New York. 1st Stop

Saturday, July 25 — New York

No Spider-Man sightings to report.

The flight itself was fine. We got to the airport early and relaxed in a lounge with some food and a cocktail, then took the world's longest walk to our gate. We'd originally been assigned something reasonably close, then got the alert that it had moved — to the complete opposite end of the airport. From the B gates all the way to G. So we racked up plenty of steps before the trip even really started.

Once we boarded, a misbehaving temperature gauge delayed us about an hour. We made up most of the time in the air and only landed about 15 minutes late, which felt like a win. Since it was a red-eye, I was hoping to grab some sleep, but a very large high school football player had other plans for my shoulder.

We landed in Newark, picked up the rental car, and checked off the "Not Really on My Bucket List, But Sure, Fun to Say I Did" box: driving in New York City. Done. Never need to do that again. Only missed (or nearly missed) a few exits along the way before finally making it into Queens. Our hotel was near Corona Park, just one subway stop from the stadium. The boys made a beeline for the hotel pool. I made a beeline for a pillow and a power nap.

Once everyone regrouped, we got ready and set out to find a highly recommended dumpling spot in Chinatown — Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao. It lived up to the hype. Excellent food and impossibly fast service; the food came out so quickly we half-wondered if we'd accidentally gotten someone else's order. From there we grabbed some Lime scooters and rode over to Corona Park to check out the Unisphere, then walked past Arthur Ashe Stadium (home of the US Open) and on to Citi Field.

Citi Field review: A great-looking stadium from the outside, with striking brick archways and a main entrance built around a rotunda dedicated to Jackie Robinson. Very cool touch. Our seats were Section 136, left field, row 2 — a good spot. The Dodgers were in town for Japanese Heritage Night, so it was essentially a sellout with a very split crowd.

Kyle Tucker homered, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed just one run over six innings as the Dodgers took it, 4-3. The most impressive moment, though, came before the game even started: during warmups, Yamamoto wound up near the warning track in center field and threw a strike to his catcher, who was standing on the left-field foul line. That is one strong arm. Unfortunately, no home run balls or tosses came our way this time.

Food-wise, Citi Field brought options — lobster rolls, an array of burgers, sausages, helmet nachos, and more. Lukas went with the helmet nachos, purely so he could add the helmet to his collection back home.

The overall vibe was great — no unruly fans, and it's hard to beat a full house and a close game. The Mets also put on a nice light show / mini fireworks display between the 7th and 8th innings.

Early front-runner for easiest stadium to leave and fastest trip home: the Mets. Despite 40,000+ fans exiting at once, it was about a two-minute walk to the subway, a couple of minutes for the train, and one stop straight back to our hotel. That's a wrap on the Big Apple. It was a quick stop, but I'm glad we made it happen — who knows when we'd have circled back to check the Mets off the list otherwise.

We turned some heads, too (I mean, don't we always?) — this time wearing custom jerseys reading "Chasing 30," a nod to our goal of visiting all 30 MLB stadiums, complete with patches from every park we've checked off so far. We got a lot of compliments and just as many questions about where we got them. A few people mentioned they're chasing all 30 stadiums too and wanted to order their own set. Fun moment.

Steps taken: 16,572