#teamtourist, pt. 5: Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and a brief stop in Rural Pennsylvania

It was our last full day in New York, and I have to say... I think we ended on a good note. We hopped on a PATH train back to the Financial District, and ventured off to find the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, stopping at Battery Park briefly before we walked along the water to the ferry line.





We grabbed a snack from a food cart, bought our tickets, and hopped on the ferry, and we were Statue of Liberty bound. It was a good experience, I think, but I thought Ellis Island was a lot more interesting. But we were good tourists and took all of it in.





After walking around the statue a bit, we got back on the ferry to Ellis Island to check out a landmark for immigration in the United States. It was all really compelling, and I think we spent about three hours at the museum.

When we decided we'd had our fill of history for the day, we got on the ferry and headed back to the Financial District. We found an amazing pizza place, had dinner, and set out again for the next par of our evening. We found a table in the park near New York City Hall, and played Phase Ten for an hour or two.





We ended our night at an Irish pub for a drink before retreating back to New Jersey. It was a fun night and a great way to conclude our time in New York City.

The next morning we checked out of the Howard Johnson and began our 11 hour trek back to Michigan. It took like nine hours to get through Pennsylvania, but we made it a bit more worth the while when we stopped at Big Pocono State Park to see some nature in rural Pennsylvania. We weren't totally sure what to expect from this park (we just kind of got the idea from the internet), but were pleasantly surprised when we found ourselves at the top of a mountain!







We made it back to Michigan in one piece, and I'm sure we were all glad to sleep in our own beds after a week of being on vacation. I had an amazing time with some of my best and oldest friends--it was an excellent way to end my summer. I realized that, although I enjoyed New York, I'm not much of a city person. It was fun to visit, but I know that deep down, I'm a country or suburb kind of guy at heart. And I kind of like it that way.

#teamtourist, pt. 4: Brooklyn, Ground Zero, Ft. Wadsworth, and the Empire State Building

Sunday was a pretty glum day--we woke up late, got ready late, and headed into the city late... plus it was raining all day. I suppose that after having a successful trip thus far, it was only a matter of time before we had an off sort of day. But we proceeded, this time with Brooklyn as our destination. We had every intention of going to the Brooklyn Brewery, but due to the trains being delayed by the rain, we didn't make it to Brooklyn until after it had closed. We walked across the street to a vintage clothing store and browsed around for a bit, but left empty-handed to find a bar, and walked into Soft Spot when we saw they had 2-for-1 wells as their special for the evening. We hung around there for a few hours and then decided to go head back to Newark to plan the next few days.

On Monday we took the PATH train to the financial district to check out the World Trade Center area and Ground Zero. It was under construction for the 10th anniversary memorial to open a month later, so there wasn't much to see other than the preview site down the road. It was really crazy following the timeline of how everything happened on that day 10 years ago--and it's really admirable how New Yorkers got through it as well.







Just down the road from Ground Zero is Wall Street, so we decided to walk past the New York Stock Exchange and take in the craziness of the financial district.





We walked down to the water to talk about what we wanted to do for the rest of our trip. As most people would know or guess, New York City is not a cheap trip... so we decided to cut our trip short and leave on Wednesday rather than Friday. We decided that there were two things we had to do while we were still on vacation: go to the Empire State Building at night, and visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The evening was supposed to be clear, so we'd hit the Empire State Building Monday night, and do the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on Tuesday afternoon. In the meantime, though, we thought we'd hop on the free ferry to Staten Island and check out what it had to offer.

We hopped on a bus to go to Fort Wadsworth and take in some history in an otherwise fairly suburban part of New York. We had some trouble finding the fort itself, until we walked out onto the beach and ran into a local who guided us in the right direction.











It was getting late, so we began our venture to mid Manhattan and then to the Empire State Building. I don't have a whole lot to say about the Empire State Building aside from the line was long (but it moved quickly!), and the view was really incredible. It was cold, but it after a pretty hot week in New York I didn't totally mind.







Next: Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and a bit of rural Pennsylvania.