We had originally intended to sleep in, have breakfast, and head for the heliport, but we all kind of woke up early instead! So we got all ready and had breakfast at Oscar's again, and then decided to go toward Times Square, just to see it while we were in town. We spent a few minutes at Rockefeller Center as we wanted to see the gold Prometheus statue. We did consider going to stand with the crowd outside the NBC studio on the off chance that we would be on the Today Show (Esme was all for it), but Aidan decided he'd prefer not to, so we decided to go up to the "Top of the Rock" - the observation deck at the top of Rockefeller Center. There was no wait at all and it was a super-fast elevator ride to the top and it was cool. We could see so far!
We walked a little further, to the part of Times Square that you always see on TV with the huge-screen advertising and everything. We were there for about 30 seconds and decided we'd had enough, so retraced a couple of blocks and grabbed a bit of lunch at Pret a Manger (Ready to Eat in French). Then we returned to the hotel, where we retrieved our checked baggage and got a cab to the heliport.
The folks at US Helicopter were amazing. They got us and our baggage checked through to Grand Rapids. Our helicopter was a few minutes late in arriving, and when it did arrive it was only to shut down as they had discovered some sort of minor electrical problem. Within two minutes the heliport manager had shifted gears - she got us a different helicopter, called back its crew who had gone to have lunch, changed the operating number of our flight, and we were on our way only five minutes later than we expected to be originally. Then a Continental van and baggage truck met our flight, took us directly to our gate, and we were early for our 2:45 flight out of Newark!
I think we all responded differently to the helicopter ride. Jim was observant - he'd done it before and wanted to enjoy our reactions. Aidan was exhilerated - he loved it! Esme was reserved - though I think she was excited, she was still very calm and acted kind of like it was just another day on the job! And as for me - well, I think I would just rather not ever do that again.
Our flight for Grand Rapids was scheduled to leave at 2:45 but didn't actually get off the ground until 3:45. So we arrived home late, and our bags didn't arrive until the next day. But...except for the baggage hiccup, we had a fabulous trip.
Esme made at least 700,000 friends, simply by smiling and waving at passersby in New York City. She says her favorite part of our vacation was "the train rides and going to the Shake Shack." Aidan thoroughly enjoyed being the "experienced" member of our party, having visited NYC last year. He reports his favorite part was "the hibachi restaurant in Groton, and going to FAO Schwarz." Jim says he most appreciated geocaching, visiting the submarine museum, and seeing the Statue of Liberty. We all had a great time.