This was an interesting trip - not only was it fun and fascinating, but it was a short flight and we stayed in our own time zone and on our own continent! 

We learned a big lesson too. It is pretty spectacular to experience your own "backyard." It has been many years we explored the US, and never New England like this. 

NY is big. It is tall. It is crowded. It is noisy. It is not like home. 

The taxi driver that took from the airport to our hotel, told us a story about how his father needed him for (hopefully) just a week in Georgia at the little road-side gas station he owned. Dutifully, this son flew down. "There was no noise but crickets, it was dark at night, green and open in the daytime, 
there were cows and things roaming free outside, the "bar" ... was that a bar?, 
and you couldn't order out or go anywhere after 9:30? or 10:00pm! 
I lasted 24 hours." 

We tried to understand how that was not perfection as he dropped us in front of our NYC hotel - 
a block or two off Times Square. OMG! 

A tiny cop car!

The American Museum of Natural History in NY! A fantastic museum - and we have been to a lot of them!

The slice from a giant sequoia tree was amazing!

A full sized model of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling!

The tracks of an ancient, related horseshoe crab - Extraordinary! 

There were a lot of dinosaur skeletons and other taxidermy animals to view from different places and times. 

Titanosauria is the museums pride and joy. To big to fit in a single room, its head sticks out to the hallway. 

This dude is massive! 

And then there is the rocks and minerals room. One of the "stars" is the Ahnighito meteorite. This section (it broke apart as it entered) is 34 tones of iron! 

Other pieces and minerals of all kind and types are everywhere (including moon rocks!). 

The Star of India (from web)

We have seen the Hope Diamond in the Smithsonian in DC. But I really wanted to see the Star of India (a 563 carat star sapphire from Sri Lanka). 

We did not get a good picture of it, but on the far left is a web image. It is as impressive as they say. 

63 feet long, the seaworthy Great Canoe is one of the Museum's most popular artifacts. Carved in the 1870s from the trunk of a single cedar tree, the canoe features design elements from different Native American peoples of the Northwest Coast, notably Haida and Heiltsuk." 
(amnh site)

Times Square was delightful, crowed, and chaotic! The most amazing thing was how small the New Years Ball looked! Honestly, Amy had trouble finding it with all the other things going on. 

In the picture to the right shows the ball with an arrow pointing to it. It seemed so tiny!
Not in TV land anymore, Toto! 

There were a lot of characters asking for money to take their picture. 

Right after we left, NY painted green squares they had to stand in so they would stay out of the tourist and foot-traffic lanes.

see above for repeat