New York to Boston

Our campground is about an hour from downtown Manhatten. At first this was a major concern for us, but considering we saw everything we wanted to see plus more in one day it turned out to be a good thing. Our day started with the decision to drive the car into NYC, considering the options again it seemed to be the most economic route. My first thoughts of driving downtown were craziness, but once we arrived it turned out to be quite a rush. I even got chills as we drove under the Brooklyn bridge listening to/singing Frank Sinatra's song, New York, New York. With roads going in every direction imaginable, horns constantly honking, pedestrians swarming and the GPS recalculating it was very challenging, but not impossible. We found parking near our first appointment, the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. We had a few hours before the ferry actually left though so we took a look at a few attractions first. Ground zero was a few blocks away so we took a quick walk to see the new Freedom Tower that is being built where the Twin Towers fell. It was inspiring to see a magnificent tower being built despite the continuing threat of terrorism to our nation. Across the street was a nice little park so we cut across only to discovered a dance troop performing an interpretive dance of Alice in Wonderland.






Ksenia got to see dancing in New York and she watched intently. We were then off to see Wall Street. On the way we discovered the beautiful Trinity church.





It looked strangely familiar, like we have seen it before. I asked Kaleb if he thought it was the church from National Treasure. The was confirmed when we entered and saw they offered a 2:00 pm tour that answered the question "Is there a treasure underneath the church?" Upon exiting the church, we entered the court yard to enjoy a summer concert series they apparently offer. We finally got to hear some jazz by a group from Zimbabwe no less. After listening to a few songs we walked down Wall Street to see the New York Stock Exchange.





From there we headed towards our appointment with Lady Liberty. After entering the Staton Island facility, we found out we were in the wrong place. We took a short walk west to the Clinton castle and battery to get our tickets and catch our ferry. Even though we had a 3 o'clock appointment they let us board at 2. The seas were a little rough, but ride was quick. Before we knew it we were looking up at the enduring Statue of Liberty, the very symbol of our freedom. We found a great ranger tour, that was very informative about the history of the statue and we took some pictures.





It was time to head to Ellis Island. We didn't see a lot on the island as time was short and we were getting hungry, but it was great to see the place where so many people came to become Americans.





Our last ferry ride lead to our first subway ride in New York. After getting assistance from a very helpful MTA employee, we took the subway to 42nd Street right in the middle of Time Square. Being hungry our first priority was food. We were in search for authentic New York pizza. Our hopes were raised when we saw a pizza sign, but were quickly smashed as it was a Sbarros pizza chain. The search continued until we found Ray's Pizza. We walked into an authentic NY pizza place, complete with cranky customer service and amazing pizza. We enjoyed our slices of pizza and then it was back out to time square.





After taking in the amazing ambience of flashing screens, huge crowds and buying our share of souvenirs it was down to the subway again to find a route to Harlem. In our research for a jazz experience for Kaleb we came across a jazz concert in Harlem that was free of charge,we just had to get there by 7. We did the best we could but didn't make it by 7, we were running late. To make matters worse, when we came out of the subway it was POURING down rain. We waited for the worst to clear and then made our way up the three blocks to the concert. We were worried because we never heard any music even as we got close to the park. When we finally found the right place we found that the music we delayed because of the rain. Someone was looking out for us. :) It was a ways out of the way to get there but worth it as the concert was great music and Kaleb really enjoyed it. It was then time to get back on the subway. We had a few things we wanted to see still. The subway workers were great every time we asked for help they would get us where we needed to go. We got on the subway and paid a visit to central park. It was getting dark by now but we still took a short walk in the park. We exited the park and turned south in order to visit the 5th Avenue Apple store. We had a tough time finding it because it was under construction. The glass cube of the entrance was under construction so we didn't get to see it in it's full glory but it was still big and amazing. Mindy almost upgraded her phone just so she could say she got it in NY. In the end waiting for the iPhone 5 seemed the prudent thing to do. We left the store through it cylindrical elevator and continued on to get back to Times Square. The kids saw M&M world when we were there earlier in the day and wanted to pay it a visit. This is where the day got interesting. We started running into things we wanted to see but didn't have time to plan for. First we saw Radio City Music Hall, then we stumbled across 30 Rockefeller Plaza.





This was one of the funniest parts of the day. As soon as Chelsea figured out that we were right outside the Today Show studio, she started freaking out.





Chelsea is usually the last person to leave for school and one of the ways she keeps herself company is by watching the Today show. I teased her about the fact that we had been to literally hundreds of important historical and amazing places and this was the most excited she had been. It was great and a fun moment in the trip. After the excitement died down it was further down the road to reach M&M World. We made our way in and the kids loved it. We looked at all the merchandise and bought some M&M's. Everyone except Ksenia wanted peanut butter M&M's, she had to have pink of course. We paid for our treats and weaved our way through the store to the exit.





We had one task left to do which was find the subway and get to our car. We couldn't remember what time we checked in to the parking garage but we knew it was close to twelve hours since then and there was a huge increase in the cost of the parking at that point. With time ticking by we hustled to the first subway entrance we could find and got on, or tried to. We were all through the gate except Kaleb when we found that Metro card didn't have enough left on it to get him through. We handed some cash through the gate to him and hoped he could figure out how to use the machine to put more fare money on the card. We had nothing to worry about because Kaleb looked like a NY native working that machine and before we knew it he was scanning the card and coming through the turnstile. After he was in we got on the subway only to find that we were going the wrong way. We got off and changed platforms and got on the correct train. Luckily this was a free transfer. We got back to the parking garage and started literally running to the car just in case we were close to our 12 hour limit. When we found the ticket we checked it to find we still had one more hour before we were over 12 hours. My first feelings were relief and the surprise that we saw so much NYin so little time. It was great to have a real positive experience in NY. It turned out to be one of our favorite spots.

The next morning we got up and headed to the beach. We decided to go to Jones Beach on South Long Island. It was great. The weather was perfect and we can all say we've gotten our feet wet in both the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. Kaleb, Chelsea and I did much more than that though. We got all the way in and even did a little body surfing although the waves we very small. When returning to shore we relized that there were shells everywhere. We couldn't believe how many there were. We started collecting and had a blast seeing how many big, pretty, or unusual shells we could find. We found quite a bit but we were starting to get a little sunburned so it was back to camp to shower, pack up and head to Boston.






The one thing that really struck me about Boston was how much I felt like I was in Portland. The weather is very similar to Oregon in the summer. Today was 80 degrees and sunny. Downtown wasn't crazy and hectic like NY and not disgusting like New Orleans. I would say the biggest difference is the massive amounts of historical sites that Boston has. We took a tour of the Freedom Trail.











Our guide was the famous patriot James Otis. He was famous for speaking out for colonists rights against what we refer to as illegal search and seizure today. We saw several sites like the Old North Church, Boston Commons, the site of the Boston Massacre and much more. The tour guide was great but after we were done with the tour we had a very important sight to see, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part II. After a lot of searching we found a Regal Cinema pretty close to our campsite showing the movie. We loved the movie but it was a little sad to see such a huge series of books and movies come to an end. Fun day in Boston. Tomorrow it is off to Niagra Falls. Can't wait to see the waterfall.

Location:New York/Boston