. Turns out that the person that he held the door for had just canceled for that evening. Row 4 aisle seats. He was able to get them at a reduced price. Double score for the dad.

That evening during the show we were able to look around the theater and see how its designed to be a large junk yard. They had enlarged the things that people would throw out such as bottles and boxes and had them on the walls. During the show I had one of the cats (actors) rub up against me. My dad let me have the aisle seat.

There was an opportunity to get autographs at intermission. But that was not as important as being there or having the playbill to look back on.

F.A.O. Schwarz that is.

When we set out that day I had no Idea where we were going. We were just walking. There were a few places that we stopped into but there seamed to be one destination as we were staying on one road.

When I say the sign I pretty much knew where we we were going. We walked around for a while and found a couple of things. This included the stuffed animal seen above of the Doozer from Fraggle Rock for my little sister. When it came time to pay we were talking to the folks at the cash register and were about to walk out. When they asked are you going to pay for those? My response was do we get a choice? There was laughter and the toys were then paid for.

Interesting how you remember good customer service for many many years

Another one I did not see comming

That's right another show with dad. I did not expect it but it was there. We were not as close to the front as Cats but there were aisle seats. And again dad gave me the one on the isle.

It was fun watching and trying to figure out what was happening and how they were doing it. (Still not sure how there were doing them.

Again being on the isle had its rewards. I was able to take part in one of their illusions. This one was interesting as I was able to talk to Penn in person. Unlike Cats where they just rubbed up against me.

Afterwards I made a point of getting both of their autographs on the front of my playbill. That is part of the reason why the image above is not of the front of the playbill. The other is I wanted to share part of the trick I was in. That is the needle that I found on the floor after the show.

Both images used for Penn & Teller came from their Playbill

Which would you rather see?