Oh gosh...I'm so sorry I didn't get a chance to taste many of the food offerings. I must remember to get up to the house sooner next time. My enchalada casserole was gone when I arrived....I guess it was good....lol. What salads I did eat were scrumptious, and Annebert's baked beans were out of this world. Thanks everyone for bringing all the great food. Bonnie

Ate a slice at Ray's, saw Rockefeller center and tree (but not lit), I'm sure we did more, I just am brain fogged with sleepiness! We ate from street vendors, or wherever our nose led us. Had very nice dinners everywhere: Chinese, Thai, Indian, Persian, Italian.. Found a wonderful Japanese restaurant that was very inexpensive on 56th street between 5th and 6th avenue, beside the bicycle rental place that was so good we ate there twice. We walked 41 miles in the first 5 days after which we lost count, and I still managed to gain 6 pounds while I was there : / The things my daughter enjoyed the most were: hailing taxis, hearing all the different languages, pretzel vendors, Wicked, and seeing New York City from high places (the roof of our hotel, tram, Empire State bldg). We enjoyed it sooo much! Thank you all again for all your suggestions. If we missed something this time, it is still on our list for the next trip! -k

I stopped tonight to get a "Coney dog" at the local "Coney and Swirl" which is the ice-cream/hotdog stand in my small town, very typical of what was in almost every small town in Michigan at one time. Anyway, while "suckin' on a chili dog outside the Tastee Freeze," I was reflecting on what someone told me once (from NY) that Michigan hot dogs were better than most other states because we had higher standards about what kind of meat could go into them. Not sure about the truth of that story though. When I got home, while googling "Michigan hot dogs" to find out more, I discovered this funny article from the Smithsonian magazine called, "The Annals of Geographically Confused Foods" lol! Apparently "coneys" in NY are called "michigans!" That really cracked me up! In my adopted hometown of Allentown, PA, apparently Mr. Yocco "invented" the chili dog too, and made it world famous to boot. ;) To me, a chili dog is just a chili dog, and little stands with root beer or ice cream and hotdogs do mean summer in Michigan, although for me coming home to MI will always mean, "let's have a lake fish fry!" There are three things I miss when I am away from my home state, one is all the fresh fruit, (but then my ancestors settled in an area just north of "Fruitport" Michigan), maple syrup and lake fish, either pan fish from the inland lakes or Great Lakes fish. I do miss walking down to the diary queen or root beer stand with my best friend and spending my allowance on some kind of junk food, but that kind of pleasure isn't quite what it used to me for me now. What can I say but, "Life goes on, long after the thrill of livin' is gone." Here is a link that might be useful: Michigan hot dogs from New York This post was edited by lpinkmountain on Fri, Jul 18, 14 at 10:09

Jorge, I was mistaken. the Traveler commission rates on AirBnb are 6 - 12%, depending on the rent. The higher the rent, the lower the commission. I don't know what the break off points are, though. The owner pays 3%. So AirBnb is getting 9 - 15%, which is very hefty. Consider the taxes the owner is paying, the rent the traveler is paying, esp. on a vacation rental/resort area where rents are high, mortgages, repairs and maintenance..it's absurd. There's a lot of upheaval right now in that industry because these sites are really gouging homeowners and travelers. In addition, these rental sites are getting income from THOUSANDS, even hundreds of thousands of properties, while travelers are making ONE trip and homeowners are renting ONE property. from which they make their livelihoods. It is pure greed on the part of the rental sites. I do think that commission and PPB model will collapse at some point. In addtion, as an owner, one thing about the commission/PPB sites is that, when you get an inquiry, they practically have to book the property before you can have any meaningful vetting conversation (for both sides). These sites have software that prevents - quite strenuously - any ability to give the inquirer a phone # to call (and vice versa), an email address, etc., and the reason is they don't want you referring the traveler to another site where you also advertise your property but where the traveler wouldn't have to pay the commission, which homeowners actually want to do for their guests. My feeling is, if you have to disallow free communication, cause people to try to write in code (and even then, it fails) in order to keep customers from finding your competition, there is something wrong with your model.