We visited Brooklyn in September 2025 to celebrate grandson Morgan’s birthday (and to spend time with daughter CJ). We drove up from Maryland so we could bring a few large items that would not travel easily in the train. Our plan was to attend the birthday party at the Greenwood Playground Saturday morning and also New York Transit Museum’s Bus Festival at the Brooklyn Bridge Park on Sunday. After storing our bags at our AirBnB apartment, we met CJ at Morgan’s school/day care on Cortelyou Road. She picked up Morgan. He was a little cranky at first, probably because his nap had been interrupted, but he soon warmed up to “GrandmaGrandpa”.

Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in the early evening

Our Big Misadventure

Friday afternoon we took the B103 bus from near Morgan’s daycare and our AirBnB to Church Street near CJ’s apartment. And Friday evening, Gail and I took the same bus back from Church Street to Cortelyou. Saturday morning, after coffee and a muffin at the Blue Star Coffee Shop, we got on the B103 bus again. But we forgot that CJ told us to get off one stop early, at Church and 7th Street. When the bus reached Ocean Parkway, it turned right onto the Prospect Expressway. We were going downtown, like it or not!

Fortunately, CJ calmed us down and guided us to a return trip. We got off the bus at 3rd Avenue and 8th Street, very near where CJ lived when she first moved to Brooklyn. From there we walked to the subway station at 4th Avenue and 9th Street where we got on the F train. The train took us back to McDonald Avenue and Church Street, just about where we had originally wanted to be.

We bought bagels from the Hot Bagel shop and walked to the birthday party.

Note that, despite the buses and the subway, walking is a big part of the Brooklyn experience. On Friday, we walked 2.3 miles, but we were only there half a day. On Saturday, we walked 4.7 miles and on Sunday 6 miles. Go to Brooklyn to get your exercise!

CJ held the birthday party on Saturday morning at the Greenwood Playground, which is located between East 5th Street and the Prospect Expressway. This is the same location where Morgan’s first birthday was held and the weather was just as good as a year ago.

To quote from last year’s event: “The children played on the equipment. The adults visited. Pictures were taken. Everyone had a good itme.”

Birthday boy with a friend	With Michelle and Manny
Morgan gesturing toward the bubble machine	The soap bubble machine, a favorite

The Birthday Song	Sharing cupcakes
Click on this photo to hear some of the birthday song.
Morgan enjoys the slide	Helping Manny with numbers
Manny and Morgan	Jeremy, Avery, CJ and Morgan
It feels good to nap after a busy morning, but not everyone agrees.

On Sunday, we took Morgan to the Bus Festival sponsored by the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn Bridge Park. He loves things on wheels! This bus festival featured historic buses as well as a tow truck for buses, a truck with equipment to clean transit facilities, and a van for transporting handicapped individuals. Crowds came to see the insides of these buses.

After enjoying the experience of the buses, we ate lunch at the Time Out Market, an upscale food court adjacent to the park. Morgan loves french fries.

Under the Manhattan Bridge on the way to the festival	“Betsey”, the 1931 double-decker bus
Sitting in the double-decker bus No one was allowed on the upper level.	CJ and Morgan leaving the double-decker bus while a couple gets a wedding photo

Exiting the first air-conditioned bus in the U.S.		Exiting a 1963 bus used on the Bronx’s steep hills
	Sitting in another bus	Exiting a 1971 bus, the last without a wheel chair lift

“Everybody nap time” after the bus festival.

Getting there is half the fun? Nah!

We drove from Maryland to Brooklyn to bring a load of stuff. Delays due to road construction made it a slow and frustrating drive. Going north, we encountered delays north of Baltimore and in Delaware. The journey that usually takes less than four hours took five. Going south, we did not encounter any delays in Delaware, but there still were ones north of Baltimore. This was our first long trip with Noki, our new Kia Niro PHEV plug-in hybrid car. We charged the battery and filled the gas tank at the start of our trip. We traveled the first 40 miles on battery power alone, and then we transitioned to hybrid mode. In hybrid mode we travelled another 380 miles and used 7.5 gallons of gasoline, giving us over 50 miles per gallon. Not bad! Street parking was hard to find, as usual. After driving several blocks, we found an open space on Argyle Road near Dorchester Road. Coming back two days later, we found our car, and all the other cars on the street, covered with dust. We had to get cleaning materials from the nearby Ideal Food Basket Supermarket to clean off the windows before we left. We both use the GPS on our phones for guidance when driving new or complicated routes. Noki has a built-in GPS system too and it worked to get us to our destination in Brooklyn. But when we asked it to guide us home again, it wanted us to head south or west on the surface streets of Brooklyn. I don’t know where it would have taken us. We ignored its directions and took the Prospect Expressway to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Eventually, Noki’s GPS got the message and joined our route.

Gail with Noki before the dust arrived