NY, NY

Our weekend saga continues...with New York City!

After a quick evening in Philly, We hope back into our giant, black, Ford Expedition and drove up to New York.  A few months back we had bought tickets to tour the Statue of Liberty and climb up to her crown.  We did our major NYC trip last October, but it so happened that our trip fell during the fiscal crisis, which shut down all National Park's.  Statue of Liberty just so happens to be a National Park...luckily we didn't buy our tickets in advance, so we didn't loose anything.  We almost lost out on this trip, with Wanda's car hiccup....but we were able to salvage most of our trip so far.  We only lost a day.  Which isn't so bad considering.

We got up super early to make the 8am ferry out to the Statue.

We only had 1 day (instead of the 2 we had originally planned) so we wanted to make the most of it!

Here is our Lady Liberty.

It was a beautiful day!

 On the Island, looking around before we started our climb up to the crown.

 Climbing up the stairs inside Lady Liberty.

 It was about 500 stairs, which is nothing to us after Europe!

 Lady Liberty's face from inside.

It was interesting to find out that the copper is as only as thick as a penny.  all the infrastructure and scaffolding inside is what gives her strength and stability...I feel an object lesson coming on.

 Here we all are, at the top of her crown. That's her hair above us.

Hunter is here, but he is behind the bar.  Sad we can't see him.

 Matt touching Liberty's hair.

 There's my Hunter.

Somewhere on this move, we lost that jacket.  It was a good jacket!

Anya wanted to touch her hair too.

 Looking down out one of the crown windows.

 We love New York!

 NYC skyline behind us.

After Liberty we took a quick tour of Ellis Island.

 Next, we really wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

My awesome Cousin and her hubby met us about half way across!

Then we went to Grimaldi's for some fabulous NY pizza for lunch.

We went to John's on Bleeker last time we met up with them.  Now we just need to go back and eat at Lombardi's and we will complete the NYC pizza trifecta!

 Here is my awesome Cousin!!

She just graduated from Columbia, she is so great with the kids, we just love her!

We were able to find some delicious ice cream.

 Here is my awesome cousin's husband...my cousin in law I guess.  We just love him to pieces too!  Riding the subway is so much more fun with locals!

 We stopped to see the Manhattan Temple.

It actually has a church building in the basement.  We got to go down and use the restrooms.  It was so cool.

 Our crazy crew, in front of the Temple.

 My cuz and I taking a selfie!

I was wearing Matt's space age sun glasses, because I had left mine in Wanda....in D.C.

 Group Hug!

Saying good bye!

 Love these guys!

 After parting ways with our cousins, we headed down to the Twin towers 9/11 memorial.

 We missed this last time we came to NYC.  I guess we weren't sure where to go, but we found it this time.  I am so glad we made the time to stop by.  It was so heart wrenching and sacred to see. I hope we always remember the sacrifices and courage these people represent, I hope we never forget as a country.

 Here is the one tower, kind of brings tears to my eyes to look at it.

We took the ferry back to New Jersey's Liberty Park, where we had parked our beast.

We were rewarded with this great view of the New York City skyline.

It was a fun day in NYC. 

I wish we could have stayed longer, caught a show or something...but we need to get back to D.C., pick up our vehicles and stuff and start driving West to our new home!

Philadelphia, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell

Philadelphia, PA

We have meant to visit this city the whole time we were in Virginia.  It kept getting put on the back burner and postponed until we were finally out of time!  We had to go and we had to go now!  If you read my previous post, then you know it almost didn't happen.  Luckily, nice rental car people, auto garages, Independence Hall ticketing agents and traffic all worked together to help us get here...

This is what we most wanted to see...

Independence Hall

Where the declaration of Independence was signed, essentially starting our first war as a nation to gain our Independence to become a Nation.  America was born here...and later confirmed on Surrender's field in Yorktown.  It was so neat to see this building and soak up some History.

You have to get tickets early online to see this beautiful Hall.  So I had been a good tourist and done that.  Then everything happened with our car, and we weren't sure if we were going to make it.  If you don't show up 45 min. prior to your reservation, they release your reserved tickets (which are free) to the public.  So, we are in our rental driving from D.C. to Philly and we know we aren't going to make it 45 min. prior to our tour time.  I made some quick calls, talked to some wonderfully understanding park rangers, and they held our tickets for us!  We arrived 30 min. before our tour, grabbed our tickets and amazingly made it to our tour.

This is the main court room inside the Hall.  This building served as a town hall for Philadelphia.  Our forefathers essentially rented out a room to meet in.

I took this picture because of the "Bar" going across the room.  In those days, only the Lawyers were allowed to "pass the Bar" in a court room.  I didn't realize the saying had such literal origins.  Once you took the "Bar" exam, you were given the authority you required to "pass the Bar" and work in a courtroom.  Kinda cool.

 Matt in front of his "Bar" in Independence Hall.

 The main Hall that was rented out for the debate, writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence.

 Now this was a piece of work, that took months of debate and work to put together.  The counsel had actually rented several different rooms from different locations, during the forming process.  This just happened to be the last location the met at and formally signed the documents declaring our Independence.

Green was a very rich color.  It was a hard dye to come by back then.  If you had green in your home, you were considered wealthy.  I love all the green in this hall.

Tidbit....George Washington's family home, Mt. Vernon, has a whole green room.

Not many items in this room are original...but the Sun chair behind the desk in front is the original Sun chair that Mr. Washington sat in during the counsel and signing.

We had a great tour guide.  He was small but mighty.  He was maybe 5'3'', but his voice was very dramatic.  You could tell he enjoyed what he does!

 Finally, the dramatic conclusion...the Declaration is signed!  Our guide pulls up a framed replica with flourish and pauses in silence for effect.

At which point, Jack calls out loudly " But, where are all the Weapons?  I want to see the weapons.".

Nice, Jack, Nice.

It was a great tour though.

Next we head across the street to see the Liberty Bell

 Playing on the lawn, while waiting in line to see the bell.

I love seeing Independence Hall in the background.

We owe much to our brave forefathers who had the courage to go against the crown for what they believed in.

 The Liberty Bell, with the tower she once hung in, in the background.

 We also walked past Benjamin Franklin's gravestone.

It seems that I keep finding out new things about this great man.  Things that created this great nation.

He definitely was rare and unique gem.

Of course, what's Philadelphia with out a Philly cheesesteak sandwich.

Of course, we did the tourist thing!  You know us!

There are 2 cheesesteak places that constantly compete for the title of best sammy in Philly.  They are kitty corner from each other.  So we went to both!  We got a cheesesteak from Pat's and one from Geno's.  Then we all tried both.  We thought Geno's was the best.

Our great migration to the mid-west begins....and we discover sweet and simple blessings.

This is a long post, but I wanted this experience documented for my family, so skip or enjoy...your choice.

We packed up, locked up, and left our little house in Virginia to head towards the West, our new place of residence.  Friday night we were just planning to drive to D.C. which was less then a couple hours away.  Our plan was to spend the night in D.C., then spend Saturday in Philadelphia, Sunday in New York City, then on Monday start driving towards Colorado.  We had been very good with this move, planned out all our stops and even made advance hotel reservations at all our stops.  How does that saying go..."the best laid plans...".  Friday night, when we were 5 minutest from our hotel...my trusty car, Wanda the traveling Honda, called it quits at a stop light.  Just like that!  No warning! boom.  We thought it was the transmission, but weren't sure.  I could see all our awesome plans for the weekend (Independence Hall, Statue of Liberty, NYC, Mount Rushmore) slipping away into a pit of waiting for our car to be repaired.  We were so, extremely, sad.

Of course, this all had to happen on the weekend we were moving...and it couldn't have happened weeks before when we had time to spare to do something about it.  Isn't that how it always goes...your car picks the most "convenient" time to call it quits?  Bright and early Saturday morning, Matt started making some phone calls.  He got hold of an Aamco garage that took pity on us and was willing to look at our car first thing.  We got it over there, they looked at it...and yay!  It wasn't the costly repair of replacing a transmission.  It was a couple of sensors and the connecting arms that needed to be replaced...still a chunk of change, but not nearly as expensive as a new transmission.  Blessing number 1.  Well the parts had to be ordered and the garage was closed on Sunday (rightly so), so that meant our car had no hope of being fixed until Monday.  Now during all this we had decided to do a partial "do it yourself" move.  We had about 1000 pounds of our belongings packed between my car and Matt's truck...with barely enough room left for humanity to sit.  4 kids were with me, and 1 kid was with Matt.  There was no way we could off load enough stuff so we could all fit in Matt's truck.  Problem #1. Next, we only had our hotel in DC for Friday night.  Our next hotel was up in Newark.  Problem #2.  As we are talking about this at the garage, we look up and see a rental car agency across the parking lot. Angels sing, blessing #2.  We decided to see if they had a rental car big enough for our family, so we could still head up to Philadelphia, NYC, then we would have to back track back down to D.C., pick up our car and try to make our next hotel Monday night in Ohio.  As we are standing in line, we over hear them renting out their last mini-van.  Devastation starts to sink in...but we are still holding on to a sliver of hope and a prayer.  We had already invested a lot of money into this weekend, and we didn't want it to go to waste.  We talk to the agent, and he has 1 last vehicle that would work for us.  A big, black, full size SUV.  He can rent it to us cheap...for the whole weekend he gave it to us for the price of 1 day.  He was so awesome!  Blessing #3.   So we start to try to salvage our weekend plans.  The biggest time crunch we are facing was our Independence hall tickets.  We had 3 hours to get there 1 hour before our tour.  We rush to the hotel, pack up, rearrange Matt's truck and long-term park it, load up kids and hit the road.  Through the amazing kindness of a Park Ranger, our tickets were waiting for us and we made it to Independence Hall without a minute to spare, Blessing #4.  We were able to spend a lovely evening with my Sister-in-laws wonderful parents.  Blessing #5. And we made it to our fun in New York City, when we thought for sure just the day before that we wouldn't!  Blessing #6.  Our final blessing, because all good things come in 7's, right?  Monday we drive back to D.C...now naive me, I thought that the garage would get parts and start working right away.  After the 4 hour drive to D.C. we would be able to pick up our fixed car and drive off into the afternoon, right?  Not!  We get to D.C. about 1pm, after many phone conversations with the garage, and find they haven't even started on our car. Yikes!  Our hotel is in Cleveland Ohio....we didn't have any place to stay in D.C.  Ok that's not true...we have some very dear friends in the area, and we were so close to calling them up and begging for a room!  At 2pm they finally start on  our car, with no promises that it would be done.  We set ourselves a time limit.  We figured as long as the car was done by 5pm, we could make it to our hotel in Ohio in a reasonable amount of time.  If it wasn't done by 5pm...then we would cancel our hotel and call our friends and redo our routes and stops.  BLESSING # 7!  With not a minute to spare, I mean, Matt was literally online about to cancel our hotel, when the garage called and said our car was done.  We checked out the work, paid, re-loaded and arranged all our junk and loaded kids and we were on our way by 530pm.  We pulled into Cleveland, OH just after mid-night.  We were back on schedule, headed towards Mount Rushmore, Colorado and our new home!

Through out this experience I learned there is still goodness and kindness in the world.  I don't want to know how many people's cars got bumped at the garage so they could work on ours first.  Kindness.  The park ranger didn't have to bend the rules and hold our tickets in Philadelphia instead of releasing them to the public like their policy states.  Kindness.  Mr. Car rental guy didn't have to give us a screaming good deal on a rental.  Kindness.  Most of all, I can't count the number of people who stopped to check on me, I lost track.  As I was sitting on a small stretch of grass with a little shade, in front of a strip mall next to the garage our car was at, all our luggage, car seats and kids spread out around me.  So many people stopped to see if I was ok.  I am sure they thought I was either homeless (which technically I was) or abandoned.   It is very humbling being at other's mercy (the garage) with no where really to go.  I was very touched during this trip, by the many kind acts that were blessings to our family.

 So exhausted Monday, from waiting for our Wanda to be fixed.

 What we looked like sitting on the curb....

 What we looked liked sitting on the curb...waiting and waiting...

Finally!  Wanda is done, and good as new, we hope!

Wanda and Willy Nissan are ready to blow this joint!