February Break, pt.1

I’d been on this rather busy project for nearly a year and the whole time I would say to myself “As soon as this thing ends I’m getting out of town.” And then, at the beginning of February, it ended! So I knew I had to make good on my word to myself. But before I could, Uncle Frank and Aunt Afton were in town and I got to spend a very nice long weekend of sorts with them.

The first afternoon that we met up I walked them over to the library and we saw the original Winnie the Pooh and friends before going to dinner.

Dinner that night? Uncle Boon’s with Uncle Frank (and our backup plan, had it been to busy? Around the corner with us to Uncle Boon’s Sister with Uncle Frank’s Sister)

A couple days later we went for lunch at Parm…but first, a little visit to the temple chapel where, surprise surprise, all the local moms had rented bounce houses for the kids? Something of a low key tradition. If you know you know.

When I was picking out restaurants to go to with Frank and Afton I just asked myself “Hmm, what does their sister (Mom) like?” and then we’d go there. And wow, Parm could not have been a bigger hit. It seemed like we could have just gone to Parm over and over again and everyone would have been super happy. I was super happy to just see them happy with some of my New York food. I ordered a slice of ice cream cake for us and Afton immediately said “Oh, that’s not going to be enough” and we ordered a second one right away.

After that, hiding from the cold, we wound up in the Natural History Museum.

Then Saturday we had Tacos No 1 (a hit!) and I dropped Afton and Frank off at Aladdin. Later I’d retrieve them and take them down to Frankies. Another hit! Frankies with Uncle Frank! Then we met up with Greg at Morgenstern’s. Greg brought along his friend Jared, himself a descendant of San Marinions, just like all us Taylors.

We went up to the Plaza hotel to have a look around and a walk around and then here’s a picture of Afton and Frank waving goodbye as he headed to seperate subways. I needed to get home and get ready for Nashville, but I also needed to see Free Solo for a second time (this time on the real IMAX at Lincoln Square).

My early morning flight to Nashville had about 11 people on it.

Ah, nice calm Nashville mornings

Sunday night I attended my third Superbowl at Jeff’s but you know what? Doesn’t seem I have any photos. Just imagine me eating way way too much chili queso dip (and also imagine about five or six people bringing chili queso dip). After the big game we went out and walked off some of that queso.

I guess my photos are a real grab bag for the next two days of Nashville, but the main idea is we had a lot of fun just walking around and hanging out and stuff. One of the best things we did was go swimming at the Y Monday morning (no pics because it was wet). And I diversified my Hot Chicken eating by going to Bolton’s. It’s a famous place, a place with history, but boy, I do like Prince’s better and that’s that. Last thing we did before my flight to LA Tuesday afternoon was go to a Mexican shopping center called Plaza Mariachi. What a fun place! I could tell they really party there on weekends.

Ok. For next time, remember what I just said: That afternoon I caught a flight to LA