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Girls Weekend 2026. Sunday, October 11. New York City

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Sunday, October 11, 2026 (Kathi writing) Our day started considerably earlier than planned when at 4:30 a.m. we were awakened by the doorbell ringing over and over. This house has what I call a “city doorbell” very much like my old apartment in Chicago. It’s not a gentle ding dong, it’s more like a chime that turns into a buzzer. It screams for as long as you hold your finger on it. There are few things more alarming than being sound asleep in an unfamiliar house and suddenly hearing someone insistently ringing your doorbell in the middle of the night. It scared us both to death. I finally went to the door and discovered the young woman who rents the apartment upstairs standing there with her little dog in her arms. Apparently a drunk and/or very distressed friend of hers was outside leaning on the doorbell. She apologized profusely for the disturbance, and once everything quieted down we went back to bed.  Two hours later, the smoke detector went off. Good morning! At that point, ...
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Girls Weekend 2026. Saturday, October 10. New York City

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Girls Weekend 2026 New York City Saturday, October 10 Good morning!   (Lori’s day to write!) We woke up this morning around 7:30ish and made ourselves a cup of coffee in our single server Keurig machine.   After chatting some, I decided to take a shower so I could walk to the cute little coffee place (Milk and Pull) around the corner for a gourmet coffee and to check out the corner market in search of butter and some Rubbermaid or the like containers for our leftovers.   We have found ourselves in need of these every year on our trips and we forgot to look for some while at the AMAZING food market yesterday.   On my way to the coffee place, I noticed that the beautiful church I passed along the way was open.   We had noticed the church our first evening here because of the beautiful stained glass windows we could see from the street.   Since the doors were open I decided to step in and take a few photos. Turns out it is a Catholic church named Holy Rosary a...
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Girls Weekend 2026, Friday, October 9. New York City

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Friday, October 9, 2026 We slept kind of late this morning—at least for us—and didn’t get up until after 8:00, then spent a couple of hours doing absolutely nothing productive. No laptops, googling, or writing. Just chatting, catching up, talking about what we might do today, changing our minds, and generally enjoying one of those gloriously unstructured Girls Weekend mornings we love so much. We finally started getting ourselves together around 10:00 and left the house at about 10:30 in search of coffee and breakfast. Jason (our host) had recommended a place called Milk & Pull, so that became our destination. Lori had a bagel and cream cheese and a mocha; I had a bagel with lox, cream cheese, capers and tomatoes, and a vanilla latte. The coffee was tasty but not hot enough - why is it so hard for fancy coffee to be served hot? We took our breakfast onto the train and headed for the New York Transit Museum, which is here in Brooklyn. What a GREAT place! We wandered and explored for...
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Girls Weekend, Thursday, October 8, 2026, New York City

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Thursday, October 8, 2026 It’s Girls Weekend!!! New York, here we come! Years and years ago, Lori and I composed all the rules of our annual trip. We would go to every single state. We would go every year come hell or high water (or kids, husbands, jobs, in-laws, weather, or anything else that tried to stop us, including snipers, which was applicable when we  were headed to Washington D.C. in 2002 ). We would not go to any city in the chosen state with which either of us was familiar. And then last year, New York came face up and we knew we would break our own rule and end up in NYC, even though we have been here together twice before. They are our rules, and we can break them if we want to. I arrived at LaGuardia Airport at about 10:30 this morning and would like to say that – seasoned traveler that I am - I immediately set about flawlessly navigating the transportation system, but really, why lie in the official historical record? In fact, I got on the wrong train twice, and once...
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GW 2025 Tuesday, Oct 14. Homer, Alaska

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Tuesday (or should I say Mooseday!?), October 14, 2025 Good morning!!   We slept in a little bit today, getting up around 7ish rather than 6ish and followed our regular morning routine of coffee, chatting, journaling, and, for me, at least, playing word games. I play several on-line word games pretty much every day to try and keep my brain healthy and working.   Waffle, Wordle, Connections, Strands and Quartiles.   Then I also play the mini crossword through the Apple News app (that’s where Quartiles is, too), along with Sudoku and their Emoji game (which is really hard!). THEN, later I play Jeopardy, Question of the Day and Puzzle of the Day through Alexa.   I got Kathi to join me today.   I even got her to play Song Quiz with me even though she tells me that she really hates this one!! The weather today is beautiful.   When looking at the weather app prior to our flights, it looked like it was going to rain every day of our trip.   Turns out however,...
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Location: Homer, AK, USA
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GW 2025; Monday, October 13, Homer Alaska

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Monday, October 13, 2025   We really hate how fast this trip flies by. It’s already Monday and it feels like we just got here! Today we extended our normal morning routine a bit. It’s so awesome to just relax and take the day slowly. Lori and her husband took a Viking river cruise last year right before GW, and Lori started a mini journal scrapbook/journal of the trip with photos. She brought the journal to North Dakota with us last year, and I loved it and wanted to do one too. Lori gave me a journal and a little printer for Christmas and my birthday, and I have been pretty good at chronicling my travels for both work and play. This morning, I started working on that journal as well as this one. Once again, the rain hasn’t come, and in fact, the sun came out this morning for quite a while. Delightful.   Last night we heard hooting from a Great Horned Owl, which was super cool. He hooted off and on again throughout the night, but we didn’t see him. To be clear, without Lori, I...
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GW 2025 Sunday 10/12/25. Homer, Alaska

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Sunday, October 12 The forecast for today was rain in the morning, then a window of time in the afternoon with no rain, so we decided to take the morning to laze around and do what we both enjoy doing, which is journaling, playing word games and just chatting.   Oh, and also eating breakfast!! I had   made a breakfast casserole yesterday morning that Tom and I often enjoy at home.   Sausage, eggs, shredded potatoes, red bell pepper and cheese.   It is quite delicious, so I enjoyed some of that for breakfast while Kathi enjoyed some yogurt. After I had played my word games and while Kathi was still working on the Saturday journal, I started looking for hiking trails that looked promising.   I found the Wynn Nature Center which is a part of the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.   They have a visitor center in an old homesteader cabin and several trails and it’s not far away!   Looked perfect!   The website stated “Join us on Sundays at 1:00 pm for...
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Location: Homer, AK, USA
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