Our various vacation clubs have taken us to all parts of the world, but also to all parts of the country. We’ve had some fun in New England, all over the West, and of course Florida. I figured it was time to see what else the East has to offer, or really the Northeast. We figured New York City was a good place to start. It might not be a place to go for a week, but you can certainly do a long weekend there. Washington and Boston are other great cities, and maybe someday we’ll get back up to Maine.

In any case, we’ll try to explore the Northeast a little more.

The East

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We had some Marriott Vacation Club points that were about to expire after we canceled a trip to St. Kitts. We used some of the points to go to Vegas, but I decided that we needed to go to NYC. It had been 10 years since our last trip there.

In order to maximize our time without giving up too many vacation days, we booked the trip over Memorial Day weekend. Our home was located in Midtown, which was convenient. The nice thing about this trip was that Peter & Paula came down to see us one day and then we went up to there house in CT the next.

New York City: May 2017

As part of purchasing some points into our Disney Vacation Club, we received a free week’s stay at any available RCI resort. RCI manages multiple different timeshare programs. We had to take the trip by a certain day, so we chose to knock off a few of Madeline’s 50 states. She had never been to New England, so we flew into Boston and stayed in the RCI resort in Vermont. Since it was free, we didn’t have a problem leaving it a little early and staying at a couple of Marriott hotels for free in Cape Cod and Boston.

New England: Sep 2010

Shortly after Mäggi came to live with us, we asked her where she’d like to go in the United States. She said “California, New York, and Texas.” We, of course, had to narrow down those very large states, so when it came to New York, she meant New York City.

This worked well for a long weekend over Memorial Day. It was coming towards the end of her stay with us, so we knew her well at the time and we were able to bring Amanda with us as well. We had a great time.

New York City: May 2007

I was working on a small project in New York City in the spring of 2006. I found out that I was going to have to fly out there on Easter Sunday to attend a meeting the next morning. This did not please me too much, until I thought about bringing my family to spend the whole weekend.

So Madeline, Dana, and Dana's friend, Amanda (actually, she's a friend of the entire family) joined me for a long weekend in the city. Since it was the young girls' first time there, we did a lot of touristy stuff, like walking through Times Square, taking a bus tour of all of Manhattan, and going to a Broadway show.

New York: Apr 2006

I worked on a big project in Carlstadt, NJ for more than a year in 2000 & 2001. Comdisco had a dedication banquet in August, and because I was so instrumental in the success of the project, I was allowed to bring Madeline. We spent a couple days in the city.

Less than a month later, 9/11 happened. The buildings in NJ were full with people and I was busy designing spaces for more folks. This project and that event shaped my future life, with more money, recognition, and then no job. Even in 2013 I went to Nigeria because of my involvement back in 2001 in Carlstadt. Anyway, I went to Ground Zero less than two weeks after the attack.

New York: Aug/Sep 2001

In August of 1998, we went on a trip to Michelle Miralles', our sister-in-law's cabin in Pennsylvania. Something like 17 of us stayed in a one-bathroom, three-bedroom cabin in the middle of the woods. We saw hundreds of deer while we were there, cooked over an open fire, and we made a trip up to Niagara Falls. Alicia was 10 and Dana was 8.

After a couple of days sharing stuff with so many people, we left and spent a day in Pittsburgh, going to the zoo.

Niagara Falls/PA: Aug 1998

Again we had some Marriott Vacation Club points that we needed to do something with in 2020. The COVID pandemic was going on, but we figured it would be safe to book something in North America the following summer. We loved the Canadian Rockies tour through MVC/Collette, but in late March of 2021, the trip was canceled. We still wanted to get away, so we looked at tours in America the same week. We saw one that spent time on Cape Cod and went out to Martha’s Vineyard and other places. That sounded kind of nice, and it had been quite a while since we had been up in that area.

New England: Jun 2021