A Carriage Ride ...NYC part 3 (part 1 and 2 to come later)

In all of my many, many trips to NYC over the years

I have never taken a carriage ride through Central Park.

Maybe it was too touristy.

Growing up just an hour north of the city,

 I never wanted to be considered a tourist while I was there.

Of course, when I was a teenager, not being a tourist was a matter of survival.

Since then, NY has cleaned up pretty well!

Now that I'm a camera toting, sensible-shoe wearing mom, 

I've just given up any hope of looking like anything other than a tourist.

I happily point up at the buildings to show the kids the wonderful architecture.

And... apparently, I take carriage rides around Central Park.

The carriage ride wasn't in our "plan for the day",

but things changed and we ended up wingin' it.

I left the kids with my sister in front of FAO Schwartz

and sneaked off to see just how much these rides were.

I didn't want to promise something that I wasn't willing to pay for.

Keeping kids in the dark about plans is one of my favorite pastimes, 

but not one of their favorites,
so, as I marched them across 5th Ave,
there was a lot of whining going on.
I'm not exactly sure what they thought I was going to make them do,
but you'd think I was taking them on the Bataan Death march.
Seriously!

 Once my plans became clear to them there were a lot of "oh's!"
and "why didn't you tell us."
Mean mom turned into hero in no time flat!
Oh, yeah!
I'm awesome.

I just loved the looks on their faces.  

So excited, so amazed, so thrilled with the whole experience.

Mitchie was hoping that we could take the carriage all the way home.

Unfortunately, we thought that might be a bit slower than the train.

The ride through the park was lovely and peaceful,

but one of our favorite parts was the dancing man.

I wish I had thought to take a picture of him.  

He stood atop a large rock with headphones on 

and swirled and danced and generally boogied to the music in his head.

According to our driver, he's there and dancing everyday for hours and hours.

After watching the dancing man, Avery sighed a happy little sigh 

and said in an awed whisper, 

"I love the city."

Oh, Avery...

so do I,

and for just that reason.

Now, the teens got their very own carriage pulled by a horse named Charlie Brown.

We had passed them earlier and Julia called out that our horse was faster than their horse.

Julia, you had to throw down the gauntlet, didn't you?

Sure enough, Charlie Brown and his driver caught up and overtook us.

See that last shot?

That's the driver saying, "Who's horse is faster now!"

Charlie Brown, he's a clown,

and a fast one too.

Just look at that smug look on the driver's face.

Oh, yeah, Julia.. . he showed you!