Big 🍎 Apple- Part 1

I sadly lost my Mom on February 10, 2006, just two days before her 59th birthday. Each year, my siblings and I get together for  dinner and drinks and honour her memory. This year we all happened to have the weekend off and decided to step up our celebration by booking a trip to New York. The plan was to fly out Friday morning and return Sunday night. However, Mother Nature intervened in the form of Storm Mateo.

I discovered on Thursday afternoon that our Friday morning flight was cancelled due to the impending storm, but American Airlines was offering a later flight. With Mateo on his way,  there was no guarantee that later flight would depart as scheduled. After a brief discussion, we decided to rent a car and drive through the night to New York, avoiding the storm. We would drop the car off in New York and fly home as scheduled on Sunday. We called Hertz, booked a car and crossed the border to Detroit to pick up the rental.

It would take approximately 9 hours to drive through Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania before arriving in New York. The Chevy Traverse we rented had both Navigation and SiriusXM radio. I remember family road trips where my Dad would ask, "Can you grab the map out of the glove box?" (how did we ever reach our destination without GPS or MapQuest?) We would turn the radio dial until we found our favourite DJ, John Lanigan, the host of WGAR in Cleveland. If we lost reception, we had no music. We weren't able to choose between 460 channels like SiriusXM offers. We were lucky to have two or three stations. We also didn't wear seat belts and my parents smoked Rothman's in the car (with the windows slightly cracked) but kids of the 70's lived on the edge!

This roadie was smooth as we headed away from the snow, towards slightly warmer temps. My brother Gerry and I took turns driving and had our very own concert, singing along to the 70's on 7,  80's on 8, and Pearl Jam. By morning, my sister Jennie awoke and took her turn at the wheel, navigating us through Jersey and the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan. We arrived in Times Square at the time our original flight was set to depart from Detroit so our trip started earlier than planned. We dropped off the rental, checked our bags at the hotel, and began our adventure in the Big Apple.

Stay tuned for Part 2....

~MT