Hello there, readers! Welcome to this week’s installment of… The Blog. We’re so well-rested and relaxed because, believe it or not, we spent almost the ENTIRE WEEK since Brian’s last post sleeping indoors! On a mattress big enough for both of us!! For as long as we wanted!!! The only night not included was the night of that previous post, which was spent at a welcome center/rest area just outside of Providence, RI… and there our tale begins.

We arrived at the Blackstone Valley Welcome Center at around 9pm after exploring a little bit of downtown Providence and enjoying cheap Chinese eats. The rest area was a little ways out in Lincoln, RI but anyone who’s been to Rhode Island can attest to the fact that this state is TEENY WEENY and you can pretty much cross the whole thing in 45 minutes. There were several other cars and trucks parked at the rest area when we arrived – always a good sign, as it’s likely we won’t all be told to leave. We parked by the porta potty and settled in for a nice quiet evening.

Next thing we knew it was morning. EARLY morning …for us, at least. Brian was awoken at about 6:30am by a mass of police academy recruits congregating right beside our car. Brian woke me up in a hushed voice…which I’m never a fan of. He was concerned as we were not really supposed to be residing in our car… I was concerned that these were perfectly good sleeping hours I was missing out on. I also brought up the fact that the recruits likely wouldn’t be concerned with our car any more than the other cars, unless they hear people worriedly whispering inside. I dozed on and off while he peeked out behind our window covers to watch the action unfold. Turns out, there was a scheduled training session that morning and the academy had chosen this welcome center as a starting point as there’s a nice trailhead right there that runs along a small creek. Brian listened to a strangely aggressive officer pumping up the recruits and reminding them not to listen to the current “media narrative”, “you brothers need to stick together!”…etc etc. Sort of dramatic stuff. After that pep talk he disappeared and a new officer person took his place, leading the recruits through a series of warm-ups and stretches and synchronized shouting…right beside our car After that, they were gone. The swarm of 50 or so recruits were off for their morning trail run. And we hastened to get out of there before they came back!

Our first stop was Planet Fitness for a little physical activity (we were so inspired by our inadvertent athletic awakening!) After that we spent several hours at Starbucks so Brian could fill you lovely folks in on our previous week. I wrote an email and watched a movie called Wah-Wah. (It was okay.) After a brief moment of panic in which I thought I’d misplaced our equine friend China in the parking lot, it was off to Connecticut!

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Our hosts for this week would be the Ritter family, extended family of my dear friend Maddison with whom she and I stayed on a previous trip together out East. Maddison’s cousin Sam met Brian and myself a couple of years ago when she came to visit Vegas, but this would be the first time her brother Charlie and parents Angie and Richard would be meeting Brian…and the first time I’d be seeing the rest of the family in just over 5 years. We got acquainted with Sam and Angie when we arrived in Westport, CT and with Charlie and Richard a little later in the evening. We also met Sam’s boyfriend Kevin, Sky the dog, and Zoe, Sophie, Jerry and Lady of the kitty cat clan! We spent a while chatting and filling them in on our adventures, but called it a night at a reasonable hour. They have early morning responsibilities and we couldn’t wait to get some quiet, uninterrupted rest.

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The next day marked the first day of October and the first of our days venturing out into the five boroughs of New York City. Our plan for the week was to use the Ritters’ place in southern Connecticut as our home base and to venture into the city by train. We quickly discovered a slight issue with this plan in that the round trip journey on the train would cost us $54 per day. Our budget was a little too tight to accommodate that. We did it for the first day as we didn’t really have a different plan and had already arrived at the train station when we found out this information. On the positive side, the train ride took us into Grand Central terminal which is a fun spot to visit in itself. We admired the ceiling mural and headed downstairs to the food concourse for a light lunch, ogling all the food choices before deciding on a veggie combo from an Indian stall to share. It was delicious – and very reasonably priced, considering the tourist trap destination! When we were fed and had our water bottles filled, it was time to begin our trek out to Staten Island.

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Although we’d spent a pretty crazy amount of money on our trip into the city, as well as $33 each for a week’s worth of MTA bus/subway travel, we were delighted to discover that we wouldn’t have to spend any extra money on the ferry out to Staten Island. That part was free! We’re sure the fact that people won’t even pay to take the ferry out there has nothing to do with the desirability of Staten Island itself…

Our main destination for this borough was supposed to be the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden. Unfortunately, by the time we’d navigated our way over there, it was after 5pm and the cultural center was closed. Curses!!! However, the garden grounds were still open for exploring so we spent a good hour or so wandering and admiring all of the botanical wonder. We worked up a bit of an appetite by this point and began our search for some Staten Island cuisine. There was no discernible must-have dish, so we just looked for places that had good vegetarian options within walking distance. Despite that search we somehow landed on the Nürnberger Bierhaus. It was Oktoberfest, after all!

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Nürnberger Bierhaus is split into a dining hall and a beer hall. We entered the dining hall and were blown away by how quaint and quiet it was. Having seen Oktoberfest celebrations on TV and having been to the Hofbrauhaus in Vegas a couple of times, I had expected something quite different. Perhaps my expectations were a little high considering we were in a small restaurant in Staten Island on a Tuesday evening. Despite the lack of boisterousness, the food was köstlich and the beer was wunderbar! We shared Camembert with apples, currant jelly and German bread to start, followed by “Wurstteller mit allem Drum & Dran,” a platter of assorted wurst with potatoes, sauerkraut and pickled cabbage. We ranked the 4 sausages from best to…least best.. and were surprised to discover that we both ranked them in the same order! After we were good and stuffed, we popped in next door to see if the beer hall was more lively. It wasn’t. But again… Staten Island on a Tuesday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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We had to start back soon after our dinner to get back to Chez Ritter before dawn. The ferry ride was lovely after dark with the city illuminated across the water. We admired the glowing Statue of Liberty and let the wind blow our hair around into even crazier and unkempt-er styles than usual. The trip was rather long and arduous, so we stopped by an ice cream shop after the ferry for a little treat to soften the blow. There’s always room for ice cream! We circled the rest of Battery Park and discussed ways to alter our commute in a cost-effective way. All in all, the trip home took at least 3 hours from the island’s dock back to the house.

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After a lovely long sleep, it was time for day #2! We had planned a nice neat itinerary with activities in each separate borough on separate days…but as we made more plans, we discovered that certain things were only happening on certain days and we might actually be a little more scattered than originally anticipated. We had also worked out a much cheaper route! Instead of taking the train, we would drive 35 miles to the Bay Plaza Shopping Center in The Bronx and park there for $3 per day. It was a short bus ride to the nearest subway stop in The Bronx and both the bus and subway were covered by our MTA cards. We spent a little more on gas but we avoided paying over $250 on train fare! Success!! fRuGaLiTy!!!

We arrived at Bay Plaza and realized we hadn’t had anything to eat for breakfast. We were gearing up for another long commute – all the way to Queens – and decided we should probably eat something first. We stopped at the food court in the mall and decided to try the new veggie patty at Subway. A word to the wise – don’t try the new veggie patty at Subway. If it was freshly cooked it might be okay as the taste and the vegetable blend of the patty itself wasn’t bad. Unfortunately they’re pre-cooked and then sit in a tray for goodness knows how long until ordered, leaving them to acquire the consistency and appearance of soggy cardboard. By the time they’re thrown into a sandwich, a light toasting in the oven is inadequate salvation. Would not recommend.

Onward to Queens! Yas! We had a loose itinerary for the day to allow time for exploration as necessary. Our main stop for this borough was the Museum of Moving Image. It’s right by the Kaufman Astoria studios and explores the history of TV, movies, digital media and video games. It’s currently showing a Jim Henson exhibit which we thoroughly enjoyed. We learned about Jim’s childhood, his beginnings in puppeteering, all the way through to his untimely death in 1990. There was even a little theatre where you could put on your own puppet show! We tried our hand at it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) but the playback was super choppy. Oh well. We continued through a section on Sesame Street, the Muppets, Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, and Dark Crystal. I’ve never seen Fraggle Rock or Dark Crystal so I skipped those parts. Maybe I’ll put them on my movie list for later. But I digress…

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We had to hurry through some areas of the museum to ensure that we’d be able to take everything in before it closed. We zipped through the section on TV game shows (which neither of us were particularly interested in) as well as the Sci-Fi (mostly Star Wars) memorabilia section. I spent a little while perusing the old-school video games and learned all about the PDP-1 and Spacewar! but was very disappointed to find out that you had to pay to play the functional arcade games. What a rip! I didn’t even bring any quarters! We did get to see a few short films made by artists in the area, which looped throughout the day in a little theatre. Most of our time was spent exploring an exhibit all about the beginnings of film and its roots in the photograph and the telephone. There were some really cool interactive displays that demonstrated all that stuff. We even discovered a little studio where you could make your own stop-motion films and dub over clips of TV shows and movies! Such fun! I requested to have my stop-motion masterpiece, Cwab Grab, emailed to me and am still waiting to receive the message… I fear it may be lost in the ether and the world will never know true art. 😞🦀

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Unfortunately, our money-saving commute saved us no time and we required about 3 hours to get to the museum, all in all. Because of this we only had about 2 hours to explore the whole museum before we were ushered out (one of the employees was at least kind enough to let me take a quick snap of the terrifying Regan dummy from The Exorcist on the way.) Still, we had recognized this as a potential setback for having home base all the way out in Westport, CT. I think it was the most frugal option even if it meant we were coming home late most nights and starting our adventures in the early afternoon. Plus, we got the homely comforts of coffee in the morning and yummy homemade dinners several nights and friendly faces to talk to during the majority of our time at home!

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We headed back from Queens after a little wandering around. Angie had asked if we’d be back for dinner and told us she’d save us some food. So sweet! By the time we got home, she and Richard were still eating so we joined them and told them all about our day. We hung out and talked for a couple more hours, drinking wine and sharing stories and checking out pictures. It was a lovely night in.

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New day, new borough – this time, Brooklyn! “No sleep til!” Just kidding, we slept a lot. You know us. We were also brought delicious breakfast bagels by Sam that morning, which we wolfed down before leaving for our adventures. Such generous hosts!! We had booked tickets for a show in Manhattan that evening but it didn’t start until 10:30, so we had plenty of time for exploring. We headed first for Brooklyn Brewery, a must-see stop on the trip because…well, we love beer! How many breweries is that now? I’ve lost count. Anyway, we followed our phone’s directions and arrived at the correct subway stop outside of Williamsburg…and that’s when it all went wrong. I’d been distracted by the sharp increase in Dr Martens I’d noticed in the area and we got a little turned around watching all those feet walking in different directions. Plus it was rainy and misty. We happened across a DM’s store, so of course we had to go in. I felt some boots in the alleged superior quality “Made in England” section and lamented the $200+ price tags… then we left. It was about that time I discovered we were heading in the wrong direction entirely so we turned around and headed back from whence we came. Oopsie daisy!

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When we finally arrived we had a very hard time deciding what to order. So many things that sounded so tasty and refreshing after all that walking! Brian went for Black Ops, a Russian imperial stout at 11.5% ABV. I couldn’t decide on one so I went for a flight of 4 – the Stonewall Inn IPA, Brooklyn Oktoberfest, Key Lime Pie Gose, and…something else that I can’t remember now. But they were all tasty! We went for a second round and both had the Key Lime Pie Gose. It was the best by far. It’s not listed on the website anymore so unfortunately it may have been a limited batch. Still, any gose fans – look for it in stores just in case! You won’t regret it. Brian had brought along some sweet treats from our 6lb Costco birthday bag (which he may have failed to mention in his last post…) and shared with some very willing table buddies. Who doesn’t love being offered candy from strangers? Wait…

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On to the show!

BUT FIRST…Pizza!

You KNOW we had to stop for some authentic NYC slices while we were in town. We found a place called 2 Bros Pizza on our way to the show and it was HEAVENLY. I had a slice of cheese, Brian a slice of sausage and peppers, and we got a broccoli and ricotta slice to split. All of them were well worth the price tag – we got 3 slices and a can of Barq’s root beer, I gave him a $10 bill and we had change. Best value meal of the trip so far. I burned my mouth. I didn’t even care.

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Brian had wanted to see a cage match show by the Upright Citizens’ Brigade (or UCB) for some time and we discovered they were doing one while we were in town! We meandered through the streets in the misty misty foggy rain to the UCB Theatre. I had little to no knowledge of what to expect, drawing only on our previous experience watching long-form improv shows together and my understanding of what a cage match is. One of those was much closer to the reality of this show than the other. I’ll let you guess which!

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Just kidding, I’ll tell you. There was no cage. Disappointing. Other than that, the show was very entertaining! The general premise is this: two teams have 25 minutes to perform based on whatever they ask from the audience (in this instance, the first team asked for a meaningful song lyric; the second team asked for a word or phrase). The audience then votes for whichever team they thought were funnier and whoever gets the most votes wins! The teams performing were Women and Men and The Stepfathers. We went in knowing that The Stepfathers were undefeated 11-0. Women & Men were their new contenders. Brian and I did not cast the same vote. The Stepfathers won and continued their streak, and I complained on the bus ride home. A fun time had by all! 🤪

(In all honesty, they both performed very well and I didn’t dislike the team that won. I just wonder if their undefeated streak influenced the vote…)

What day is it now? Oh yeah, Friday the 4th. We had arrived home super late the night before so we slept in pretty late on Friday morning. We had talked to Sam about meeting up downtown and hung around the house talking to Angie for a while before confirming plans and heading off. Sam would go to Queens to meet Kevin and then meet us in Manhattan later. We’d discovered that the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA for short) offered free admission from 4-8pm on Fridays, which assisted us greatly in the deciding which museum to go to! Other contender were the Met and the Goog, which are more fun to shorten but much more expensive to visit. Another time, perhaps.

It took us a while to get downtown due to a mechanical issue with another subway train. Everyone was sardine-ing into the other rush hour trains that were available. We elbowed our way through the crowds and arrived at the MoMA ready to get some art all up in our eyeballs, only to find…the museum was closed. What the heck!? I’d just checked hours the day before!! They were closed for some fancy pants private event, which I think was even more annoying because technically they were open. We just weren’t fancy enough to go inside. Rude!

Instead we decided to head out in search of food, by way of the Rockefeller Center. It was claustrophobically busy down there and it cost $40 (EACH) to go up to the observation deck. Needless to say we only spent a very short time downstairs in the plaza. We found a vegan sushi place nearby called Beyond Sushi that came highly reviewed and had reasonable prices, so we decided to give that a try for dinner. It certainly didn’t taste like authentic sushi but that was to be expected. We ordered rosemary garlic bread, flower top dumplings, the la fiesta roll for Brian and the pickle me roll for pickle me. We thoroughly enjoyed it all. Not as much as a couple at the next table though, apparently. Each time the server came back to check on them, one of them said things like “oh my god, it’s ridiculous! Heavenly!” “we’re EATERS!” and “I LOVE YOU!” Jeez, lady…tone it down a notch.

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We decided to take a little stroll around Central Park for the rest of the evening and digest. It was a definite stop on our Manhattan list for who-knows-which-day when we wrote our initial itinerary. Since the whole plan was wacky at this point, it made sense to visit at a time when we were already there and had an hour or so to spare. The park was dark and a little spooky but we walked around the southwest perimeter and marveled at the size and extravagantness of some of the buildings. We wondered how much people pay to live in those buildings on our left while passing countless homeless people on our right. How ’bout that income inequality, eh?

Our first stop was the John Lennon memorial mosaic in Strawberry Fields. We stopped for just long enough to take a picture as we were both suddenly struck with a need to find a restroom. After a quick pitstop at the Tavern on the Green, we headed through the middle of the park toward the eastern edge. On our way we paid our respects to the statue of Balto, the goodest boy of all Alaska! There were several other areas in Central Park that we would’ve liked to have visited but daylight was preferable, plus the chilliness of the evening was starting to take its toll. We decided to call it a night and headed back to Westport.

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Little did we know, Saturday brought the Korean Parade and Koreatown Street Festival to Manhattan! Again, we’d had loose plans for the next day that ended up falling by the wayside to allow for a last-minute(ish) decision. We emerged from the subway in time for the very end of the parade and watched a group of kids dancing in the square. There were people dressed in all kinds of colorful outfits and little Korean and American flags scattered through the crowds. We decided to stick around and explore the avenue of vendors, as it was about time for us to grab some lunch anyway. A giant metal bowl of a yummy smelling rice dish sat in the middle of the street with about 100 people in line behind it – we assumed it was free, which was indeed alluring. We looked at the amount of rice left and the amount of people waiting and it didn’t seem to add up. They were running low and fast. We skipped it. Instead we shuffled through the huge crowd of people walking slowly and taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of traditional Korean fare and activities. The concentration of people reminded us of Tokyo – probably the only other place we’ve been quite that squished in a crowd! We walked all the way down and all the way back up again and decided we would venture elsewhere to find some food. The flow of human traffic was so tightly packed it was almost impossible to either speed up and get out or slow to a stop at a stall of your choosing. We did, however, get a free bottle of Gold Peak sweet tea! Thanks, Koreatown Festival!

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This was our last day in NYC and we’d arrived earlier than usual, so we decided we’d try to squish a bunch of stuff into the day. We headed for lunch at the Pennsy Food Hall around the corner. We were struck with some serious choice paralysis and ended up patronizing Cinnamon Snail which, despite its name, had 0 cinnamon and 0 snails on the menu. Instead it’s a Vegan burger and pastry place that started out as a food truck and had massive success with meat eaters and non-meat eaters alike. It has now expanded to have a permanent stationary addition to the Pennsy, as well as its mobile food truck. Brian had a beastmode burger, I had a maple mustard tempeh sandwich, and we split an order of kimchi tater tots. It was insanely tasty and provided us with great fuel for the rest of our day’s adventures. On to the High Line!

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I had recently discovered The High Line as a cool (and free) thing to do in Manhattan while perusing a few lists online. It’s basically an old section of freight line that used to service the meatpacking district of New York City and has since been abandoned and revamped into a cool elevated public space with many uses. We saw gardens, water features, a cafe, art vendors, great city views, and even an outdoor think tank session discussing the use of public lands and who should decide what to do with them. We strolled along the southernmost section of the High Line to the very bottom and stood for a while watching the people (and dogs) milling about beneath us.

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Another last-minute must-see discovery came to us entirely by chance. We walked past several tenement blocks in Greenwich Village on our explorations and a particular cream-colored one looked verrry familiar. It bore a resemblance to somewhere I’d wanted to visit in New York when Maddison and I visited years ago, but back then it was too inconvenient to justify. This time, we were already in a 2-mile radius! Where was this place, you ask? None other than… 98 and 96 St Marks Place.

Perhaps better known as the buildings from Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti cover!

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After I was satisfied with my little Zeppelin nerd-out session, snapped some pics and got weird stares from the kids sitting on the stoop opposite me, we retraced our steps a mile in the opposite direction to get to our next subway stop and our next point of interest. (Okay, so it wasn’t SUPER convenient this time either. But I couldn’t not go twice!) We’d have to travel about another hour by train to get all the way down through Brooklyn to the bottom of the borough. During the commute we tried not to think about how much longer it would take us to get all the way back up to our car again later, not to mention the drive back into CT! If not for the insane amount of people, the claustrophobic steel and cement towering everywhere and the ridiculous rent prices, I’d definitely be put off living in NYC because of those commute times. It’s not on the potential-cities-to-live-in list.

…It was never on the list anyway.

An hour later and we arrived at CONEY ISLAND! We had listened to the Death Cab song that morning and I’d imagined feeling all Ben Gibbard’s feels in the chilly autumn air with the amusement park deathly quiet and kind of eerie looking. To my surprise, the train pulled into the station and…Coney Island was in full swing! Quite literally. Online sources claimed that it closed after Labor Day but it is now clear that those sources were LIARS as it seems to remain open until some time in mid-October. Oh well. It wasn’t too busy. We grabbed a hot dog at the very first ever Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand EVER! in the world! Really. Fun fact, it’s also the site of the annual hot dog eating contest. Thank goodness we weren’t there for the 4th of July… They did however have a giant countdown on the side of the building to inform any curious consumers of how long it’ll be until the next batch of poor souls shove wieners in their faceholes for 10 minutes straight in the quest for eternal hot dog glory! What a relief. 270 days from today, for those who are curious. Freaks.

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The sun had just set so there were some really beautiful views along the boardwalk. We walked a little and soaked it all in. Eventually it started to get a little too chilly for me and, as previously mentioned, we had quite the journey back home again. We kissed Coney Island goodbye and hopped back on the train.

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We were surprised to find Angie awake when we got home – it must’ve been at least 11pm by the time we dragged our butts in from the car. We got lost in conversation and kept her up until past 1am – oops! It’s okay, she was a willing participant.

Sleep held us prisoner for a little longer than we had planned but we woke up eventually, excited and eager to chow down at the 12th annual New England Chowdafest! We’d lucked upon this event as well – chance opportunities being an apparent theme for this leg of the trip. Angie let me scour the local paper’s events section a few mornings prior and the Chowdafest banner on the front page piqued my interest instantly. Being a huge fan of clam chowder from my years of service in seafood restaurants, we knew we HAD to go. Brian’s not overly keen on chowder but he’s usually game for food-based festivities! The event lasted from 9am-3pm. We didn’t arrive until just after 1pm. Unfortunately, a few of the newcomers may have underestimated the seriousness with which Westport, CT regards this event and seemed to have come unprepared for the sheer numbers of chowdaheads. There were at least 3 tables that had been slurped dry and broken down before we even got there. Lucky for us, a few of the contestants had been participating year after year and had GALLONS of chowder in their arsenal – plenty to keep everyone going for the full 6 hours of the festival. We checked in, grabbed our spoons and ballots, and got to tasting.

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The categories are broken down as follows: best New England clam chowder, best creative chowder, best soup/bisque, and best vegetarian. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to the placement of the vendors around the location, though; you just walked around and jumped in a line and graded whichever goo you got! The score sheet was a scantron-style paper with scores ranging from 7-10.5 at 0.5 point intervals. I don’t think I graded anything a 7 as everything was pretty darn tasty. I did give away a couple of 10.5s. Some of the highlights for me were Our House‘s Drunken Pumpkin seafood chowder (which deservedly won 1st place in the creative chowder category for the 5th year running), Smithsonian‘s NE clam chowder, and Hungarian Bistro‘s Hungarian chowder. Brian and I didn’t agree on all our personal faves, but he’s not writing this blog so my word goes! Muahahaha. He was a champ for sticking it out and being willing to try a little bit of everything with me. I appreciate his open-mindedness when it comes to trying new things…and trying old things a second time in case he’s changed his mind! Aside from chowder there were also cheese and pie stalls, which required no open-mindedness for him to try. In fact, when 3:05pm rolled around and the stalls were packing up, we made one last round and they were like “take whatever you want!” I’m sure his chowder trials and tribulations were worth it for the plentiful pie and cheeses.

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Sherwood Island state park, where Chowdafest is held, is also the home of a pretty impressive 9/11 memorial that honors members of the Connecticut community who died that day. The wall of names is crowned with metal flowers constructed from pieces of metal from the wreckage of the towers. Pretty impressive; pretty chilling. We stopped there after the ‘fest and took it all in for a little while. It was surprisingly serene juxtaposed with the site of the rowdy chowdy just down the shore.

The rest of the day was clam…I mean calm. It was our last day in town so we wanted to spend some quality time with the lovely family who had hosted us all week. Angie had mentioned to us that it’s a tradition of theirs on Sunday nights to go to a local bar named The Black Duck. She was kind enough to invite us along. We accompanied her and Richard and met some of their buddies, drank a couple of beers and talked about our adventures and future plans with our new friends. We’ve decided we have to come back during boat season to enjoy some of the things we didn’t get a chance to experience this time! We were treated to some tasty seafood dinners and hung out at the house, where Sam joined us, with a bottle of wine and a couple of the cats. It was a great way to spend our last evening and we went to bed thankful that we’ve been lucky enough to spend so much of this trip with such gracious and kind folks. Richard packed us up some of his homemade venison jerky and pepperoni for the road before heading to bed, and in the morning Sam sent us off with a big bag of Goldfish! We’ll snack like kings! Dear Ritters – thank you for everything. You guys were so accommodating and we really truly appreciate everything. Dear Sky – thank you for the enthusiasm over our presence and all the kissies and even morning break-ins.

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After packing up the room, we made the several necessary trips out to the car laden with backpacks and laptop bags and then said our see-you-laters. About 20 minutes into our journey, listening to the next chapter of A Clash of Kings, I felt a little something stuck in my teeth. A thought suddenly dawned on me. I asked Brian, “hey, did you grab your toothbrush and charger out of the bathroom?”

What do you think? Had he remembered it? Had he forgotten? Find out next week on…26 SUNDAYS.