Family Vacation - Part III (New York City)

Wednesday morning, June 15th we left Clearfield, Pennsylvania and made our way to Rutherford, New Jersey. We checked into the Holiday Inn Express and then figured out the best way to get to Manhattan. We took the New Jersey transit, which was a bus, to get into the city. To our surprise it cost us $41 to purchases a round trip pass for each of us to Port Authority. 
To get to the bus stop we had to walk about 200 yards and then cross the street. It was not an impressive view as we walked by some old buildings.

Because of the cost to get to Port Authority, we decided to do as much as we could before heading back to the hotel each day.

 Times Square

Lots of weird people! :) 

Before we left Bakersfield we purchased a NYC pass that gave us access to 80 different tourist spots in the city. Surprisingly, many of the attractions close around 5 or 6pm, as did the Big Red Hop on/off bus. I was hoping it would be as nice as the tour bus we did in DC, but we weren't that lucky. We walked up the pick up location for our city pass tickets and it was 4:55pm. They weren't supposed to close until 5pm, but they told us they were closed. So we had to make the 20 minute walk to the other location. I was a little disappointed in the customer service....to say the least. It's too bad we pre-paid online or I might have asked for my money back.

 Our first stop was the "Top of the Rock" of the Rockerfeller Building.

The view of the Empire State Building. You can also see the One World Trade Center in the far distance, just to the right of the Empire State Building. 

It's the sixth tallest building in the world and stands on the corner of the World Trade Center site.

After getting our fill of the views, we headed down to find some dinner. We ended up eating some Mexican take-out and the kids had Chick-Fil-A. As it began to get dark we walked to the Empire State Building. I was a little surprised by the wait. I think it was about an hour before we took the elevator up.

We left the Empire State Building around 10:00pm and made our way to Port Authority to catch the bus. It's an interesting way of life. I was watching the people on the bus and wondering what their life was life. A lot of people slept, but those who were awake were doing stuff on their phones. I couldn't imagine having to take that bus into the city on a daily basis for work. Ugh.

NYC - Day two
We ate breakfast at the hotel breakfast bar. It's so nice not having to go buy breakfast somewhere! The kids are to their little hearts content for freeeeee.
We make our way to the bus stop and get into the city by 10:30. We pick up our tickets for the Big Red bus and then end up waiting over 30 minutes for the next bus to arrive. We do the downtown loop first, with the intent of getting off to see the 9/11 Memorial.

 Luke and the boys got in line to pick up the tickets, so Wiggy and I enjoyed the water memorial out front. There are two of them out front and each one is in the footprint of the original buildings that collapsed. The names of everyone who died are printed around the outside of it. 
This memorial was by far my favorite stop in NYC. It's really too bad that this memorial even exists and that our country was attacked so violently that day in 2001. This memorial was everything. I learned so much and saw so many things, it was heartbreaking. They had millions of details from the day. You could hear voices of people who spoke about that day. Voice mails from victim's answering machines, from the day of the attack. I finally broke down and started crying when I read the voicemail that a husband left for his wife. He was on board one of the planes that were hijacked. It was just so surreal that people had to go through everything they did. I just don't have all of the words to express how I felt as I was walking through and when we left. Luke felt angry, seeing everything that these terrorists planned and executed. I was a mixture of emotions. Inside they had many time lines, where you can see who/what was involved leading up to the hijackings and attacks.  There was just so many things to see and take in. I think every American should have the opportunity go through this memorial.

 Before you leave the memorial you can leave a message. I thought it was sweet to watch them write their messages thoughtfully.

After leaving the Memorial we walked over to Battery Park to catch the Ferry over to the Statue of Liberty. 

We took the hop on/off tour bus over to Chelsea Market, so we could get some lunch. The bus ride was about 20 minutes. We were exhausted....and passed out quickly.

Chelsea Market is an indoor market with shops and restaurants. We ate an early dinner and then picked up some mini sugared donuts from the Doughnuttery.

After catching the hop on/off bus back to Times Square we decided to call it a day. We walked around a little bit before heading to Port Authority for the bus ride back to Rutherford. 

NYC - Day three (Last Day in NYC)
Friday morning we ate breakfast, checked out of the hotel and packed up the car. We then walked over to the bus stop for our last trip over to NYC. On the bus ride over Bubba was playing a game on his phone and I asked him to put the phone in airplane mode so he wasn't using data. Fast forward 20 minutes, we are unloading off the bus and making our way out to the street. We stop for some macaroons and as we are leaving Bubba realizes he doesn't have his phone. We couldn't get back up the bus, so we tried all of the routes we could, including filing a report in Lost and Found. I was kicking myself for having him put his phone in airplane mode! So...we are down one less phone in our house now. Not a good way to start our last day in the city.

We got on the hop on/off bus and did the uptown loop this time. We drove through Harlem before we got off at Central Park. Our city pass also gave us free bike rentals, so we thought it would be fun to rent bikes and ride around Central Park. 

We had a free four hour rental so we planned to do the entire loop around the park. The difficult part was that traffic was all one way and there were lots of hills. Since Luke couldn't ride Wiggy up the hill, he had to walk the bike. When he walked his bike, I would walk mine too. There were a lot of people walking, running and cycling around the edge of the park. If you wanted to cut across the park on one of the paths, you had to walk the bike too. It just seemed like the ride took much longer than expected.
About 3/4 into the ride we decided to stop at the NY Museum of Natural History. That is where they filmed the original "A Night at the Museum" movie. We spent about 90 minutes inside the museum and then headed over to turn our bikes in. It was 5:30pm on a Friday in NYC. Everyone was getting off work and there was a lot of traffic.

We walked about 30 minutes to a restaurant named "Southern Hospitality" that I read about online. It's co-owned by Justin Timberlake ( and several friends) and I thought it would be something to rave about. I got the chicken and waffles. Unfortunately, aside from the fried pickles, the food was nothing to write home about. We thought it was overpriced, but then again, it is New York City. A side or mashed potatoes was $7. Ummmm...ok.

We were tired. Really tired. 
Around 7:30pm we made our way back to Port Authority and waited about 45 minutes for a bus back to Rutherford. That evening there was also a big soccer match at the Met Stadium, which was only half a mile from our hotel---so a lot of people were heading over that way too. When we arrived at the hotel we loaded up in the car and headed out to our next destination; Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Time to make our way back to Dulles Airport!


Saturday morning....we are ready to make our way south to Washington DC, for the flight home. We leave the hotel later than planned. Luke takes the kids down to the hotel pool while I packed up and shower. We thought we would have time to stop in Philadelphia, but that doesn't work out. We stop for a late breakfast at Cracker Barrel near the border of Maryland/Delaware. We are in bad traffic on our way to Dulles and we get to the airport only a few minutes later than planned. Whew! We drop off the rental car and get on the shuttle to the terminal. 

I know a few kids who are tired of driving in the car.....

 

Our plane is scheduled to depart at 6:30pm. We have time to grab some overpriced dinner real quick before boarding the plane. All of our seats are together and we are flying United home. We didn't board with our group because we were eating dinner and using bathrooms. Luke got there just in time because the agent was getting ready to give our seats away as he walked up. I was kind of annoyed since we were already checked in. Luckily, we got there at just the right time.

We had a quick stop in Houston before we landed at LAX at 11pm. Lucky for us, as soon as we grabbed our bags and walked outside, the LAX Quik Park shuttle was there! It was a miracle. We loaded up and got to our car within five minutes. Hallelujah! 

By the time we got home it was around 2am. These kids were tuckered out!  

My sleep while we were gone. Not enough!! :)