July 12th marked the 4 week point of our trip. Half way through! We've hit 22 states already!
New York starts out well before we ever made it to our
camping spot for our 3-night stay. Bree
and Darcy were able to pick up a couple more states, Rhode Island and
Connecticut, to bring their total to 46.
Those states were smooth going.
New York, however was not. Paul
found an awesome RV park in Jersey City, NJ, just across the Hudson from New
York City with a view of parts of the skyline.
Sounded amazing in theory, in practice was a little different. It meant driving through a whole lot of New
York and surrounding areas, still pulling the trailer. This limited us to the expressways and not the
height-limited, faster moving parkways.
We were a relatively small fish stuck with all the big-boy semis on the barely-moving
freeways. Pretty intimidating as they were
making moves like they were tiny little passenger cars. I can’t imagine the stress of it on Paul as
he was driving since I was totally stressed as just the passenger. We would creep along for a half hour and see
our arrival time continue to increase on the GPS. It was maddening! It felt like we would never get out of the
high-stress driving situation. And
directions and road signs could have been clearer. We took a couple of wrong exits and had to
turn them into a new route to our place which again added time. Did I mention high stress? And then the sky opened up and a torrential
downpour, accompanied by thunder and lighting, helped to escort us on our
way. There were flash flood warnings for
our area and there was quite a bit of standing water on the roads. I was afraid our New York trip was going to
be a miserable, soaked experience.
Thankfully Paul managed to deliver us safely to our spot and it was
amazing! The Statue of Liberty is to the
left as we walk out our trailer door. What
a view! And the rain cleared in the middle
of the night so we woke up to a beautiful sunny day yesterday for our first day
in the city. Paul, Drew, Mason, and I
toured the city in a day on a double decker tour bus in 2007 and we knew there
was so much more we wanted to see this time so we planned for 2 days. We also planned to leave Han at the RV site
and use the subway system in the city.
We warned the kids that there would be walking, but not nearly as much
as in Boston because we’d be using the subway to get around. HA HA HA!
We’re hilarious! Boston logged
7.5 miles. Day 1 in NYC we logged 10.5,
even using the subway system. NYC is a
BIG city!
Day one, July 12th, we woke up early and took the
subway from NJ to NYC. Once Paul figured
out the subway system and the metropass we were good to go. And after our first ride we felt like
pros. The kids did great. We had a couple of rides where we got to sit,
but mostly we ended up standing, squished into other passengers with either our
armpits in their faces as we held onto the rails, or their armpits in our
faces. Did I mention how important deodorant
is in a place like NY? We started the
day with the plan to stay in lower Manhattan and focus on the 5 or 6 sites we
had highlighted on our map. Drew had a
few ideas of things she wanted to see too, as she was assigned New York to
research, and she realized there were many of her books and movies set in the
city. That was a fun way to see things
too, with the idea of movie sets in mind.
So day 1 we started at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. OH! Our first subway in to the city landed us at the World Trade Center station. AMAZING! GORGEOUS! It was all white and so modern looking. It was filled to the rim with people. What a great way to get our first taste of New York. And let me back up again. As we were waiting to load our first subway, I realized that the platform was pretty much silent, even though many people were around. I mentioned it and we started looking around and discovered everyone had earbuds or headphones on with their faces in their phones. No one was talking to or looking at anyone! Holy cow! What has happened to our world!? It makes me incredibly sad, which is weird because I am so totally anti-social myself. But I hate the whole cell phone zombies we have become. Anyway, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are awesome places to experience. I think the kids were able to appreciate them both. I like that we got to watch a movie on Ellis Island with real immigrants and their stories of the process of coming to America. Hopefully just a tiny bit of recognition of how blessed we are sunk in for them. We made it back to Manhattan and walked around quite a bit after that. We found Trinity Church, walked quite a bit of Broadway, checked out Wall Street and the financial district, and turned into the testiest tourist you’ve ever met! We didn’t eat lunch till 2pm and were pretty much at each other’s throats about an hour up till that time! We discovered we’re exactly like that Snickers commercial about being the raving lunatic due to hunger and then we turn back into out amicable selves once we have a little food in our tummies. Starving is no joke, and ours was self-inflicted! When in New York you have to realize you are going to spend money and you just kind of bite the bullet and do it or suffer the consequences. I still had my cinch bag full of water and snacks, as did Drew, but granola bars can’t sustain you over 10+ miles of walking. We learned that the hard way! We were all a little grumpy but I give the kids major props for complaining much less than they had the right to. It was a long, hot day and we pushed ourselves to the limits, with the knowledge we were doing it all again the next day. Man, I adore my family!
After lunch of pizza from a corner shop, we went to the 9-11 Museum and memorial. I will not say that is my favorite place. I understand the need for it, and why it was important for us to be there. Especially the kids so they could develop a real understanding of what happened that day and its repercussions we still have today. But I do not like re-living those events. Once was enough for me and I don’t even have any ties to anyone who died that day. Its just not something I want to relive. We spent hours there, soaking it all in, and I admit I cried a time or two, even though I tried my hardest to invest as little emotion as possible into it. I will say I’m glad I went, I’m glad the kids went, and I’m glad they have a better understanding of that day. Bree’s eyes were opened quite a bit as she discussed some things with me afterwards. I hope the others learned and felt there too. When we left there we decided to stay on the island and see Times Square in the dark so we needed to kill a couple of hours. We walked out on the Brooklyn Bridge! Very cool! Its really a spectacular bridge with a spectacular view. One of the highlights I think. We hopped on a subway from there and arrived at Grand Central Station, one of my favorite places in the city. Its such an amazing place to experience with its mass of humanity, living individual lives, all brought together for a single space and time. Makes you feel kind of small in the grand scheme of things. The building is amazing too. You can stand there and look at it forever. But we didn’t have forever, we needed to get to Times Square on a Friday night! Yep, we’re crazy! But its such an iconic place to experience in the dark that we took our chances that the rest of New York would be on its best behavior for our childrens’ innocent eyes! It almost worked. Bree was appalled at all the “inappropriate things” she witnessed, though her idea of inappropriate is pretty mild. I thought we had a great experience of masses of people and got out of there relatively unscathed. Bree, however, has been a bit uneasy this entire time. She gets anxious with so many people around and feeling completely out of her comfort zone. She is definitely not a big city girl and enjoys the bubble we live in at home. Me too! But I like the real-world experiences in small doses at times also. I am much more comfortable in South Dakota than New York, but I wouldn’t miss this city for the world. When all was said and done, we logged 10.5 miles of walking over about 14 hours on day one in the city. What an amazing day!
So day 1 we started at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. OH! Our first subway in to the city landed us at the World Trade Center station. AMAZING! GORGEOUS! It was all white and so modern looking. It was filled to the rim with people. What a great way to get our first taste of New York. And let me back up again. As we were waiting to load our first subway, I realized that the platform was pretty much silent, even though many people were around. I mentioned it and we started looking around and discovered everyone had earbuds or headphones on with their faces in their phones. No one was talking to or looking at anyone! Holy cow! What has happened to our world!? It makes me incredibly sad, which is weird because I am so totally anti-social myself. But I hate the whole cell phone zombies we have become. Anyway, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are awesome places to experience. I think the kids were able to appreciate them both. I like that we got to watch a movie on Ellis Island with real immigrants and their stories of the process of coming to America. Hopefully just a tiny bit of recognition of how blessed we are sunk in for them. We made it back to Manhattan and walked around quite a bit after that. We found Trinity Church, walked quite a bit of Broadway, checked out Wall Street and the financial district, and turned into the testiest tourist you’ve ever met! We didn’t eat lunch till 2pm and were pretty much at each other’s throats about an hour up till that time! We discovered we’re exactly like that Snickers commercial about being the raving lunatic due to hunger and then we turn back into out amicable selves once we have a little food in our tummies. Starving is no joke, and ours was self-inflicted! When in New York you have to realize you are going to spend money and you just kind of bite the bullet and do it or suffer the consequences. I still had my cinch bag full of water and snacks, as did Drew, but granola bars can’t sustain you over 10+ miles of walking. We learned that the hard way! We were all a little grumpy but I give the kids major props for complaining much less than they had the right to. It was a long, hot day and we pushed ourselves to the limits, with the knowledge we were doing it all again the next day. Man, I adore my family!
After lunch of pizza from a corner shop, we went to the 9-11 Museum and memorial. I will not say that is my favorite place. I understand the need for it, and why it was important for us to be there. Especially the kids so they could develop a real understanding of what happened that day and its repercussions we still have today. But I do not like re-living those events. Once was enough for me and I don’t even have any ties to anyone who died that day. Its just not something I want to relive. We spent hours there, soaking it all in, and I admit I cried a time or two, even though I tried my hardest to invest as little emotion as possible into it. I will say I’m glad I went, I’m glad the kids went, and I’m glad they have a better understanding of that day. Bree’s eyes were opened quite a bit as she discussed some things with me afterwards. I hope the others learned and felt there too. When we left there we decided to stay on the island and see Times Square in the dark so we needed to kill a couple of hours. We walked out on the Brooklyn Bridge! Very cool! Its really a spectacular bridge with a spectacular view. One of the highlights I think. We hopped on a subway from there and arrived at Grand Central Station, one of my favorite places in the city. Its such an amazing place to experience with its mass of humanity, living individual lives, all brought together for a single space and time. Makes you feel kind of small in the grand scheme of things. The building is amazing too. You can stand there and look at it forever. But we didn’t have forever, we needed to get to Times Square on a Friday night! Yep, we’re crazy! But its such an iconic place to experience in the dark that we took our chances that the rest of New York would be on its best behavior for our childrens’ innocent eyes! It almost worked. Bree was appalled at all the “inappropriate things” she witnessed, though her idea of inappropriate is pretty mild. I thought we had a great experience of masses of people and got out of there relatively unscathed. Bree, however, has been a bit uneasy this entire time. She gets anxious with so many people around and feeling completely out of her comfort zone. She is definitely not a big city girl and enjoys the bubble we live in at home. Me too! But I like the real-world experiences in small doses at times also. I am much more comfortable in South Dakota than New York, but I wouldn’t miss this city for the world. When all was said and done, we logged 10.5 miles of walking over about 14 hours on day one in the city. What an amazing day!
Saturday, July 13th was our second day in the
city. We woke up with sore feet but with
the assurance that it wouldn’t be quite so much walking as the day before. We crack ourselves up! Final tally for the day was 8 miles. The kids were amazing though, only complaints
about how much our feet hurt, none about the sites being boring or can’t we
just go home. I think we all totally
enjoyed New York. We took the subway
back in and our first stop was the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center. That was so cool! You could see the city for miles! I knew it was a huge place but you really get
the feel of how massive a city it is from a bird’s eye view. It was great.
We checked out the area where the ice-skating rink and Christmas tree
usually are, and realized FAO Schwartz toy store was right there. So we went in and Darcy and I played the
floor piano with our feet. Just like in
the movie Big. Fun! We lost Mason for a
bit as he had stopped to watch a magic trick.
That was really the only time we were searching for a kid, except at the
9-11 museum but you knew they were in there making the circle and you’d eventually
meet up. We spent a lot of time looking
behind us to check to make sure the little minions were following us on the streets
and they always were. Once again, the
kids did great! Since we hadn’t had Taco
Bell in days, we finally found one, and, on our walk that way, Paul and I found
some delicious street food we went for instead.
YUM! So while the kids were eating
Taco Bell I walked the streets of NYC alone like a boss! Really, I just crossed the street to get
sunscreen from the Rite Aid, but I was impressed with myself going solo in NYC.
Our next stop we spent walking through much more of Central Park than we had originally planned, but we found Belvedere Castle and the Turtle Pond where Bree and Darcy were in heaven. They were very cute turtles and I’m almost tempted to get one as a pet now. Almost! Sheep Meadow was an awesome place in that there were a million people laying/playing out in the grass with the trees and then buildings behind them. That was a neat experience too. Finding some nature in the concrete jungle. We found the Manhattan LDS temple from there, which is cool how its just on a corner of the city block. We also found the American Museum of Natural History but decided not to go in since we’ll hit the museums up for free in DC. Drew really wanted to see the front though, since its where Night at the Museum is set. Nice place from the outside! And then we made our last stop at the New York Public Library. Huge! The architecture was gorgeous but I can’t imagine going to the effort of getting there just to check out a book from the library. We said goodbye to NYC after that and hopped the subway where we were treated to our most packed ride yet! We were all scrunched in and a blind man was making his way though the cars begging for change. What a final memory of New York! I could tell Bree was not enjoying the trip and I gave her a great big hug after we got off and a word or two of support. She did great. I think she was out of her comfort zone the entire time in New York and yet she kept herself together and got it done. Mason, Drew, and Darcy didn’t seem to be fazed at all by the big city. They must take after Paul. We stopped for Krispy Crème on our way back to the trailer where we all collapsed and felt the ache of our poor feet! Our feet deserve trophies! Around 8pm I was checking CNN and they were reporting a massive power outage in Manhattan, exactly where we were most of the day. Subways were stopped, Times Square was dark, and Broadway shows were cancelled. I’m so grateful we followed my mantra of “why put off till tomorrow what you can do today,” on Friday and saw Times Square that night. Otherwise we would have been stuck in uptown New York trying to find a way to get all the way back to New Jersey. Or we could have been stuck in a subway. What a nightmare and I’m so grateful we didn’t get caught up in any of that. Not sure Bree could have handled it, let alone me! Instead we were safe inside the trailer watching Home Alone 2, trying to recognize places we had just seen.
Our next stop we spent walking through much more of Central Park than we had originally planned, but we found Belvedere Castle and the Turtle Pond where Bree and Darcy were in heaven. They were very cute turtles and I’m almost tempted to get one as a pet now. Almost! Sheep Meadow was an awesome place in that there were a million people laying/playing out in the grass with the trees and then buildings behind them. That was a neat experience too. Finding some nature in the concrete jungle. We found the Manhattan LDS temple from there, which is cool how its just on a corner of the city block. We also found the American Museum of Natural History but decided not to go in since we’ll hit the museums up for free in DC. Drew really wanted to see the front though, since its where Night at the Museum is set. Nice place from the outside! And then we made our last stop at the New York Public Library. Huge! The architecture was gorgeous but I can’t imagine going to the effort of getting there just to check out a book from the library. We said goodbye to NYC after that and hopped the subway where we were treated to our most packed ride yet! We were all scrunched in and a blind man was making his way though the cars begging for change. What a final memory of New York! I could tell Bree was not enjoying the trip and I gave her a great big hug after we got off and a word or two of support. She did great. I think she was out of her comfort zone the entire time in New York and yet she kept herself together and got it done. Mason, Drew, and Darcy didn’t seem to be fazed at all by the big city. They must take after Paul. We stopped for Krispy Crème on our way back to the trailer where we all collapsed and felt the ache of our poor feet! Our feet deserve trophies! Around 8pm I was checking CNN and they were reporting a massive power outage in Manhattan, exactly where we were most of the day. Subways were stopped, Times Square was dark, and Broadway shows were cancelled. I’m so grateful we followed my mantra of “why put off till tomorrow what you can do today,” on Friday and saw Times Square that night. Otherwise we would have been stuck in uptown New York trying to find a way to get all the way back to New Jersey. Or we could have been stuck in a subway. What a nightmare and I’m so grateful we didn’t get caught up in any of that. Not sure Bree could have handled it, let alone me! Instead we were safe inside the trailer watching Home Alone 2, trying to recognize places we had just seen.
All in all, I feel like we saw everything we wanted to
except for a Broadway show, and that was always a question mark. We are exhausted as we drive out of here, heading
south for 4 days in the DC area, but what an amazing time we had in New York! This trip just gets better and better!
Things I learned in New York City:
. “I’m not afraid anymore!” (Kevin in Home Alone) Usually big cities are not my cup of tea and I was kind of anxious about our big city weeks, but I felt pretty comfortable in New York. I was very surprised with myself. I enjoyed it a lot more than last time when Drew and Mason were so little. I liked the people watching and felt pretty safe.
2.
There are still freaks in New York, no matter
how safe you feel. As we turned the
corner onto Times Square a big, bald, scary looking dude got in Paul’s face and
said, “Are you scared? Are you scared
yet? You should be scared.” Whoa.
We just kept walking but that threw me for a second. Most
people in this world are good and you encounter them 99% of the time. But its that one crazy that seems to make the
impression.
3.
Paul is amazing.
He got us through the largest subway system in the world without once
making a mistake. We were always on the
correct train and we only left 50 cents on our souvenir metro cards! Hats off to my incredible husband. Maybe I felt so comfortable because I had the
utmost faith that he had it all under control.
What a blessing he is to our family!
No comments:
Post a Comment