New York and Catalina

Hey everyone,

Tons to write about. Just last week I took a trip to New York. We spent about 5 days there. It was a lot of fun. We got there pretty late the first day after a long 5 hour plane ride. I know its not all that long a ride, but I was having trouble sitting still. Of course I was supposed to be up at 4:15am ready to go to the airport... but around 4am, when my alarm went off, just hit the snooze botton and dozed back off. Beeping clocks do not have the same affect as an auto pilot alarm or the wind. I need to find a

n alarm that sounds like my Watch Commander or auto pilot alarm, then maybe I'll get up when it goes off!!

Anyways, I did make it to the Burbank Airpo

rt in time and even ended up having to wait around for a little while. It was an interesting airport, one I had never flown out of before. There were people sleeping all over the fl

oor... it appeared they had spent the whole night there as I was pretty much the first person to walk in the door when they opened. After landing in New York, I took a taxi to go and drop my stuff at the hotel. There wasn't too much time after that with getting out of the airport and the traffic on our way to the hotel. We just walked around a bit, went to get some dinner and then headed back to the hotel to download all the hundreds of pictures that had

been taken in our short walk and then get to sleep.

Next morning we were up early and off to see the Statue of Liberty! Turned out when we got there, there was about a three hour wait... we decided against waiting around for three hours in the awfully hot weather and reserved tickets for the next day. We moved on to what we had origonally planed to do the next day.

We ended up going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a huge museum! It turned out to be way more intresting than I was expecting. We spent almost six hours walking around in there. Somehow even with my slightly short attention span, I

enj

oyed every hour of it. Though by the end I was good and ready to move on.

Next, we headed over to the Guggenheim Museum. It was interesting. The art there was a little bit odd, I mean, I know that there are all sorts of art and people all express themselves differently, but a video of somebody scrubing a skeleton with a sponge? Somehow I didn't see what the

artist was trying to portray in that, but hey, at least the guy used soap! The building, on the other hand was amazing, a bit hard to describe so I'll just post some pictures of it. Only spent about an hour or two there and then went out and walked around Central Park for a bit. Then we hopped on a train and went to see Grand Central Station. Tired out from

everything that day we headed back with loads more pictures, to get changed and go

to dinner.

Day number three we went out to go see the Statue of Liberty again. This time with our reserved tickets it only took a few minutes to get

through the line even though I had to go through more security than at the airport! I was pretty amazed by the size of the Statue of Liberty. This was my second time to New York, but my first time to the Statue of Liberty and it was really great to see. We then headed over to see the Twin Towers site. I was too young t

o rem

ember when it happend, but it was very neat to see. Most of the day was over by then. It was quite a good day. We saw a lot and had a good time.

Day number four. We didn't really have any plan for this day yet, but it turned out to be my favorite day of the whole trip. Got started a little later than the past few days and headed over to the Museum of Modern Art. While some modern art I have a little trouble understanding, there was a

lot of really

cool stuff in this museum. After that we walked around in Central Park a bit and

then headed over to the top of the Rock. I went there last time I was in New York, but that last trip was all a bit of a blur, so it was nice to get up there again.

The next day was also a very good day. With no real plan but that ever present need to be around marinas and if not sailing at least being able to see boats, we headed down to the marina. I was very suprised by how small the marina we saw was, but I guess there was probably more then one. While we were down looking at the America II, an older America's Cup boat, a few guys came down and after chatting for a bit and taking a picture in front of the America II with her skipper we learned that the other two guys we were talking to worked at the USMMA Sailing Foundation in NY. They were working hard on recruiting me for their sailing team at the school and offered to take me on a tour of the bay. It was a nice ride until one of the engines broke down... I swear I had

nothing to do with it, though it seems to be that I am a bad luck charm around boats! We pulled up to a boat next to two tall ships that belonged to the school. I would have loved to look around, but had a plane to catch, and so, we said good bye, reassured the guys that I would check out the college online and were off to the airport.

It had been a crazy few days and I slept most of the plane ride home. I spent one day at home and then was off again. Lisa Gizara, from Gizara Arts got married on the beach at Catalina Island. Lisa has done so much for my trip and for my brother's trip as well. She started way back with the very beginings of Zac's trip and stuck with us right to the end of mine. Now after all we've been through together, she has become a very good family friend. She is an amazing photographer and many of the pictures you see of my trip and of Zac's were taken by her. It was great to be able to be there at her wedding. It was really the most beautiful spot in a bay just a little ways down from Avalon.

We spent several days at Catalina. My brother Toby and I flew over with Bill from Team Abby. Zac sailed over in Intrepid, and Dad and my sister, Jessie, sailed over with Pieter from Team Abby (and Team Zac). I would have loved to sail, but because of the New York trip, I wasn't back in time to catch a ride with any friends that were sailing over.

On the second day at Catalina, Bill and I flew out over Zac in his boat to get some air footage of him. It was a tough job, keeping the camera focused in the shaky little plane. Being zoomed right in so I could see a little detail didnt help much, and after an hour of looking through the camera lens while circling pretty sharply around Zac's boat, I wasn't

feeling so good. I figure it's all good experience. Since Bill is a camera guy he has been taking me along on a few jobs and I have been learning a lot about all that lately. I

am going to be helping out again on a job tomorrow, so that should be fun.

Anyways, back to Lisa and her wedding. To Lisa, we love you Lisa; thank you so much for everything you have done for me and my family!

Well, that about wraps up my blog for today. Don't have too much going on in the next couple of weeks. I'll be speaking here and there at Yacht Clubs and schools, working hard on the book, and starting up school. Since I won't be doing too much, I'll make an effort to blog a bit more.

Abby