Photo Friday: Train Trip to NYC

Remember how I said I had a summer bucket list that I wanted to post on here? Well it’s still floating around in my head BUT I am checking things off. Including last week, when a friend and I took the train up to NYC for The Today Show Summer Concert series.

I started the trip at the Lancaster train station. Which I’ve always wanted to photograph but it’s always been dark out I’m always running late.

It’s such a neat old little station.

With lots of light pouring in from all of the windows. At Christmas time they have a giant decorated tree in the back of the picture above.

I’ve seen quite a few engagement photo shoots on these benches – they turn out really neat.

So anyway, after I was done snapping all of these pictures, I hopped on the train and three and half hours later I arrived in NYC.

We walked through Times Square and the giant Toys R Us store before checking into our hotel.

Then the next morning we were up bright and early to see Maroon 5 on the Today Show plaza! Well actually it wasn’t bright, unless you count the lightening that was lighting up the New York skyline. Fortunately, it cleared up right before we left. It did pour when we were standing in line, but without lightening, it was no match for my umbrella.

When I decided to see Maroon 5 I figured it wouldn’t be as crowded as say a Justin Beiber concert because they were popular like ten years ago. I forgot about all of their new hits. They have a new following with a hardcore younger crowd. There were apparently 12,000 of us out on the plaza that morning, one of the largest crowds ever.

Woops. That didn’t go as planned.

So it was pretty disorganized. No one could tell us where to go, but there was a huge line wrapped around all three sides of the block next to the plaza. The cops told us we couldn’t stay on the sidewalk. But we could go into this barricaded area facing the back of the stage. They said whoever told us to wait in line didn’t know what they were talking about. We didn’t believe him. But the line wasn’t moving.

So we made our way into the barricaded area and could see the very back edge of the left side of the stage. When buses/trucks weren’t driving by. Ha. This was our view.

That bright light was a camera. Everybody cheer on cue!

Actually our view was more like the picture above – there’s the studio on the right. Those little rectangular things above the news ticker are tv monitors, so we could actually see the concert. Ha. We were able to see the keyboardist’s back the whole time. He did turn around a couple of times so we could all cheer. But other than that, we saw the guitarist’s head when he jumped and Adam Levine’s head for a hot second during an interview.

Needless to say the morning didn’t go exactly as planned BUT before 10 am we had already seen heard a concert AND visited the Top of the Rock. It was pretty hazy even that early in the morning, but at least it had stopped raining.

Why hello Empire State building. I’m actually terrified petrified of heights. This picture was taken on the 70th floor, not by me. I forced myself up there, but stood in the very middle of it and couldn’t bring myself to take any pictures, or have any pictures taken of me.

This is more my speed. Inside and a couple of floors down.

The rest of the day just got HOT and HOTTER. We mosied on over to Central Park and found a nice shady bench.

Then we shopped Then it was back on the train home.

How have you all been beating the heat? Hope you had a Happy 4th!