Big City Break: NYC

 

“I’m gonna know what it means to live and not just be alive” 

-MercyMe

One week after visiting our nation’s capital, we decided to take a tour of New York City! In an attempt to somewhat plan ahead for the trip, I had to first figure out where we would park the rig. There really aren’t many RV park options anywhere close to Manhattan, unless you want to pay fancier hotel prices for a parking lot stay and follow very specific route instructions in order to avoid the countless “no-go” areas for trucks and RVs. I knew I didn’t want to chance any of it, and since our rig is so big, it was best to stay as far away as we could from the city and all the urban mess of vehicle size restrictions, stop-and-go traffic, and the like. I knew we also didn’t want to drive our beastly F-350 in the city and try to find overpriced parking when we’re too tall for many garages and stick out like a sore thumb in regular lots, so I researched the local transit systems, figured out where the train stations were, and planned accordingly. We ended up staying out in the tri-state area, where PA, NJ and NY come together, recognizing that our tour day would begin early and end late with a lengthy commute to the city. 

Day of, we indeed rose early and drove nearly an hour to a train station with cheap parking in the NJ transit system. We rode the train for almost another hour to Secaucus Junction, where we jumped off and switched tracks which took us one stop straight to Penn station in downtown Manhattan. Our goal after that was to go straight to the closest Big Bus Tour stop a few blocks away, since we had sprung for the hop-on hop-off bus as our primary mode of transportation around the city. 

The first building we saw and instantly recognized upon exiting the station was the Empire State Building. We tried not to let ourselves stare skyward for too long at a time with 4 littles to keep an eye on and all, but we instantly knew that it was going to be a full and fun day! 

We got on the big red bus heading in a clockwise loop around the city from there, enjoying the views from the open-top double-decker bus. It was hard to choose where to get off, and after passing up the Brooklyn Bridge and the Financial District, we opted to exit at Battery Park. We walked down to the view point at the edge of the island, thinking we were going to take the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty. However, after being bombarded with a thousand cruise and ferry offers, and speaking with several tourist trap “experts,” we decided to forego seeing Lady Liberty up close this time around. We could see her off in the distance from the viewpoint, and it was clear that we just didn’t have the extra time to spare if we wanted to make the most out of our day on the Big Bus. We have no doubt we’ll get to visit the city again, and next time we’ll know to plan in extra time to visit Liberty Island. 

We backtracked from there, stopping at the famous Charging Bull for pics before seeing Wall Street and the NYSE building. Realizing the wait for the bus would be longer than expected and we weren’t too far away from the World Trade Center, we chose to hoof it a few more blocks. The 9/11 Memorial was beautiful and sobering. It was tough to imagine what that must have been like to witness on the day the towers fell. The new One World Trade Center building is an elegant architectural wonder, and we took time to soak it all in while letting the kids play around the animal statues outside the World Trade Center Oculus.

Done with our sightseeing in the lower end of the city, we jumped back on the bus and rode it up past Hudson Yard, spotting the easily recognizable Little Island on the way, as well as the USS Intrepid. We completed the red loop portion of the bus tour, then stopped for lunch near Carnegie Hall (which was under construction). We enjoyed some authentic New York pizza, then caught the next bus on the blue loop around upper Manhattan. It took us first past Times Square and the Chrysler building, then up near the Guggenheim Museum and adjacent to Central Park, past the MET, around Columbus Circle and back again. Our feet appreciated the break, but it was back to business once we finished the loop. Our bus tickets included a discount on bike rentals, which just happens to be Justin’s favorite way to get around. So we got enough bikes and attachments for everyone and set out to ride around Central Park for the next hour or two. 

“Slow” and “leisurely” are not possible paces when riding with Justin, so we blazed past all the horse-drawn carriages, the Zoo, various statues, and other points of interest that I might have otherwise taken the time to stop and view. We didn’t end up visiting any of the playgrounds either, which the kids would have loved, but we did pull over to see Belvedere Castle and the Shakespeare In the Park Amphitheater. It was okay. The Park itself was overgrown and smelled bad, which kind of dashed our previously-held ideas about it, but overall the city wasn’t as overcrowded or dingy as I thought it would be. Central Park just wasn’t a highlight!

We also had tickets for Butterbeer ice cream from the Harry Potter store, which happened to be all the way back down near Koreatown where we started our bus journey. We knew we didn’t have time to take a whole other bus loop around to get it, so we rode the bikes there - again at race speed - through the city. The store itself was cool, especially if you’re a HP fan, and the ice cream was a tasty treat before we had to rush back to return the bikes on time. We rode over 16 miles in all!

As the sun was setting, we had something like 17 city blocks to walk back to the train station, but it was broken up by a stop in the gift shop for souvenir t-shirts and more sightseeing in Times Square. The song “Empire State of Mind” by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z was blasted on repeat (also on the blog video) and we stopped to watch a group of street performers dance and flip around. Dezi posed for pics with Spiderman and Deadpool on our way out (it was his birthday the next day, so we were celebrating him as well), and we saw Madison Square Garden before running into a sweet couple in the train station and having a great conversation. We boarded the train for the long trip back to our truck, and eventually, the rig. It was a great day!