Celebrity Sighting and More

Wow, what a weekend! Lots to tell, lots to tell...as Rebecca and I made it up to NYC to visit my sister and some friends. I am not one to gawk over people or be completely star struck, but this weekend's series of events just has me grinning ear to ear.

Let me start with Friday 5 pm. Expecting to worst traffic conditions (it is rush hour DC), we cut through Rock Creek Park up to 95. Smart decision there, as it was all one way traffic moving north. Traffic moved the entire trip up through New Jersey and into NYC. When it was all said and done, it took us 4.5 hours with one stop for dinner/gas. Oh yea, and we found a money parking spot less than 2 blocks from my sister's apartment. Sweet.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. We decided to go for a run in Central Park, first thing. What a nice day. All the heat and humidity was gone, leaving clear skies and TONS of runners, cyclists, rollerbladers, and weirdos to watch. We did a nice loop on the reservoir, which is about 1.5 miles, for a nice start to the day. Then it was on to the West Side to meet a friend from breakfast. After looking at several places, we settled on EJs, a place we've been to before, but always has consistently good eats. As we walked it, I got elbowed in gut by Rebecca, who was elbowed by my sister. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the place and we were just going to leave and go somewhere else. And then, I discovered why I had just be elbowed...2 BIG celebrities had just walked through the door. Who you ask? How about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner...AND their baby Violet...AND parents! Oh, and they sat us right across from them. You have got to be kidding me! We could hardly contain ourselves, as we ate our eggs and home fries.

So that MADE the trip. Less than 12 hours in NYC, and we could have gone home satisfied. Saturday night, we made the trip down to the West Village to eat at Risotteria, a restaurant that specializes in gluten free foods. Highly recommended to anyone. Rebecca and I split a risotto dish (with mushrooms, arugula, and truffle oil) and a gluten free deep dish pizza. The risotto was good, but the pizza was amazing! For anyone who has eaten gluten free pizza, this place is a miracle maker. How they got the crust to be so close to regular style pizza is beyond me. And to cap things off, we all shared at LARGE slice of gluten free carrot cake. Again, I don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference between a non-gluten free slice and this. It was amazing. Needless to say, we were stuffed and had to walk our dinner off.

The weekend was capped off by a 4 hour ride home and a win by the Redskins! What a weekend!