Day 42, Nov 11th

Today was our first trip in downtown New York City. The drive by car would have taken us about 1 hour but then we would have to fight the traffic and pay upwards of $50 to park. With this we decided to take the train. This was an experience in itself.

We drove the car to a train station about 20 minutes away. Upon arrival, we learned the the train track had been washed out and that we would have to take a shuttle bus to the next station. Once there, we took a New Jersey Transit Amtrak Train to the Hoboken Station. There we took a New York Path Train to Penn Station in downtown Manhattan. This way was the easy part. More on this later.

After walking around downtown, we decided to take the subway to Battery Park and catch a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It sounded soooo easy. Well let me tell you, trying to find our way to Battery Park was a nightmare. There is at least 8 tracks at Penn Station that has trains, light rail & subway cars going every which direction. Looking at the subway map was like trying to decipher Egypt Hieroglyphs. After about 45 minutes of racking our brains and asking everyone for an answer, we found our way to Battery Park.

We jumped on the ferry and took it to Liberty Island. Once off the ferry, we walked around the island and up to the statue. This is my first trip here and I was in awe at the size of the statue. It is massive and beautiful. If you ever get a chance to visit this area you have to see the statue.

We then took the ferry to Ellis Island. 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island on their way to a new life in the US. We were able to walk the path that the new immigrants took through the building and the process of immigration. There were a large amount of artifacts we were able to see on our tour of the island.

Once we took the ferry back to Manhattan, we just needed to catch the subway and the train back to Florida, NY and our Kevin (motorhome). It sounds a lot easier than it was. I think it took us an hour or so just to find the correct subway car to the train station. When it was all said and done, it took us about 3 hours to get back. Next time we will study all the transportation in NY and have our route figured out before we leave.

This is a photo from the base of the statue. This is as close as I could get as the tickets were sold out to go into the statue. They are sold out about 6 months out. The top of the statue is over 300' high. Standing at the base you get a feel for just how big it is.

Here is a zoom in of the top of the statue. It is amazing that the body of the statue is made out of copper that is about as thick as two Penny's. How they made all of those wrinkles in the rob is amazing.

This was the art work that sat between the two World Trade Center Towers before they fell. This is just how it looked after they salvaged it from the wreckage.
This is the Chopper that OCC Choppers built from scraps of copper left from the restoration of the statue. This bike is amazing, every part has been plated with copper (well except the tires).