Balderrama’s Back East – Phase 1: New York

After months of waiting, my girls and I are on our long-awaited trip to meet up with family back East. This post covers our first leg of the trip: Binghamton, NY.

We booked the flight with Frontier Airlines, which is always more than you’ve bargained for. In this case, our departing flight got rebooked twice and had us leaving Denver before 7am. This resulted in our original airport shuttle being canceled, and the other airport shuttle moved us up another hour. The girls and I had to be out of the house by 2:30am. We luckily got on the shuttle and got to the airport in time. We were grateful for the extra hour, as the DIA security line wrapped all the way to baggage claim. We made it to our flight, although bleary-eyed.

We got into Binghamton and got picked up by Tony, my brother-in-law, and spent the rest of Wednesday getting settled and acclimated to our new home for the next few days.

For me, this was also a working trip, so I spent the day working remotely during Phase 1, while my daughters went out and enjoyed parts of Binghamton. Everyone spent Thursday at Animal Adventure Park and seeing different animals. Clara and her cousin, Sonia, got to hold some parrots. The girls also witnessed a first-hand lesson on turtle procreation.

On Friday we took in a little Americana by watching a Double-A baseball between the Binghamton Rumble Ponies and the Somerset Patriots. During the 7th inning, a massive rainstorm moved in and despite only lasting about twenty minutes, flooded out the field. The teams concluded the conditions were too dangerous to keep playing and called the game. However, they proceeded with an amazing fireworks show that actually made up for a canceled July 4th display from the prior week.

Our last full day in Binghamton was spent at Beer Tree Brew, where they had a cute craft fair and some great food. There’s a slow stream near the brewery where the girls waded and swam – the perfect way to cool off during a hot and humid day!

The rest of our time in Binghamton was filled with quality cousin time, play, and enjoying our family’s home and hospitality. Sunday was spent packing and heading out for Phase 2: the Poconos Mountains.