Today we drove into New York City from Florida, NY. It was almost a 2 hour drive on a parkway through several boroughs and townships. We are getting much better dealing with all of the toll roads.
We decided to drive from Florida, south, past New York City, to Staten Island and ride the ferry from Staten Island to Lower Manhattan. Staten Island always has plenty of inexpensive parking and the ferry is free.
The ride on the ferry is nice. The kids loved being outside over the water. This was our first view of the Statue Of Liberty in the bay and farther in the distance, the Manhattan skyline.
We had some specific destinations in mind for New York City. I wanted to see the Apple Store, Mackensie wanted to see Central Park and Times Square. We added going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the going to Rockefeller Center based on recommendations from some friends.
We took the subway from lower Manhattan up to 87th street. We walked over to central park and began wandering our way through the park. It's near lunch time so we find a street vendor and get some hot dogs and drinks for lunch. We find a nice spot on the grass behind the Met and have lunch in Central Park.
After lunch, we headed into the Met. It's huge! But a bit overwhelming. I couldn't work out if there were really any exhibits that the girls would enjoy, so we bailed. In hind site we should have gone in, but it didn't fit well at that point. Oh well, something to save for next time.
We left the Met and began wandering through Central Park. It's Sunday, so there are a lot of people here. And lots of activities going on. Music, vendors and people everywhere. It's very nice. We wandered across the park and found Belvedere Castle, the Turtle Pond, Strawberry Fields, The Mall and lots of other places. We finally wandered our way out near 5th Avenue and the Apple Store.
The line outside the Apple Store went on forever. We were not going to wait to go in. I mostly wanted to see the outside. I thought the line was because of the release of the iPhone, but we heard them asking for people that wanted to buy an iPhone to step out of line. No one was stepping out of line! These people just wanted to go into the store! Crazy!
From the Apple Store we headed down 5th Ave to 50th Street and The Top Of the Rock; Rockefeller Center. We went through the tour and up to the top, 70 stories. What a view! Sam was able to get a few pretty nice panorama shots.
We walked a few more blocks from Rockefeller Center to 42nd Street and Times Square. Busy, busy, busy. Lights and signs everywhere. Fun stores. We found a Bubba Gumps and decided it was time for dinner. We found out from our waiter where the New Years Ball is dropped. That was Mackensie's goal.
After dinner, we went across the street into the Toys-R-Us. What a great store! What fun. Giant toy models, huge Lego sculptures, a whole Barbie area. (Take a look at Kensies face to see how she really feels.)
We finally worked our way out of Toys-R-Us. We hopped on the subway back to downtown and the Staten Island Ferry. We still had to drive back to Florida. It was very late when we got back (part of the reason this blog is so late). We sat in a toll line for over 30 minutes. We never did figure out why.
Tomorrow we are headed back to New York City. This time to see The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
