Travel with Dawn

Last Thanksgiving, as I chatted with Dawn by a campfire, she pulled a suggestion out of her hat: "Let's go to New York."

There's no other possible reply but "Okay."

And so we went home and began searching for plane tickets, hotel rooms, show times, and museum hours. Fast forward three months, and Dawn and Nancy are with Lawson and Hannah on a plane bound for LaGuardia.

It was a great trip, and I learned an important lesson: Always travel with Dawn. With Dawn by your side, lines are short. Employees are friendly. Prices are low (well, most of the time). Hotel rooms are bigger and more luxurious.

The Waldorf Astoria upgraded our room, so we had lots of comfy space to spread out. And Lawson and Hannah were thrilled to have a hotel room with a doorbell. Not only that, but it was Dawn's idea to try to go to the Statue of Liberty on Friday, which was the day we arrived. Now, I always assume that travel days are shot. By the time I land, get baggage, travel to the hotel and check in, most of the day is gone. But Dawn was right. Friday was our prettiest day, and we did manage to get down to Battery Park in time for an afternoon ferry. In fact, when we got to the dock, the ferry had just pulled up as if we had called ahead for it.

Dawn's luck lasted all through the trip. Lines were short at the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We walked right into the George Gershwin Theater to see Wicked, and when the show was over, the crowd had already thinned when we visited Lawson's favorite spot: M&M World. Even when we ice skated at Rockefeller Center, the line was short, and we were on the ice in no time. Okay, so there was a two-hour wait for sundaes at Serendipity, but Dawn took care of that too. She put our name on the list and told the host we were going across to Patsy's Pizzeria to eat dinner, then to Dylan's Candy Bar before coming back for our frozen hot chocolates. "No problem," he said. "Come back at about 4:30." And that's what we did. And that was one tasty sundae.

One fun New York project: photos of various versions of the Statue of Liberty. The wallpaper on my phone is a photo of the Statue of Liberty in McRae, Georgia. As we ferried across the harbor toward Ellis Island, I enthusiastically shot a photo of the real Lady Liberty as a companion to my McRae photo. Then Dawn had a brilliant idea: Why not take photos of all the Statues of Liberty I find and make a montage? So I did. Here it is. Guess which statue is in McRae?

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