New York City Adventure - Day 8 - Homeward Bound

And so our trip to New York has come to an end. We cleaned up the Airbnb, piled in our massive and thanks to the Subway, mostly undriven, SUV and headed to the airport.

I had about 35 minutes of flying time ahead of me filled with interesting aerial photo opportunities. This included the New York Skyline and the surprisingly photogenic Rikers Island Jail Complex. We even landed at DCA using runway 33, which is notably shorter than runway 1, which we normally use. So that was fun.

Shira, on the other hand, had hours of travel ahead of her. She safely delivered the 4 kids back to Tampa and then flew back up to DC. Fortunately, there were no delays or cancellations this time around.

New York is truly a word class destination and we're delighted we were able to experience it with the kids. Here are a few key lessons learned that we'll keep in mind for future trips:

• New York is huge. I mean, I thought I knew it was big, but until we had to navigate between the various attractions with 5 children I had no idea of the scale I was dealing with. We definitely needed to plan for more commuting time and we should have made sure everyone was equipped with new and comfortable sneakers before arriving.
• The kids are walkers, but they have their limits. We should have hiked 4 miles, not 8. And when we do hike, the kids all need trekking polls.
• Everybody benefits when we eat D's low GL diet. I see steel cut oats, sweet potatoes, lentil pasta, Builder Bars and Lara bars very much in our future. We also need to remember that the kids love to snack on fresh fruit and veggies.
• The kids still enjoy building and playing with Legos. The tradition of me showing up with Lego kits to build isn't going anyway anytime soon.
• It was fun catching, at one time or another, all 5 kids engrossed in a book. Our trip to the comic book store was fun, but next trip, I think I'll focus on finding a used book store like we did back on Tybee Island.

I couldn't have asked for a better adventure with the kids. Time to start planning next year's trip!