When All Else Fails: Go to the Zoo

What are these things called lines?

The great thing about living in a metropolitan city is always having somewhere to go, something to see. New Yorkers walk at breakneck speeds to their destinations – even when getting lost. However sometimes your itinerary for the day is the exact same as ten thousands others. Leaving you with the following options: A) Wait in an incredible long line (Lines? Who are you kidding.), B) Come up with another plan, or C) Turn around and go home and back to sleep.

This is partially inspired by my plans for the holiday weekend. The other half had July 4th weekend spectacular plan:

Friday – Movie at home
Sunday – New York Hall of Science (Thanks to Bank of America's Museums on Us) or the Queens Zoo (if the Hall of Science was too preschool for our taste), then food of some sort.

Monday – Off to the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum of New York to check out the Van Cleef & Arpels exhibit, and having lunch at Alice's Tea Cup.

What actually happened was:

Friday – Shake Shack had a special Independence Day menu that included their Blueberry Pie Oh-My concrete (complete with slice of blueberry pie) that the boy had to try. As a bonus he also wanted a corn dog. I went with the corn dog and Last Jelly's Donut concrete (complete with one Doughnut Plant donut). The result, Shake Shack never disappoints and two Conretes is a good reason to kill any other plans.

Sunday – A friend wanted to join us in our holiday adventures, overslept, and delayed our Hall of Science trip by a few hours.

Monday – There was a line to get into the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum that spanned a block and a half. The museum was at capacity thanks to free admission. Our next objective was to check out the Ai WeiWei exhibit at Asia Society (closed). Then we just decided to throw our hands up in the air and headed to the Central Park Zoo (which never fails in entertainment).

What have you learned from my mistakes? While you can have a solid, fail-proof Plan A, make sure you also have plans B – F in place too. Anything can happen.

Here are some tips to remember when your initial plan has to change because you're not willing to wait (you are a New Yorker after all):

Always have a back-plan – and a back-up to your back-up.
Carry water and wear decent walking shoes for dead-end wandering.
Have an umbrella on hand for unpredictable showers.
A charged cell-phone. It is always a downer when your phone dies just when you receive a text from the host of that Lolita meet-up to tell you it's cancelled.
Spare change/cash for a taxi or public telephone or for the woman selling $1 water out of a cooler
Change of clothes if you're in Lolita and it's late or if a meet has unexpectedly been cancelled or postponed.
And lastly never give up and go home from having and adventure.

Finally here are pictures from our adventure (what you've probably been waiting for).