A Beauty & A Beast

Saturday morning came all too soon and the last day of my conference - and our last full day in the city - was drawing to a close. The programming that morning was great and I hear my crew ventured out to Dunkin' Donuts so, you know, it was a win-win situation.

After I finished, we headed down to the subway station for the last time. We had some final attractions tickets to cash in and, while we were waiting for our cruise, we had a great view...

...of the newest addition to the USS Intrepid!

Unfortunately, it wasn't open yet as they're still securing all things shuttle related but we were able to get a view from afar.

If you don't know (like I didn't the first time around), the Intrepid is full of many different types of war planes that you can see up close. It's a pretty spectacular sight.

The sky was beautiful that day and Taylor dubbed this the "cotton ball cloud."

Soon it was time for our cruise but this wasn't just any ol' boat ride. We were hitting the Hudson River in The Beast - a speedboat that goes 50 mph :-)

It did slow down long enough for us to take some pics of the most famous lady in all the land.

And when we were almost back to the dock, the captain did two 360's and we got drenched from head to toe, y'all. I am not exaggerating when I say we looked like drowned rats. Or at least one of us did. Me!

After stopping at Crumbs for some delightful cupcakes to have for dessert, we jumped back on the subway and raced back to the hotel where we ordered Domino's and settled in for some baseball. Yes, Baylor won that night. No, I don't want to talk about the remainder of the Super Regional series. :-)

We were treated to an amazing sunset right outside our window that evening. Stunning.

It was a great send off from the big city as we headed back to the airport at 4am the next morning.

That sounds crazy but we were back home by 9:35am Central Time and made it to our house - with the Puppy Posse in tow - by noon. Needless to say, naps were in order that afternoon.

All in all, this was a fantastic trip. So blessed and thankful to have had the opportunity to go back to New York City. And to bring my precious girl along this time.