It is hard to know where to even begin. Many people's reactions to hearing that our family spent a long weekend in New York while hurricane Sandy hit the east coast was "I can't wait to read about it in your Christmas letter.
Are you kidding me? Don't they have something more in their lives? Do they really think I can remember the events of October when it comes time to write a Christmas letter?
So this blog is to recap the events of the Chapin family from October26-November 1, 2012. I will warn you in advance that this is an extremely long blog. In fact if you are an elementary student it is likely that if you tell your teacher that you read this blog in its entirety you will get a certificate for a free personal pan pizza.
I would also like to point out that I am an avid follower of Garage Logic. That simple fact prohibits me from journaling.
The story ends with a wonderful story of Christian love.
Friday October 26 -Day 1-"the set-up"
First let me explain who is on the trip with us and why we are taking it.
Sue, my beautiful wife, is perfect in nearly every way. I live my life to please her.
Anne, my oldest daughter, is a college freshman minus one. Most people would call her a high school senior and although calling her a senior would be accurate it ties her to high school rather than college.
Mike, my son, plays football. The first game of the playoffs was the night before this started. Other than Mike I was the only person in the family to go to his game in Columbus, NE. We got home at midnight. We woke up 4 hours later to make our flight out of town. They won the game. Many people thought we would leave Mike home so he wouldn't miss practice. Those people don't understand the Chapin's. Besides we had told the coach about the trip before the season and he would be back for the game.
(A friend of mine, Jon Day, once said while he was in high school his family made the exact same decision about football vs. a family event. Jon's Dad told him, "Jon five years from now what is going to mean more to you, a football game or this trip." Jon went on the trip. His Dad died a few years later and Jon says he never regretted the time with his Dad!)
Sara, my youngest daughter, is a great communicator. By the end of this trip it would be vital to everybody in our traveling party.
Emmanuel is a foreign exchange student that is living with us this year. He is from Ghana. He lives near the western coast of Africa.
Nathalie is a foreign exchange student that lived with us last year. She is from Norway. She lives near the Gulf of Oslo. Despite her Norwegian heritage we decided to like her. No really we did. She is a real live Norwegian but we like her!!
Peter and Berit Van Walraven are Nathalie’s parents. Peter is from Holland. Berit is from Norway. We were already good with the Dutch and Nathalie had already broken the ice by letting us know that Norwegians can be o.k. so we were excited to meet them.
The reason for the trip was to see Nathalie again and meet her parents. Plus none of our kids had really been to New York and we thought it would be a unique part of the good ol' USA to show Emmanuel. Sue set a side her dislike for the "city that never sleeps" and I allowed myself to be surrounded by Yankee fans in order to make the trip possible.
We got on the plane in Lincoln, switched planes in Chicago after proving to United that my family was in fact my family and landed in Newark, NJ. "A swamp to treasure." Not sure that is the city slogan but it sounds better than "Don't look out your window because it will gross you out" or "Yeah, it looks like a dump but it's not." Maybe even "who cares how we look after seeing us, when you get to NYC you'll think it is cleeeeeaaannn."
We dropped our bags off at the Hilton Garden Inn on 28th street between 7th and 8th avenues.
We started our adventure in the Big Apple by heading out for a bite to eat.
The plan was to meet the Van Walravens at the Empire State Building at 5pm. Very romantic, we know. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are very inspirational.
My Co-worker Tyler Brown had been to New York earlier this year to take a "Hot Dog Tour" and had give us his list of top 12 places. One of the favorites on the list was The Shake Shack. It can be found in Madison Square Park. The line was very long but because the weather was an overcast mid-60s we figured it would be a great way to start our trip. It was. Everybody loved their food. My meal started out slowly. A confusing menu left with a burger that included two patties, lettuce, tomato and shack sauce. The problem was one patty was 100% pure beef the other patty was 100% something else. I am not sure what it was but it is possible that I ate part of a veggie burger before I could isolate the foreign substance and finish my burger.
When the time came to meet Nathalie and her family things went without a hitch. Peter and Berit are exactly like Nathalie and we were glad to have 2 new friends.
This is flawless trip.
Diner at the Brooklyn Diner in Times Square and our long but enjoyable day was over. We said good bye to the Van Walravens and headed 14 blocks back to the hotel.
We stopped by a couple of shops on our way home and everybody bought a few new things. We had extra room in the suitcases and the clothes would be nice when we got back to Nebraska.
Saturday October 27-Day 2
The Chapin's plan was to get on a double decker bus and see the sights of NYC. We choose the downtown loop for our first day because the forecast was better for Saturday than Sunday.
It was cloudy, highs in the 50s and calm, very calm. The wait for the tour was long but it was fun to stand and relax with each other. Regardless of how it might appear to outsiders the Dave Chapin family doesn't take a lot of time to just relax with each other without some activity going on. So far this trip was providing us with lots of time relaxing together without scheduled activities and none of us was complaining about it.
We toured the sites of what the locals call downtown, midtown, or lower Manhattan. We saw The Garden, the Empire State Building, Wall Street, Ground Zero, construction on One World Trade Center, Battery Park, the United Nations, Hospital row and Rockefeller Center. We walked on the Brooklyn Bridge, took a ferry to Ellis Island and the Statute of Liberty, and walked the streets of near the tip of Manhattan. We took in all the sites.
We ended the night looking for pizza. Our tour guide had told Sue that the best pizza near Times Square was John’s Pizzeria. So we walked from Rockefeller Center over to 44th and 8th avenue. The tour guide had given us great advice. Four out of five Chapins preferred John’s Pizzeria to Jake’s Pizza. Thats right four out of five thought it was better. As far as we are concerned the great debate is over. New York has better pizza then Chicago!!! I have re-read that paragraph to make sure I didn’t misrepresent anything. It seems so controversial I don’t want you to think I missed typed anything.
To review, John’s better than Jake’s.
We were having a great vacation. The weather was calm but cloudy. New York was dirty. It made us want to shower.
During the time leading up to the trip and during the trip we kept an eye on the weather. A hurricane named Sandy was heading toward the Mid-Atlantic and New England and a another storm was heading toward New England from the Northeast.
The news people were starting to give us a couple more wrinkles. High tide was set to hit the Big Apple at around 8:21pm on Monday and it was going to be a full moon making high tide even higher.
Because of all of our walking and touring we had a very good idea what the lay of the land was in lower Manhattan. And since I am a little weird I was trying to make sure everybody in the group was learning the geography of NYC. (When you drive through Iowa with me on I-80 I expect you to know what the four Quad Cities are, bonus points if you get them in the correct states.) So during the trip I was quizzing people on what the five boroughs are and where each is located. I realize it might seem strange. I would suggest you don’t go on vacation with me.
This little quirk was about to come in handy.
When we got back to the hotel on Saturday night I got notified that our flight Monday night was cancelled. Time for a new plan.
I spent my time from 10pm until 1am holding on United’s 800 number. The website wasn’t allowing people to access their accounts. Apparently I wasn’t the only person worried about getting home.
Sunday, October 28-Day 3- Batten down the hatches.
Up at 7am and back on the phone. Still holding.
I send the family out on the Uptown tour. The tour includes a lot of museums. The kids are excited to see the Van Walravens again and to go the Museum of Natural Science and History. The Museum of Natural Science and History served as the model for the movie “Night at the Museum.” Anne the art student was looking forward to going to the Metropolitan Art Museum (The Met). I was looking forward to going to a museum with an artist. Maybe she could explain things to me.
The tour also included a stop at The Dakota apartments and Strawberry Fields. They are John Lennon’s last home and a tribute to him in Central Park.
I love the Beatles. My love for the Beatles got to be so big that I can remember where I was when I got the news John Lennon had died (Todd Norsten’s birthday party) and my sister, Nancy, made me a cake for Lennon’s 45th birthday. Hopefully she does the same thing when I turn 45.
While they toured Uptown I waited on hold for a while and finally decided to pack my bags and head to the airport to see if I could talk to somebody. Maybe I could find a way out before the storm hit.
Some people think I travel a lot. To humor them I have every travel tool known to man. I have Airport Zoom, Tripit, Red Carpet Memberships, and more. I can tell you where nearly every commercial plane in America is at any given time. I am able to walk to the front of nearly every line United has to offer. But still I was getting nowhere.
It is a 6 block walk to Penn Station from our hotel followed by 30 minute trip to Liberty Airport in Newark, NJ. If you go on Sunday morning you get to ride with several hundred Jets fans. J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets. I couldn’t care less who your miserable team plays at QB. I just want to return to Nebraska. Turns out I would have a better day then them. They lost 30-9 to the Dolphins.
I found a line to wait in. No Premier Access line. At this point I didn’t care. I just wanted the chance that I could talk to somebody. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes they took 50 of us from the back of the line to a different part of the airport. At the front of the line was a single agent.
I wondered how long it would take for that one agent to help every in line out. As I waited people piled into line behind me many of them thinking that their problem was bigger than the people in front of them. Nobody got punched but it was close a few times.
I was in line near a lady from South America and a Swedish family. They all seemed to be stressed out. The couple in front of my new South American friend was from Newfoundland. I suggested they get a car. The lady in front of them was going to Cleveland and she took my advance. I should have rented a van with her, gone back to Manhattan and picked up my family and made a break for it. I didn’t but at least there was one less person in line in front of me.
As time passed by more agents showed up to help us but nobody was getting helped. The process was to move from the front of the line toward an agent and then watch them hold a phone to their ear. After 30 minutes finally somebody had been helped. We had no idea how or if they had actually been helped but at least everybody in line was one person closer to standing by an agent. Many people decided to join my new Cleveland bound friend by leaving the line.
I doubted that the guy from London was going to hit the guy from Italy but wasn’t 100% sure. He probably held back because he was with his elderly dad and the Italian had 3 friends with him. Part of me wanted the Londoner to him to go after him because I wouldn’t mind punching that Italian dude. I start to long for standing among Jets fans. Sad but true.
Now it was time for the Chinese guy to move to the head of the line. We was trying to go to Beijing and there was a flight is leaving for Beijing in minutes. It worked. He got a ticket. Victory for all of us. Somebody was actually going home. Yes he budged in front of 200 people but it was a sign that you could stand and line and have a positive solution.
When I got to the head of the line I was given 6 tickets home on Wednesday. While almost home, we had a direct flight to Omaha. My car was in Lincoln but I would figure that out later. I had tried to get a flight anywhere outside of New York but no luck. The planes for Sunday were full and the airport was closing Monday and Tuesday. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, Columbus and more, they were all booked.
I went to check on getting a car and driving home. The only rental car company willing to do a one way rental was Avis. But like I said Anne wants to go to college so I couldn’t afford what they were asking.
My four hours at Liberty were over. It appeared that we would be heading home on Wednesday night. Mike was going to miss his playoff game.
After a train ride back to Manhattan and 3 different subway connections I met up with the group late in the afternoon at the Met. They were done with the museum. I was crashed to not be able to see the museum with Anne. I thought it was going to be like taking Mike to a baseball game. Maybe another time.
(My time in the subway gave me some time to reflect and watch the rats run around the on the tracks. You hear the jokes about rats in NYC but now I was able to watch they eat on the tracks. I thought good luck tomorrow rats. (They say the Big Apple has 2.5 rats for every person.))
Sara wanted to go back to the hotel. It was 4pm. The subway was closing at 7pm. Everybody that didn’t live in Manhattan had to be out of Manhattan and into their homes by then. The stores where closing all around us. It looked like we would get 48 hours of hotel life. I wasn’t going back to the hotel until 6:59pm.
It was still calm and cloudy.
We went on a walk in Central Park. It was beautiful. We did have to hop a wall to get into one area. While Sara and I argued about whether or not it was the right thing to do Sue and Nathalie jumped the wall. The rest of the family followed. Finally as she stood alone on her side of wall, Sara joined us. I was impressed. In my youth I would have walked the other way letting my family wonder what is that guy doing.
It was starting to get windy. The land fall of Sandy was about 24 hours away.
Mike said the air had an apocalyptic feel. It sure did. Mike’s description was perfect.
We found a place at about 56th and 7th Avenue to eat. It was next door to the Carnegie Deli. Not sure we decided to eat next door to a world famous deli but we did. I was exhausted from my stressful day so I went along with this crazy decision. When I take Anne back to the Met we can eat at the Carnegie Deli.
Within about 17 hours a crane hanging about 300 feet away would fold over in the wind. It wouldn’t be the last time we would watch the news and notice destruction at a spot where we had just visited.
We walked 2.5 miles back to the hotel. As we walked we watched stores board up and sandbag their doors.
We bought some overpriced groceries. Luckily we had purchased some clothes on day one. Strict obedience to my “bring extra underwear traveling” rules meant everybody should have the clothes needed to cover the rest of the trip.
Monday October 29 –Day 4 – Hold on tight
It never rained very hard. It was what I would call a heavy mist. I think it might be because the high winds and tall buildings. It must break the rain into smaller drops.
The Van Walravens moved to our hotel. It was cheaper and if we were going to be stuck in a hotel we might just as well be with friends
We watched the news and went on a lot of walks. We walked the 3 miles to Times Square and back at least once every day. It was really the only thing to do. We notice a few local businesses were still open. Chains of any kind were closed but I would guess about 1/3 of the locals stayed open. Sue had already taunted by saying “if it gets really bad we can go to the McDonalds across the street.” Like all other chains, McDonalds closed and spared the world from the headline “Nebraska man dies of starvation while family dines at McDonalds.”
At a news conference that afternoon the CEO of ConEd told us they were considering shutting off power as a presumptive measure in the lower parts of Manhattan. We wondered just how close we were to that magical line. We live the rest of the day as if our power was going to go out at high tide.
We had dinner out at another of Tyler Brown’s hot dog places. The longer we went without getting into our food the better off we would be. It seemed like we were on Survivor doling out rice rations.
The rain continued and the winds started to pick up. The windows started to rattle and hum. (It made me want to listen to U2).
One of the things we bought as part of our hurricane survival kit was a deck of cards. We taught the kids how to pay pitch. Emmanuel taught us a card game from Ghana. Sue taught Emmanuel how to play crazy eights.
High tide came and we still had power.
Mayor Bloomberg come on TV and told us that “everything below 34th street river to river was without power.” We were at 28th street and still had power. The mayor was wrong and Sue exclaimed “praise the Lord, that is answer to prayer.”
We decided to go for a walk at 9pm. The storm had hit land and we were bored. So we walked down the stairs from our 14th story rooms. We had been told to stay out of the elevators in case the power went out.
When we got to the lobby we saw Peter Van Walraven. He said he had just missed getting hit by some sheet metal. Yet for some reason we continued outside for a walk.
We made it a block before we heard the crash of breaking glass followed quickly by a bullhorn telling everybody to go back inside. Police were driving up and down the streets patrolling for looters. Our plan to “play weatherman in a hurricane” was crushed!
We went back to the hotel to play hearts and have a pillow fight. I won at hearts and Emmanuel seemed to win the pillow fight.
We went to bed listening to wind. It felt like Nebraska.
Tuesday October 30 – Day 5- Webcam Time
We woke up and saw all the destruction in the region. Houses washed away. Neighborhoods on fire. People with loved ones missing. It made me wonder how many of the people directly affected were people that we had come into contact with on our trip. Jet’s fans from Penn Station, waiters, clerks or fellows tourist in Museums or patrons at the table next to us in restaurants. How about the guy I sat by on the plane. What became of him? These seemingly random people were surely some of the victims of what many were calling the largest natural disaster in our nation’s history.
We were very blessed. The prayers of many friends and family had been answered. Praise the Lord.
We had one thing on our schedule the day after Sandy hit. We had set up with Pete Grothaus to appear on the Time Square Webcam 1pm EDT. After enjoying the hotels free breakfast buffet for the 4th day in a row we made the walk to Time Square for the 5th day in row. The walk was 19 blocks; it took us by Madison Square Garden/Penn Station. It took us by about 12 tourist tee-shirt and knickknack stores, nearly 50 restaurants and before Sandy we got to enjoy about 63 different smells. Post Sandy the entire city smelt like wet dog. In many cases that was an improvement. Except of course when we walked past the piles of garbage.
(At this point I need to let people that haven’t been to New York City know a couple things about the city. It is unlike any other city. Even Chicago doesn’t compare to NYC. Our hotel was 25 stories tall. It isn’t noticeable at all within the sky line of the city. Most buildings in that part of town are taller than 25 stories. At the end of everyday people bring the garbage out to the street corner to be picked up. So toward the end of the day bags of garbage start to pile up on the curb. It reeks with or without a hurricane.)
We made it to Time Square and waved to all our friends back at school, work and our families that could master the webcam.
It was time to go back to the hotel. When we got there we found out that our plane out of town the next day was cancelled. Now just like the railroad leaving town, and the subways, all three area airports were going to be closed for the 3rd day in a row.
I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. I did neither.
We decided after a long conversation that we had to get our hands on a car and get out of the Big Apple no matter what. United wasn’t making any promises on the airport being open for our Thursday flight home. Flights home from any airport within driving distance were booked. (Note: at this point in life I was using 12 hours or less as the radius for driving distance.
Avis assured me that they had a car at their 31st street office. A minivan would be there for me at 9am the next morning.
We went to bed wondering if we should hop in the minivan and drive 21 hours to Lincoln or wait for the flight out on Thursday.
Wednesday October 31– Day 6 – Homeless
Our hotel reservation had been extended by two days and the hotel was booked for Thursday. If we wanted to stay in the Big Apple another night we would have to find another hotel. That was proving to be next to impossible.
I did get a hotel near the Newark Hotel to agree to reserve us a room. The lady on the phone said they could take a reservation but they didn’t have any power. I told her I would pass. I didn’t bother to ask what the rate per night was for a non-electric hotel room in New Jersey.
It appeared like we would need to drive home. Luckily I had a minivan waiting for me on 31st, right.
When I got to Avis it was packed full of people. The lady behind the counter told me that they didn’t have any cars on hand but 20 cars were coming from the airport in 20 minutes. I figured that wasn’t actually true but decide to wait. I needed a car and the only chance I had was to try out this ladies story. I became the 16th person in line.
We waited and waited. During the wait I learn quite a bit about the people in the room and their hurricane stories. In addition to me wanted to go to Lincoln we had people hope to make it to Milwaukee, Boston, Washington, South Carolina and many other points. Everybody just wanted out.
The guy behind had a sister-in-law that had an apartment without power but that was the least of her problems. Her husband had a stroke and he wasn’t expecting to live through the week. Again I was struck by how lucky we were. I don’t know where he was going be he was trying to hire somebody to drive him out of town.
When the man at the front of line said to the lady at the counter that “we realized this must be her worst day on the job ever,” she replied with a “no, one Thanksgiving a man tried to commit suicide over there by strangling himself. “ The man sitting in the suicide chair turned white and nearly passed out.
Over time people started returning cars and the line started to melt away.
(I have more Avis stories than any other part of the trip. I could give you several pages about the girl from North Carolina, The double rental, Mr. Avis, a Chevy Cruze and the lack of toilet paper but I am past the point of running on and on.)
After 3 and a half hours I reach the head of the line. The Avis lady said “I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee but I think it only seat 5 and you have a party of 6,” I told her “I would check it out and if we didn’t fit I would let her know but I bet it will work.” She reminded me that “I could get a ticket for putting too many people in the car. Everybody needs a seat belt. “
I checked out the car. It had seats for 5 people. So I took it.
I then got to drive through the streets of Manhattan to pick up my family. It was a 4 block walk to Avis but due to the one way streets it was a 15 block drive back to the hotel. By this time Manhattan had three types of intersections. Ones with stoplights. Ones with traffic officers and the lights not working. Ones without traffic officers and the lights not working. Great I was getting to drive in NYC on what the mayor was calling the worst traffic day ever and many of the intersections were uncontrolled and full of New Yorkers.
I picked up the family and they packed in the Jeep. Sara announced it was “comfortable enough to drive to Nebraska.” Anne announced that she “already couldn’t feel her left leg and that she wasn’t willing to drive another 21 hours like this.”
We found the Lincoln Tunnel and we were out of Manhattan.
Mike said “that place is a literal tourist trap.” We laughed until we cried.
Wednesday October 31– Day 6.5 – Christian Living
While I was waiting at Avis Sue was making plan B. She had been able to contact Leo Jalosynski about going to visit his family in Circleville, NY. Leo is the pastor that married Sue and I. Circleville, NY is a small village about 2 hours north of NYC.
Leo and his wife Barb told Sue they were happy to help us out. We drove to their home happy to be free from the chaos of “The City That Never Sleeps. “
(As we drove we notice long lines at the gas stations. Due to downed trees and power lines this part of the state was without power and now we were seeing that their gas stations were running out of gas. If a station had gas it also had a line about a mile long.)
In Circleville the Jalosynski had the red carpet rolled out for us. Leo was on a short term mission trip with Sue and I while serving as a youth group leader when he heard the call from God to go into the full time ministry. The Jalosynskis have been 24/7 servants of God since then. The Chapins were given the honor to see that servant attitude in person on October 31, 2012.
Leo and Barb have three married children and six grandchildren. All 14 of them stopped everything in their lives to give us a meal, a place to stay and make the 6 of us feel at home. The out pouring of love and generosity was overwhelming. It is hard to explain everything to you in writing the only way to explain it to you would be to use a time machine to bring you in their homes. In a truly Biblical fashion they gave us food, shelter and by providing laundry services they give us the ability to have clean clothes for our trip home. Wow.
We had clearly left Manhattan.
After all we went through on this trip we were got a lesson in how to live out a Christian witness. The Jalosynskis simply showed us the Gospel by living it out. To these humble servants of God we are very grateful.
It was an adventure and if we had the chance to do it all over again we would gladly do it all over again. The Lord not only blessed us and kept us protected; He also provided several important lessons.
· Prayer works.
· The Lord provides.
· We are called to use the resources he has given us to His glory.
· Man can build tunnels, bridges and towers but God is in control.
· God is the strongest force in Nature.
