My NYC Trip

[Necron 99]

Took a trip up to New York with the family this past weekend, it's the first time I've ever been. We stayed in Midtown Manhattan, which I assume is the most touristy place in NY. The first day we were there we walked around Rockefeller Center, passing by Radio City Music Hall and the NBC Studio. We visited FAO Schwartz, the famous toy store, then walked down to the Nintendo store. I did not know this until one of the store clerks and I started talking, but there is only one Nintendo store in the world, the one there in NYC. They do plan on opening up another one, but it will be in Japan. I thought that was pretty cool.

Jen and Em had plans at the American Girl store, a famous line of dolls with all sorts of accessories and what not. Em and her doll were getting their hair done at the salon. They actually have little doll chairs and attendance who clean will redo the dolls hair while the kids get their hair done. If I were a young girl, I could definitely see the appeal, for a doll store it was actually pretty neat. After the salon they all (wife, daughter, and doll) had a reservation for Afternoon Tea at the cafe'. Little sammiches, deserts, drinks, even adult beverages for the parents. All in all they had a great time there.

So while the girls were spending time at the doll store, I took a walk down past the Empire State Building, grabbing a few pics, and into the Compleat Strategist, a game store that's been there for almost 50 years. I've been to the one outside of Washington during work trips up that way, and this one was no different. You walk in and stuff is everywhere. There's a little organization, but for the most part it's like walking into chaos. There was a lot to check out, most of the stuff you could find anywhere else; RPGs, board games, miniatures, but there was the occasional older product.

I didn't find anything too out there, but did pick up a book that I didn't currently have for The One Ring. Leaving the shop, I then headed to the Morgan Library and Museum, this is where they were having the Tolkien Exhibit, which was one of my primary reasons for wanting to take the trip. Unfortunately they did not allow pictures inside the exhibit, otherwise I would have taken some pretty cool ones. There were original art pieces, created by Tolkien himself, some of which, I'd not seen before. There were letters from his childhood written by his mother, a timeline of events including the death's of both his parents, his life in England and the inspirations for The Shire, and even some early "works" that began his creative endeavors into writing and painting. They had sections devoted to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and his other stuff. I saw the original maps he designed along with later versions, early drafts of the stories, transcripts between Tolkien and editors and publishers. There were early writings concerning characters such as Gandalf, who was originally named Bladorthin. I'm glad he made the name change because, that one just doesn't fit. Overall it was a pretty nice exhibit to see.

Friday evening we met up with Handy Haversack and a couple of his crew for some awesome Italian food at what he said was their favorite restaurant. Saturday the girls and I took a walk through the southern side of Central Park, the weather was a bit uncooperative and we endured some rain until about noon. The park was pretty nice, it's hard to walk deep into the park and realize you're surrounded on all sides by the concrete jungle. We stopped for some lunch before proceeding to the American Museum of Natural History, the rain luckily cleared out and the sun shone down. The afternoon and evening were actually really pleasant. For those that aren't familiar when you go to visit the museum, the admission price is pay-what-you-want, it's all considered contribution though they have suggested prices. The museum is huge and would take hours to see everything there. The girls were tired from all the morning walking so we only spent about an hours walking around, making sure to see some animal exhibits and the dinosaurs.

After that we took the subway all the way to the south side of Manhattan and hopped onto the Staten Island Ferry so we could see the Statue of Liberty. It was cool to see it for a change without being on TV or in pictures. We didn't go to the island and see it up close but I managed to get some good pics during the ride. After that, we went back to the hotel for a bit before heading to Times Square. That place is insane with TONS of people everywhere but also lots of lights and displays as you would expect. We hit up the M&M store and partook of the WALL OF M&Ms where they had bags you could fill up with a variety of colors or flavors by the half-pound. I wanted to check out the HERSEY chocolate store, but never made it over to that side of the street. We grabbed some food and by the time we got back to the hotel, it was about 11:30pm and we were all exhausted.

Sunday was sleeping in late, however llater in the morning, I took the subway to Brooklyn to hang out with Handy and his NYC gaming group; the girls went back to the American Girl store and hit up some surrounding shops. It was really awesome hanging for 6 hours with the NYC crew, slinging dice outside of GaryCon. The party, from the last session, had managed to get themselves trapped in the bottom of a caldera/dungeon which was essentially the nesting place of a chimera, which according to tales of prior sessions, had extracted quite a few magic items from the group during an encounter. Aside from the chimera, there also seemed to be living in this area, a group of really annoying bird people and some carnivorous winged apes, which the party had dispatched earlier.

The group managed to manipulate some alien technology and open up a way out into the caldera proper, above. From there some members made their way into the nesting lair of the creature, setting off an alarm that seemed to emanate from a half carved, stone, goat-demon idol on the ledge above. The chimera comes flying back to the caldera from some other location and begins burning up the rope on which several members were hanging and chaos ensued. One of the characters altered self into the form of one of the bird people and attacked the chimera in the air from behind, hitting it with a ghoul touch spell. Unfortunately as they fell together, the character took damage from the chimera's attack, then subsequent damage from the fall. The character died but managed to succeed in their task. The chimera falls to the ground and several of us begin attacking it as it lay paralyzed but two rounds later it wakes up and breathes fire again on several of us.

Combat continues, but finally the chimera is dropped, though at the cost of one of the characters. Some of the remaining characters find a secondary chamber which housed many of the items that the chimera stole previously, along with bones, gold, and other items. Reclaiming the items, though was not an easy task as the chimera had been fusing them into strange shapes and what appeared to be pieces of art. Several of the items did not survive the shock of the fire used to meld them but they group did find some other, new items.

All in all it was a really fun time and I look forward to catching back up with most of the folks at GaryCon in 2020. The family and I left out on Monday morning, somewhat glad to be back, vacations are fun but can be quite exhausting. For my first time going to NYC, I had a great time. The people, the city, the food, the shops, everything was cool; the weather was really the only set back. There was still plenty of stuff we never had the chance to do so I could see going back in another couple years to check out more of the city and maybe get in on another gaming session. Lol.

[rredmond]

Sounds like you had a fantastic time!