Street Signs

Will work for beer, apparently.

WTC 1

So it's still winter, and I'm still hating it.  Here's the thing - I didn't land here in New York until March 1, 2012, and I remember it being a long haul from that point to full on warm weather.  It's not even March 1 yet!  Sigh.  

I took this picture a day or two ago of the winter clouds...

The new tower has really made a lot of progress.  You can now see the spire being installed on the top alongside the cranes.  Can you imagine working up there in one of those cranes?!  Just blows my mind.  

One night in December I was lucky enough to catch seeing pieces of the new spire coming in from a barge on the Hudson and driven via police escort to the tower construction site.  Pieces of objects like this always surprise me how large they really are, like seeing windmill blades on an 18-wheeler.  They are always bigger than I realize.

Barge on the Hudson carrying in pieces of the tower spire:

All of this effort happened for each and every piece; it took them several nights to complete.  Each time a worker would come through ahead of the convoy and swing back all of the streetlights hanging above so the pieces wouldn't hit them.

 A different night... this piece is coming right down our street:

New Yorkers are very happy and proud to see this building go up.  People were standing along the road with me each time I saw this, and more than once someone clapped and cheered as the pieces went by.  

The city towed all the cars on the streets used for the convoy, and they notified drivers by posting tiny pieces of paper that were hard to see.  TONS of cars were towed each time.  Not a good day to have a car in our neighborhood!

I have to say, it is pretty cool to be here while they are constructing the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.  I imagine one day telling my grandkids "you see that big needle up there?  I saw that come in on a boat."

Cuteness Fix

Miss Merci... legwarmers are back, y'all.

Sleepy G

Vacation Hangover

Stephen and I went skiing with some friends in Breckenridge, CO, over the weekend.  We had a blast!!  But I am so exhausted from the trip and the loooong travel day home that all I can currently manage is to post this one picture I took from the balcony of the condo.  Such beautiful scenery!

I'll blog more on the trip soon, but just as a note to those who know me well and have seen pictures of my impressive bruises from ski trips past, I didn't fall this trip!  Not once!  No bruises as big as Texas!