New York City

A tour of the US isn't complete without a stop in New York City, even though we took the kids there for spring break several years back. This time we stayed for three nights at the Liberty Harbor RV park in New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan.. Check out the view of the Statue of Liberty from our site (OK, it was taken with a telephoto lens, but it is still pretty cool). We also have a great view of Manhattan from the dock about 100 yards down the hill. The downside is the closely packed accommodations, even tighter than Fishing Bridge in Yellowstone -- we could literally touch four other RVs from our narrow gravel campsite. Luckily most of the campers were from Canada, and since Monday was their Thanksgiving, they were all in a partying mood (we got free subway tickets and multiple drink offers!).

Here is Teressa's journal entry for our visit to the Big Apple: Gary and I ventured out to find the Home Depot up the street. It was the weirdest Home Depot I have ever seen. Because there is so much city around it, you have to drive off the main road on the left side to a ramp that enters a parking garage. If you miss it, you go through the Holland tunnel into NYC. We made it but had no time to think about whether our truck with BIKES STILL ON TOP would make it into the garage. We feel extremely fortunate that this Home Depot parking garage was apparently built to accommodate trucks or we might have had some unwanted air conditioning in our truck.

It was sunny and high 60’s this morning when we hopped the ferry from Jersey City to Wall Street. Gary has a keen sense of direction or a 6th sense, so he pointed his nose in the air and led us right to a public building where we could have coffee and hot chocolate and plan our morning. With the volatility of Wall Street lately, we wanted to check out the New York Stock Exchange. They will no longer let the public through their doors, but it was fun to watch the stock prices on the ticker tape and to see all the news crews and cameras set up out front. New York City’s finest are fully employed in that part of town too. We laughed when we saw some foreign tourist getting his photo taken with a couple of cops in riot gear garb rather than their usual uniforms.

Next stop was the discount theater ticket booth on John Street. There was quite a line there when we arrived, but it more than doubled in the next 10 minutes. Even with that, we were able to get tickets to our top two picks -- Spamalot and Mama Mia (of those that were available). All tickets were half of the box office price which was a darn good deal.

At that point, it was time for lunch, and we had a heck of a time getting to Little Italy. At the subway station, we bought our tickets and attempted to find the trains. However, after I ran my ticket through the activation machine, I attempted to walk through the turn style but grabbed it in the wrong place and ultimately locked myself on the wrong side of the entrance gate. I attempted to run the card again, but it is programmed not to allow you to do it again for a period of time to keep people from passing them off to their friends. Sheesh! So I had to go buy another ticket and finally made it to the other side. We headed to the trains and ours left just as I was coming down the stairs. Thank goodness the others hadn’t jumped on the train because I wouldn’t have made it. Then Gary yelled at me and I yelled at him and we all yelled at each other until the next train came which, unbeknown to us, was an express train. Therefore, we could not get off in a stop or two and ended up way beyond the Italian area. Eventually, of course, we did get there after a walk through Chinatown in which I was frequently accosted by street vendors thinking I needed a new handbag. I vowed that I would not return to NY looking like a tourist.

Ah, the Italian section! We selected Ristorante Da Nico for lunch because they had a garden/patio area where we could eat our pasta. Gary ordered their chicken spinach with white sauce pizza. It was good except that the white sauce was very strange…not much flavor. I had rigatoni in a red sauce. The sauce was excellent. Gary and I shared our meals. The kids had fettuccine alfredo and it is hard to not make well…

At that point, we returned to Jersey City for some R&R and to let Rocky out.

Back to New York at 5:30. We took the PATH train from Grove Street station (Jersey City) to 33rd St. in NYC. Changed trains. Took Metro to somewhere around 41st. Our theater was on 44th but Gary had Googled some restaurant sites for Thai food and we walked to a restaurant a few long blocks away. We haven’t had Thai food since Jackson, Wyoming. This little restaurant served Pad Thai similar to our favorite Portland restaurant, Siam. The other food was good too, and it was inexpensive and close to the theater.

We went to see Monty Python’s Spamalot with Clay Aiken. Gary and I didn’t know what to expect. Would the British humor be too dry for our kids or over their heads? Would it be too raunchy? But, it turned out to be very funny with great song and dance routines and wonderful talent. And, it was fun to see one of our American Idol faves on stage. There was some offbeat humor (and some off color humor), but Brian and Laura handled it well and---it was just a lot of fun.

The next day we journeyed back into the city around noon after the kids had completed a couple of hours of homework. We stopped at a cute Mexican restaurant in the theater district for a quick lunch before the play. Mama Mia was excellent, with great Abba music that brought back memories of younger days. After a little souvenir shopping we returned to the RV Park via the subway. There is no place like New York City -- Laura is ready to get a job on Broadway!
Subways back to Jersey City and bed.