Our Road Trips

7/21/2015

7/15/2015

We broke camp early for the drive to Liberty Harbor RV Park, about 4 hours of fairly intense driving. We purposely took a route to avoid I-95 through Connecticut and New York, opting to stay north on I-84 through Hartford and into New York, across the Hudson at the Tappan-Zee bridge and south through NJ on I-287 & 24 to I-78 which almost dead ends at the campground in Jersey City, NJ. There are a couple of tolls but the traffic is not heavy, so the drive is not bad. We arrived about 1 pm and got set up in our site, ate some lunch and set off for the subway, a walk about 6 blocks north.

We had found a website that helps you plan your route and when & where you change trains. After 3 different trains, we arrived at Citi Field in Flushing, home of the NY Mets, but tonight it is home to the Foo Fighters and the Broken Leg Tour. We met some cruising friends who were tailgating and had a few beers before heading into the stadium. We found our seats but decided to watch from a different place with a better viewing angle. We also met another couple from New Jersey standing in the same area so we had people to talk to and enjoy the concert together. After a warm-up band, FF came on about 845 and played until almost midnight. It was a blast, as expected, 25 songs. They are such great entertainers. The trip back to the camper was a little more exciting, trains had stopped running at midnight, so we had to do some improvising, but made it back about 215 am...long day, but well worth the effort. We both enjoyed the whole experience a lot, do it again in a heartbeat.

7/16/2015

We slept in the next morning and got ready for tonight...drive the car to Sayerville, NJ (about 45 mins) for a Blackberry Smoke concert. Two warm-up bands that were OK started the show and BBS came on about 930 and played until 1145...great set!! Six new songs out of a 21 song set...fun time. We made it back about 2 am, another late night, but worth the trip. The venue was run pretty crappy and the drinks were more pricey than on a cruise ship, but a fun evening anyway.

7/17/2015

We slept in again and spent the afternoon planning the rest of our week, making reservations and buying tickets, etc. We walked back to the subway and took it to Central Park where we took a pre-arranged carriage ride for an hour through Central Park at dusk...pretty time of day in NYC. Our driver was from Turkey, so his accent was hard to understand at times, but Katie (the horse) did a great job pulling us through Central Park. We made it as far north as Strawberry Field and back to 58th St...nice time. Stopping at Strawberry Fields was the highlight...remembering John Lennon.
We stopped at a pub before & after near the subway for some refreshments and then got back on the subway for our ride back to the camper in New Jersey. Nice easy night for a change, got back at 12.

7/18/2015

The next morning we took an early train straight to World Trade Center and a ride to the top of the new Freedom Tower that just opened right next to the former Twin Towers destroyed on 9/11/2001. What a view from up there, we could even see our camper in NJ. We spent an hour and 1/2 walking the 3 levels of the observatory and taking pictures and watching NYC and its people. The cars & people look like ants from up there, but it is definitely worth the time to go up 102 floors, very cool.

Upon returning to earth, we walked next door to the newly opened 911 National Museum, where we had pre-arranged a guided 2 hour tour...very much worth the cost for both the narrative and passing probably 500 people in line. We were led through by a very nice young lady who gave us a very emotional tour through the museum...don't miss this if you make it to NYC...what an amazing place. I told Barb that I thought we could have spent a week in there...incredible amount of artifacts and info on that horrible day and all the folks who lost their lives...very well done. Very enjoyable and sad at the same time. We spent 5 hours and wished we had more time...take a day to see this.

7/19/2015

The next morning, we were off on our way back to the city, this time to the Intrepid Sea & Space Museum at 48th & The Hudson River. This involved 2 train rides and a crosstown bus. Most of the subways run north & south, so a bus is essential to move east & west. Once there, we had signed up for a guided tour and a up close look at Enterprise, the only Space Shuttle to never make it into space. After the tour, we spent a little over 4 hours walking through the Intrepid, an aircraft carrier in service from 1943-1974 and is now the basis of the Sea and Space Museum. It brought back memories of my trip to Honolulu to meet Mark who was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk in 1994 for a Tiger Cruise from Honolulu to San Diego...and also an opportunity to show Barb a little of what that was like. I spent 8 days on the Kitty Hawk and being able to relate that experience to Barb was cool.

We took a cab to Madison Square Garden and found a restaurant across the street to have a few cool ones and something to eat before our next adventure...U2 in concert. We walked over there about 630 and went exploring Madison Square Garden, probably the most famous arena in the world. What a place, and us being there pretty early, there wasn't a lot of people yet, so we walked the entire concourse and checked it all out. They said the show was going to start 'about 8 pm' which turned into 825, which we have grown to expect. They played for a little over 2 hours and put on an amazing show. When we were in Boston, I counted 25 semis to move their stuff and now we understand why...the set is massive and it must take 100s of folks to put the show on. We saw the 2nd of 8 shows at MSG and feel like we saw something we may never see again...very fun night. We made it back at 2 am again, another very long day. but we are getting our money's worth...

7/20/2015

Yesterday, we actually drove the car to see a NYC attraction...Liberty Island State Park in Jersey City, NJ. It is actually only 1/2 mile from our camper, but about 2 miles via the road. We took a ferry to Ellis Island and spent the next 4 hours touring that amazing place. It was closed when we were here in 2013 because of the damage from Hurricane Sandy. We read the whole story about the Sandy incident and the painstaking manner that they preserved all of the records of the millions of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, including at least both of my mom's parents who immigrated from Sweden in and around 1896-1908. It was a very interesting day...lots of info to absorb. This is another place one could spend a lot of time at...most people miss a lot because they don't budget enough time to look for the info. We spent about 45 minutes with Park Ranger Dennis Flake, who gave us a very knowledgeable tour of the day of an immigrant passing through. We then spent about 15 more minutes talking to the same guy later in the day. I also spent about 40 minutes on their computer system attempting to find the records of my grandparents with the assistance of my sister Ann via Facebook & email while I was there. What a fun day!

Then we took a ferry to Liberty Island and a tour which included a pass to the top of the Pedestal. We were able to go right to the bottom of the statue itself, cool place to take some pictures. Then we walked through the museum there and read and saw all the artifacts from both the construction and re-construction of the statue. In the early 80s, when they did the last rehab, I met a guy who was part of the scaffold crew that erected the scaffold to do the work. He had pictures that were very cool, and being in some of those same areas was very neat...very fun trip. We then took the ferry back to New Jersey and walked to our car. We drove to the subway station, found a place to park the car where we thought it wouldn't get towed away and took the train back into NYC. We took another train to Times Square and boarded a open topped bus for an evening tour. So for the next 2 hours, we drove through the streets of Manhattan, took the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn & back and watched NYC go from day to night. The amount of lights that come on at dusk in NYC is incredible, and seeing it is an amazing thing. I'm sure NYC must be plainly visible from space...incredible. We did some walking on 49th St, found Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center where the Tonight Show is taped, stopped and found a real New York pizza, got it to go, and took the subway back to our car. It was still where we left it, so we drove the last 6 blocks instead of that walk. We got back by 12.

We are spending today resting, catching up on this blog, cleaning the camper, doing stuff we haven't taken the time to do while we did all of the above. It has been an amazing week...trust me when I tell you we have had a ball. Tomorrow we head south to Cape May, NJ and take a ferry to Delaware and go to another concert...we have a lot more coming, we hope you stay tuned, we are not done yet.

Steve & Barb Larson