Happy Tuesday!

I have three images for today and lots of words.  For my Facebook Friends if you want to get the full story and see all the images click on the link below the image, which will take you to my blog.

Over the next several days I am going to talk about and show images from a trip that Jeanne and I took to New York City.  There are a few things I need to point out before we get too far into this experience.

I have a passion for photography and strive to make the best images I can to tell a story, present a view-point, or create visual art.  I have put a lot of effort into getting better each and every time I hold a camera.  I only like to show what I consider my best work on this blog but in this instance I am going to show you iPhone snaps, snapshots, some really bad photographs, and a few creative shots.  However to properly tell the story of this remarkable experience and how it affected me, I need to use a variety of media good or bad.

I know that sounds a little (maybe a lot) self-centered but it is a blog about my photography and the things that interest me.

So going into this adventure there are some things you need to know about me.  I dislike (translation = hate) traveling, I dislike flying, airports, lines of people, large groups of people, and being out of my comfort zone.

Since I retired in February it has been an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual change for me.  Interesting because I thought I would just skip right into retirement and enjoy, enjoy, and enjoy.

Jeanne retired from a wonderful career of teaching learning disable children for 43 years and I wanted to do something special for her to show my appreciation for that accomplishment.  Angie and I were having lunch one day and I was asking her what she thought would be appropriate and with little hesitation she said New York.

Instantly it sounded perfect for two main reasons.  I had promised Jeanne that I would take her to see Wicked, when it was in Chicago and managed to postpone that until it was closed and I have felt compelled to visit “Ground Zero” ever since 09/11/2001.

Of course then I started thinking about all the things I dislike (see above) which would be necessary to encounter if we were going to go to New York.

We spent the night in Moline because we had a 5:30 a.m. flight the next morning.  Flying on the little regional jets is a challenge because I am 6’5″ tall and have added some girth over the last couple of years so it is uncomfortable at best.  Fortunately it is only a 29 minute flight so not too bad and the scenery was beautiful.

We landed without incident at O’Hare International in Chicago and then had a wonderful breakfast (I forget the name of the restaurant) in the terminal.

Everything was going as planned but then as we were squeezed into our seats of the 737 waiting for the rest of the passengers to board an African-American Lady was coming down the aisle and the flight attendant behind her was saying she needed to come back and leave the plane.  She went ballistic and said that the only way she was getting of this f***ing plane was if the police dragged her off.

We then had to deplane while the Chicago Police did their thing and finally got back on the plane and en-route an hour later.  It didn’t have an impact on our travel plans but I’m sure there were a lot of people who had their plans scrambled because of the incident.  We met a wonderful Jewish man who is a large commercial real estate broker.  He has properties in Chicago and New York and was traveling to New York for a closing on a large commercial property.   He stood up and clapped when the police boarded the plane.  🙂

That’s all for today.  Hope you stuck with me this far.  Lots more to come so if this isn’t your thing just realize that I’m going to be doing this for awhile.  🙂

Enjoy your day and be careful.