The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays and while we usually spend it laying around the pool enjoying BBQ and homemade frosties, this year we did something completely different. I was sad to leave my girls, but so excited to spend a few uninterrupted days with SD. Some of our best trips have been spur of the moment and this was kind of one of those. When we decided not to go to Europe this summer, we contemplated what to do instead. Early in May Josh mentioned spending a weekend in NYC and before he could change his mind, I booked non-refundable plane tickets. That’s one way to guarantee your trip!
When he asked me what I wanted to do when we got into the city, the first thing I said was SHAKE SHACK. Y’all, it is crying shame that we don’t have one of these in the south. I wouldn’t call it “fast food”. This is not McDonald’s. Maybe comparing it to 5 Guys might work, but it’s better than that, too. There are several in the city, but we like going to Madison Square Park in the Flatiron district. This line for shakes and burgers is what we saw when we rounded the corner.
Holy mother of mercy, it was worth every single one of the 45 minutes we stood in the sun. I have a single Shack Burger with bacon & cheese (the shack sauce is the best part) and cheese fries. That tiny little drink was supposed to be mine, but since it’s the only fountain DP we ever find in New York, I made Josh go back and get me another one!
And the aftermath.
There as also a really cool art installation in the park, so we walked around a bit before heading back to our hotel to change. It was rope knots that formed these huge walls in three different colors around the park. The coolest part was how they seemed to melt into the grass at the end of each section.
After we walked around for a bit, we donned our red, white and blue and headed towards Greenwich Village. We hopped a train under the Hudson River and spend the afternoon on the New Jersey side of the water. We wanted a good spot for watching the fireworks and decided the skyline made a pretty fantastic one.
This is quite possibly my new favorite photo of us. Josh is obsessed with tank tops this summer and I’ve been giving him a hard time, but secretly I think he’s pretty adorable.
There was no easy way to photograph the fireworks (not to mention I don’t know how to operate my camera that well), but I did snap one so that you can see where the show was in relation to the city. The spots on the water right in front of the show filled up before lunch, but we spent the afternoon in a beautiful park with lots to do and see.
The subway ride back to Manhattan was a little crazy considering the number of people trying to get back home, but after an hour we were walking around again. There weren’t too many restaurants open in the area right around our hotel and the room service menu was drastically reduced after midnight, so we found a little hole in the wall and enjoyed some latin food in the middle of the night. Luckily, we were planning to sleep in the next day before heading to brunch at one of our new favorite places!
