Lory's Journey: Miracles on 57th Street, New York City

I'm BACK!!!

Yes, I am BACK to blogging!
And, yes, I am BACK in San Diego.
I got home November 16th.

BUT I still have lots of stories to tell,
so I HOPE to write about them,

and I HOPE you'll keep reading them.

I believe I left you guys in New Jersey.
Sorry about that. I guess there are worse places I could have left you.

It was just really hard to write my blog when I had visitors with me on my trip
and when I was visiting.

So....after dropping our truck off in New Jersey, Barry and I went to New York City.

Let me tell you about a couple of things I believe were MIRACLES for that part of the trip.
We own a timeshare (that was a MISTAKE, NOT a MIRACLE...don't buy one)
that has a property in NYC.
I believe we can only make our reservations for that property 45 days before the checkout date....
yeah....that's a little confusing.
Anyway, I was trying to do that.
Since it is our timeshare, it should not cost us any money to stay there. The day I was suppose to make my reservations, there were not three nights in a row available. There was only one night in a studio for Monday; one night in a one-bedroom for Tuesday, and one night in a studio for Wednesday.
Well, that would be annoying....switching rooms every day.
After trying to figure something else out, we decided we would do that...switch rooms every day.
When I called to make the reservations,
they told me because I was switching rooms like that,
it would cost me $400!
What!?
I have to switch rooms AND pay more money?

So...I said NO, and prayed God would open up a room three nights in a row for me.
After searching NYC for some other options, I said to God,
"Okay....I'm going to refresh this one more time.
Please, provide a room for us with three nights in a row."

And after I hit refresh, a room popped up with three nights in a row!!!!

OH MY GOSH!!!

I was so excited!!!

I quickly put all of our information in and our debit card number to hold our room, and when I pushed the confirm button, the stupid computer took me back to the home page and didn't confirm our reservation.
I was so upset!
I quickly tried again to see if the room was available, and it was GONE!!!

OH MY GOSH!!!

I called the timeshare company to cry, complain, curse, etc.
The lady said, "Mrs. Strickland, you have the reservation."

WHAT?!

YES!!!

I don't know what happened. All I know is that was a stressful few minutes,
and God answered my prayer.

Sometimes our prayers are not answered as nice and calm as we'd like them to be,
but He did answer my prayer nonetheless.

That was our first MIRACLE!

The second MIRACLE....I'm not sure you'd call this a "MIRACLE," but stayed tuned because you'll see why it was later.

The second MIRACLE was that as I was taking a shower....
now, remember I've been taking RV showers this whole time. For those of you who don't know what an RV shower is...it's a shower that you have to keep turning the water off and on the whole time, so you don't run out of hot water, and you don't overflow your holding tank.

So after taking RV showers for a long, long time, I was excited to take a "real" shower.

The shower I took may have been a LITTLE long.

And the shower drain could have been a LITTLE clogged,

and the lip from the shower to the bathroom floor could have been LITTLE,

so because of my LONG shower,

and because of the clogged drain,

and because of the LITTLE lip between the shower and the bathroom floor,

there ended up being A LOT of water in the bathroom.

A LOT of water...like two inches of water!

I didn't even notice!
I was too busy enjoying the non-RV shower.
Barry ended up seeing water running out the bathroom door!
OH MY GOSH!
We had to call maintenance.
They had to come vacuum up all the water flooding the bathroom floor and try to fix the drain.

They did vacuum the water up, and they thought they fixed the drain, but they didn't fix the drain, so Barry ended up taking an RV shower where he had to keep turning the water off and on so the bathroom wouldn't flood again.

Hahahaha. That is funny!

Here's the MIRACLE part....because of our "incident," they gave us $95!

Here's the third MIRACLE!

The next night, our air conditioner didn't work.

Was that a big deal?

No, it wasn't even hot.

We didn't even know we were going to be blessed for that one.

As we were standing out front waiting for a cab to leave the City the next day, the manager came running out to us and said she was sorry for everything that had happened to us, and that they were going to refund us a night of points AND to contact her next time we come because she wants to make sure our next visit is enjoyable!

YAY!!!

So...just to review....three nights show up in a row, so it doesn't cost us anything.

They give us $95,
AND we get a night's worth of points back!!!

YAY, God!

Thanks for the miracles on 57th Street!

Barry looking quite excited on the train to NYC

A model in Times Square

This was a truck parked on the street in Times Square

Barry and me in Times Square

This is a place called the "High Line" where they made a walking path where a train used to run through the city. This is just showing you where the tracks were. The walking path they created is very nice and doesn't have a bunch of plants in your way.

There are some things that happened on the trip that were presents just for me. I'm the only one who understands how important this was for me. This is a Picardy Shepherd. I used to have a Picardy Shepherd. They are very rare in America. I have a whole miracle story about how I got mine. The short version is I was praying for one. My friend, Loretta, prayed I would get one for FREE. They are very expensive. I ended up finding a rescue Picardy Shepherd that had been imported from Belgium in my same neighborhood in Alpine! I got a very expensive Picardy Shepherd for FREE right in my own neighborhood! That was definitely a MIRACLE!

Her name was Addy, and I had her for a year and a half, and then she died unexpectedly, but we had a great year and a half together, and honestly I've never felt more loved by an animal in my life.

A weird thing is (don't tell anyone), I brought her with me on the JOURNEY (her ashes) because I believe she was a gift from God to me, and I brought her along as my little guardian. So it's just crazy I'd see one in NYC.

Yes, that was a gift for me!

The owner was amazed that I even knew what kind of dog it was.

God had told me before the trip that He knows the things I like, and that He'd show me them on my JOURNEY. He said I was to look for special surprises. This was a special surprise/gift for me.

Thanks, God!