Happy 37th anniversary to us! Celebrating our anniversary has so many options when you live in the Northeast. One year we went whale watching out of Boston. After the pandemic, we were able to go to Maine for the weekend. Another year we drove to Janet’s childhood town in upstate New York. One year we went completely out of the area to Las Vegas. However, our favorite destination has been New York. In 2022 we went there and saw Funny Girl. It wasn’t our favorite, but when it was announced the Leah Michelle would be taking over as Fannie Bryce, we thought it would be fun to see it again with her in the lead role. We went ahead and bought matinee tickets to Funny Girl and then evening tickets to Hadestown.

Here’s my travel tip for driving in the Northeast. Drive as early in the morning as you can drag yourself out of bed. We left around 5 AM and were pleased to encounter very little traffic on our journey. Last year we had binged quite a few episodes of Project Runway so we visited Mood fabric store. This year we finished up all the early seasons we hadn’t seen and I thought it would be neat to eat at the cafe in Bryant Park where the winners display their final collections. It turned out to be a beautiful day and we enjoyed our lunch outside after wandering through the historic halls of the New York Public Library.

Unfortunately, we also found out that Leah Michelle would not be appearing in Funny Girl that day so we had some decisions to make. Do we go ahead and see a show that’s not our favorite, or take a chance on decent prices to another show? With plenty of time, we headed to the TKTS booth in Times Square. I’ve never waited in that line before as I’d always used the booth downtown. Today was no exception. Seeing the length of the line we decided to hit the box office to Moulin Rouge instead. Fortune was on our side and we found some awesome tickets at an awesome price right there at the box office. With still a little time to kill, we wandered up and down 8th avenue that was closed to motor traffic in favor of street vendors for the day.

Moulin Rouge was awesome! We’d seen the movie and was really glad the Broadway show included more recent music. It had the same basic plot but with some minor changes. The actors were fantastic and we really enjoyed the show.

Mama Mia 44 SW is becoming an anniversary tradition. This was our 3rd time there and we were not disappointed. Once again the owner stopped by our table and spoke to us. The service and the food were both excellent, guaranteeing that we’ll be back for another special celebration.

Hadestown was very different from Moulin Rouge but we enjoyed it as well. I never tire of live theater. It is so nice to be so close to these venues.

The thrilling day was done, and we headed back to our hotel to end the adventure. I often see posts on Facebook of friends in other parts of the country traveling to NYC for week long vacations. I’m so glad that we can take a weekend and see and do the things we want and be back in time for work on Monday!