NYC Road Trip {Day 5}

Highlights- Biking Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Top of the Rock.

Check out the other days of our trip (day 1 here, day 2 here, day 3 here and day 4 here). Sorry that some of the days are long and kind of a ton of detail, we fit a lot into as little time as possible. Feel free just to skip to the pictures. 

Day 5 was another busy day, we started early and headed for Central Park. Just before we walked into the park it started to rain. Thankfully it stopped a few minutes later, but it rained just long enough for everything to be wet and the weather to be extremely hot and muggy. We decided to risk the weather and still rent bikes as it was our only opportunity to do so and we go the guy who rented them to guarantee that if it rained within our two hours that he would refund our money. Thankfully it did not rain, however we did get soaked with a mixture of sweat and the water whipping up off the tires in the end we were a hot mess regardless of if it had rained or not.

We started off biking the perimeter of the park and as time when on, there were honestly hundreds of runners and real bikers joining us. The only thing we were not aware of at the time was that you can really only bike the perimeter of the park and in one direction as most of the side trails and such were no bikes allowed. We did not anticipate the kind of biking we endured. In the end we biked the full exterior which is 6.1 miles or 9.8 km seeing very few sites and attempting to not run over any runners or be run over by the real bikers. This almost 10k bike was not a cake walk as we were up hills and down (and being from Chatham, we have no hills, hills are hard) and getting soaked. However, from an athletic stand point of getting exercise it was a great way to start the morning.

At Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Resivoir. 

We bikes the entire perimeter, stopping occasionally to check the map to understand where we were in relation to the park. Eventually we started to notice the that we were passing landmarks that we had previously passed. Amanda and I stopped and yelled ahead to the other two who had gotten extremely far away. They did not hear so we figured if we waited where we were that they would notice we were not behind them. Turns out we were wrong and it took them biking another 30 blocks before they noticed we were not with them. Meanwhile, Amanda and I waited and waited hoping they would come back. Eventually we decided to walk our bikes back in hopes that we would see them, and then gave up on that notion and took some walking trails. Walking the trails was probably one of the best decisions we made all day. I am glad we did as we were able to pass some wonderful sites such as the Central Park Zoo and saw the sea lions. We thankfully ran into the other girls as we were almost at the bike shop to return the bikes. We then returned the bikes and headed to catch a bus to head to the Metropolitan Museum.

Waiting for Tiff and Michelle to realise we were no longer behind them.

Walking our bikes back as all bike paths are one way and not the way we wanted.

Sweaty and gross.

The Met (Metropolitan Museum), was HUGE. It was kind of crazy and breath taking to be honest. We gave ourselves an hour and a half to do the entire museum. I wish we had seen the size of it before we did that. It was impossible to even just power walk the entire thing, and trust me I tried. I saw a fair chunk of it, however never fully got to enjoy most of it. I would have liked the time to read about what I was seeing, but instead I was just able to be taken aback by the size and awesomeness of all of the art. At one point I stopped and asked one of the security people working there where I was on the map. He pointed it out and then asked where I wanted to go. I responded that I had no idea, but I had just over an hour to see everything. He laughed and said it was not possible. At that point I took it as a challenge and saw as much as possible.

On the steps of the Met. (in true Gossip Girl fashion we fought over who got the top step)

HUGE, awesome art at the Met.

From the MET we hopped on a bus and headed across CEntral Park to the Museum of Natural History. We got some lunch from a street vendor (smoothies with watermelon are gross) and headed into the Museum of Natural History. For every other attraction covered with out City Pass we were able to skip all lines and just head in showing or scanning our pass. That was not the case of the Museum of NAtural History. We waited and waited and waited in line. Ok, the line was really only maybe 15 minutes, but when you were not anticipating it, it was just cutting into my day plans.

With the City Pass we were able visit the Planetarium and see the show there. So we started with viewing the first main room and then headed for our scheduled showing at the Planetarium. It was pretty cool as you sit in a dark room in reclining chairs and watch about the creation and life of stars. Well, I thought it was cool, but two out of four of us fell asleep, it was hard to stay awake. So from the planetarium we strategically did the majority of the rest of the museum. It was kind of awesome, but at the same time, kind of weird. Almost like a zoo, but with dead and stuffed animals. 

In the end the Museum of Natural History left me with a desire to see the movie a night at the museum. Michelle and I saw a lot of the zoo together and I kept making comments on how 'this was in the movie' and 'he did this in the movie'. Sadly Michelle had no idea what I was talking about and I think she might have thought I was slightly crazy. Regardless, it was kind of cool to see things from a movie.

Waiting in line at the Museum of Natural History.

More waiting in line at the museum of Natural History. (I was not impressed)

Amanda is awesome at taking awesome pictures.

Stuffed animals. 

Huge turtle.

The subway at the Museum of Natural History.

From the museum of Natural History we went to the second part of our spa appointment. This step was to include manicure, facial, massage, and waxing. What it actually was, was a manicure, a slap slap to the face covered in cream where the lady told you everything that was wrong with you (seriously in no ways was that a facial), and a joke of a massage. I was glad I opted out of allowing them to wax anything. So personally I LOVE massages, ask the husband, they are right up there with presents. This spa experience was not even close to a massage. It was in a tiny closet sitting on a chair where she didn't have enough room to walk around you. She covered the face hole with saran wrap and then Kleenex, used hand lotion (and lots of it), kind of just awkwardly touching your shoulders and then cleaned the lotion off using Kleenex. It was the worst. So the combo of being greasy from the massage and having all of our make up washed off from the facial we were a bit of a gross mess the rest of the night.

From the spa we headed towards Rockefeller Center looking for a spot to eat. We ran into a security guard of the Rockefeller Center who then walked us to a restaurant down the street. She was so nice. We ended up having dinner at Bill's Bar and Burger, it was a fancy burger joint that had its own brewery. Yes breweries seemed to be super popular in NYC or we just happen to always pick them. It was a great dinner in the end and nicely just around the corner from our last location for the day, Top of the Rock.

Dinner at Bill's Bar and Burger Restaurant.

The night was humid and muggy and slightly raining. We were warned ahead of time that the view was obscured, however it was the only time we could visit the Top of the Rock, which is supposed to be the best view of the city as unlike the Empire State building, it includes the Empire State Building and we had already paid for it in our City Pass so we figured we might as well try it out. In the end regardless of the obscured view, NYC at night is a beautiful site. It was also wonderful to sit and watch the movies about Rockefeller centre and the history behind it. 

View from the top of the rock. It was kind of rainy.