The Big Apple

Monday, July 9:
Watkins Glen

9 July 2012: The beauty of Watkins Glen

Early Monday morning we set out for 3 days in New York City, leaving Caryl in Canandaigua to spend more time with her mom. Along the way, we stopped at a lovely little site called Watkins Glen.

Trees meet overhead above the narrow gorge.

Last year, while I was scanning thousands of Ed’s family slides into my computer, I was impressed by the great natural beauty in upstate New York and I longed to see it all. Time would not permit that, of course, so I chose one favorite spot to schedule into our visit.

Dylan (white shirt) climbs to a lookout at the top of these stairs. 
Lots of steps to climb in Watkins Glen!

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About an hour into our drive toward NYC (at 8am), we pulled into Watkins Glen, a spectacular gorge carved into the sandstone over Glen Creek.  It’s not huge like the Grand Canyon.  It’s only 1.5 miles long (and believe me, my legs felt every bit of those miles, times 2, since we hiked in and then back out).  But, visually, Watkins Glen is very striking.

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I’m sure you’ll agree after viewing these photos from our almost 3-hour hike!

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9 July 2012: Mary and Ed under one of Watkins Glen’s 7 waterfalls.

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9 July 2012: Dylan checks the water temperature: cool!

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 Ed and Dylan reluctantly wave from the bridge to make Mary happy!

9 July 2012: Mary and Ed pause while hiking Indian Trail out of Watkins Glen.

(Note: Mary is probably one of the few women in the world

who goes hiking with her purse on her shoulder!)

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Still Monday, July 9:

Getting There

Getting close to NYC!

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From Watkins Glen, we traveled on to New York City.  Our route took us through the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, which was covered with more trees than I’d ever seen in one place.  As we drove through the city of Scranton, PA, we hardly saw any buildings from the freeway.  The only signs of the town were an occasional rooftop peeking out between tall treetops.

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Then we drove across New Jersey, which didn’t take very long.  We came to the city of Newark, which looked very much like the stereotype of industry, with mile after mile of factories and smokestacks.

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At long last, just before 5pm, we neared the Hudson River which separates New Jersey from New York City.  I had hoped to drive through the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel, both of which go right under the river, so I was thrilled to see that our route was taking us through the Holland Tunnel.  We were less thrilled when we learned the toll to use the tunnel was $12.00!

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Entering the Holland Tunnel via the toll booths.

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Well, I guess that works out to less than one cent per foot.  From Jersey City/Hoboken to New York City, the Holland Tunnel stretches 1.6 miles beneath the Hudson River.  That’s quite an accomplishment for a tunnel that was completed in 1927!

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It’s a tight squeeze as we enter the tunnel!

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Like everyone else, I’ve seen the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels in countless movies (usually involving speeding cars, flying bullets or missiles, and indestructible spies), but I have to say the reality did not match the image in my mind.  It seemed much smaller and cramped than in the movies.

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 Not quite as portrayed in films…

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Then we came out of the tunnel and there we were, in New York City, in the Financial District on the southwest portion of Manhattan Island.  It was everything we expected: skyscrapers towering over us; bumper-to-bumper traffic; hundreds of pedestrians crossing at intersections blocked by vehicles unable to move forward or backward; yellow cabs everywhere, honking their horns.

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We were amazed that we saw no accidents—not even a fender-bender—during our stay in NYC because the drivers were insane! Cutting each other off, squeezing their vehicles into impossibly small spaces, breaking all the posted traffic laws: I’m sure Ed was terrified someone would scratch or dent his beloved truck!  It took us more than an hour to drive to our hotel in Queens, across the East River and about 6 miles away!

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Ed sits in front of our hotel, the Holiday Inn in Long Island City in Queens. 

(Long Island City is not on Long Island.  Go figure.)

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The prices of hotels in NYC are outrageous.  I did some online research before bidding on a hotel room on priceline.com.  The best deal I could find was a “summer special”: $265 per night, per person!  Groan…  I did pretty well with Priceline, though.  They advertised their lowest successful bids as $151 and $149, but I managed to get 2 nights at Holiday Inn for $148 per night.  That’s respectable under the circumstances, but still an awful lot of money (especially after adding taxes and fees).

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The “Manhattan View” skyline as seen from our room on the 11^th floor.

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The hotel is called Holiday Inn: Manhattan View, and we could indeed see the Manhattan skyline from our window, but it was very far away.  I was okay with that, but the tiny matchbox size of the room was a major disappointment.  In fact, when we asked for a room with 2 beds (a standard request in other hotels), they said it would cost an extra $40 per night.  We declined, and Dylan slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.  Very close quarters!

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This was our tiny little hotel room.  Nice, but not much space.

Loved the shower, though!

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Once we were all checked in, Ed went looking for a parking garage.  It turned out that our 17-floor hotel had exactly 12 parking spaces, first come first served.  He found a nearby garage for $20 per night, but the truck had to be left there until morning.  The next morning, Ed got up early to stand in line for one of the hotel’s 12 parking spaces.  Luckily, he managed to get the permit for space #12, but it cost him another $22!

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Meanwhile, for our first day in NYC, the evening was getting late, we hadn’t had dinner yet, and our truck was locked in a parking garage.  So we set out on foot into the streets of Queens, looking for food.

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It was like walking onto the set of a TV show set in Queens.  The houses all had tall stoops (no yards, just sidewalks) and nearly every house/apartment building had people hanging around outside.  I’ve never heard so many languages spoken in just a few blocks.  A few of the languages I couldn’t even identify.  Some people smiled, most ignored us, and a few looked like stereotypical ruffians.  I admit to feeling a bit intimidated and being very glad my big, strong husband was at my side!

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We tried a corner deli first, but it was just plain creepy.  A few blocks further down we came across a teeny-tiny Chinese restaurant that seemed clean, and the pretty oriental girl behind the counter was friendly.  The food turned out to be reasonably priced and extremely delicious.  It proved to be our last inexpensive experience in NYC.  (We couldn’t feed the 3 of us for less than $50 at any meal.)

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Tuesday, July 10:

Subway Adventure

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Clearly, driving around New York City in our big Dodge Ram pickup was out of the question.  After talking to our hotel’s desk clerk, it seemed obvious that taking the subway everywhere as the natives do was the only sensible choice.

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As it turned out, we kind of enjoyed the subway.  I can imagine it might be scary at night when there are few riders (again, as in many of the thrillers I enjoy watching on TV), but during the day the subway cars are packed with busy people, bustling in and out of the doors at each stop.

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Waiting for our train…

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It seems like a fairly efficient system, although some stops were as much as half a mile away from our destinations.  I learned that New Yorkers overall are quite fit, because they walk everywhere!  Ed and I were often huffing and puffing by the time we got where we were going.  The cost was bearable.  For $2.05 per person, we could ride any train to any destination as long as we didn’t exit via the turnstiles.  Once you exited, you paid another $2.05 to get back on.  I guess it wouldn't be too different from the cost of owning and operating a car.

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10 July 2012: Dylan (age 15) rides the New York subway.

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Another stereotype that seemed to be mostly true: New Yorkers in general are not that open or talkative to strangers.  (Having friends from New York, I know firsthand that with friends they are very chatty!)  If we needed to ask directions, we got helpful and concise answers that stopped just short of friendly.  On the subway, all these people sat side by side in silence until they reached their stop, even those with children.

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10 July 2012: Ed and Mary on the subway.

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My husband, on the other hand, is quite outgoing.  He spoke to everyone we met.  When we ran across fellow tourists, we had some great conversations.  We found out we were somewhat lucky in our hotel parking.  One woman from Indiana told us her hotel in Manhattan charged $56 per night for parking!

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Where we exited the subway across the street from the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

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Our first order of business was to see the Statue of Liberty.  The boat ride to Liberty Island and Ellis Island cost $17 per person, but we decided we didn’t need to actually set foot on the islands to see the sights.  Besides, you can’t even go up into the statue’s crown because it’s being renovated.  Instead, we could ride the Staten Island Ferry to New Jersey for free, which passes fairly closely to both islands.

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The NYC Staten Island Ferry terminal from which our ferry departed,

on the very southern tip of Manhattan Island.

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Ellis Island, where once upon a time hundreds of thousands of immigrants

first set foot on US soil, as seen from the ferry.

Even from a distance, the Statue of Liberty was awe-inspiring. What a magnificent gift she was to our country!

 The Statue of Liberty as seen from the top deck of the Staten Island Ferry.

 On our way back to NYC, we decided we needed to be in the picture to prove we were really there!

Here is Mary with Lady Liberty…

…and here is Dylan posing with Lady Liberty.

When the ferry arrives in St. George on Staten Island in New Jersey, all passengers are required to disembark.  As long as we were there, we decided to hoof it into the town of St. George to have lunch. 

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Another, identical ferry docked next to ours at the New Jersey terminal.

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We found a cute little restaurant and enjoyed a nice meal there.  For dessert I wanted to try some authentic New York cheesecake, but I guess I should have known I wouldn’t find it in New Jersey.  It wasn’t very good.

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Ed sneaks a bite of Dylan’s cake while Dylan takes our picture at the restaurant in New Jersey.

Once we returned to NYC, we got back on the subway and made our way to the new memorial at Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by planes commandeered by terrorists on 9/11/2001.  The tickets were free, but Ed and Dylan had to hike almost a mile to get them for us.  Then we had to pass through 5 checkpoints before being admitted into the memorial.

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The memorial is still a work in progress.  Several new, towering buildings and a museum are being constructed around the site.  They will be striking when completed, but at this point I didn’t feel the memorial was very inspiring.  However, the two pools which stand where the two towers once stood did evoke very strong emotions. 

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One of the huge pools at the Twin Towers Memorial.

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All around the pool, the names of those who were killed are etched into the sides.  Water pours majestically in from the sides and rolls across the bottom to a large, dark, square hole in the center of the fountain.  It’s like all that lovely sparkling water is being dragged into a black hole.  It caused me to feel as if all were lost, as if hope were being sucked from this world into some dark, dreary hole.

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The sensation was quite effective, but I wish the designers had instead chosen to celebrate the lives of these people rather than focus on the senselessness of their deaths.

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It was a heavy, sad feeling.

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This recovered wallet and ring were displayed in the gift shop at the end of the tour. 

Beneath the display was this story:

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“Robert Gschaar (1946-2001) presented a $2 bill to Myrta Alvarado when he asked her to marry him.  Describing their romance as a second chance for two people who had been married before, he placed a second symbolic $2 bill in his own wallet.  On September 11, 2001, Robert was on the 92^nd floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center where he had recently begun a new job…  He spoke with Myrta on the telephone after the first plane hit and said he was evacuating and would call her back later.  She never heard from him again.  When notified that Robert’s wallet had been found, Myrta felt the $2 bill inside yielded the proof she needed to accept her husband’s death.”

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It seems so odd that an entire wallet remained intact (along with papers inside it) when more than a thousand bodies, clothing, jewelry, and other items seemed to disintegrate to nothingness during this catastrophe.  

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The jumble of street signs at the intersection near the Manhattan Temple.

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Next on our agenda was locating the LDS Manhattan Temple.  We had hoped to attend a session at the temple in the evening, but by the time we figured out where the closest stop to the temple was located (5 blocks away) and then made our way on foot through the maze of streets to find the right building, it was too late to ride the subway all the way back to the hotel, change clothes, and return to the temple in time.

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When Ed saw the Angel Moroni high above us in the distance,

we finally knew we were on the right path!

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We did get to go inside, though.  It was an unusual experience.  First of all, just inside the front door there was a uniformed guard at a security desk!  On one side of the guard was the entrance to the temple, which is actually located on the upper floors of the building.  On the guard’s other side were entrances to the second floor (public relations office) and the third floor (meetinghouse).

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View of the Manhattan Temple from the street.

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That’s right.  The third floor of the Manhattan Temple is a chapel where 3 wards hold their meetings!  We met a few people who were members of those wards, and Dylan and I rode the elevator up to the meetinghouse to use the restroom there.  Even though it was on the third floor, nestled just below the floors housing the temple, it looked pretty much like every other LDS building I’ve ever seen.

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Entrance to the LDS Manhattan Temple.

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I found it interesting that the members of those wards do not drive to their church meetings as we do.  There is no parking available.  Instead, they ride the subway and then walk the remaining 5 blocks to the temple/meetinghouse.  It’s a completely different lifestyle.

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LDS meetinghouse located on the 3^rd floor inside the Manhattan Temple.

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By this time we were exhausted and opted to return to our hotel.  We’d had about as much walking as we could handle for one day.  Ed returned to the creepy deli and brought back some surprisingly good deli meats and bread so we could make sandwiches for dinner.  We ate in our hotel room, watched some TV, and went to bed.

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Dylan, Mary, and Ed ended up in Columbus Circle during their search for the temple.

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Given our time constraints, our unfamiliarity with the subway system causing us to miss our stops, and our overall state of unfitness slowing us down, we missed out on several sites I’d hoped to see during this trip.  We didn’t get to visit Times Square, Central Park, the Washington Arch, China Town, or several other places I’d longed to see.  On the other hand, during our rambling we came across other things we’d have missed otherwise (like the Center for the Performing Arts, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and the Church of St. Paul the Apostle).  I doubt there will ever be a “next time,” but if there is, we will do it quite differently.

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 Sculpted businessman seated by a fountain.

Cute artwork on a NYC sidewalk.

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Our recommendation for those visiting New York City: get a hotel in New Jersey, where it’s cheaper and there’s plenty of parking.  Then ride the Staten Island Ferry (it’s free) to NYC and use the subway to get around!

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Wednesday, July 11:

Coney Island on the Atlantic

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One place I really wanted to visit before we left was the Atlantic Ocean.  I love the ocean.  I grew up in California, so the Pacific is quite familiar to me, but I’d never seen the Atlantic.

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So we checked out of our hotel early and made the very long drive south to Coney Island in Brooklyn.  It’s not that the distance is long, but the traffic is so congested and the streets are so circuitous, it simply takes forever to drive a short distance.  In this case, it took us more than 2 hours for a trip that would have taken less than 30 minutes by car anywhere else.

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We found out firsthand that Brooklynites are every bit as outspoken as they are reputed to be!  While we were trying to find the beach, we came to a long line of cars waiting to turn right at the light.  The line was so long, we couldn’t get to the end of it from where we were sitting. 

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For some reason, the first car ahead of them was not moving, even though he’d had a couple of green lights already.  We thought maybe he was broken down.  When a car pulled out of the line, Ed pulled forward and took his place in the line. 

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Almost immediately, we heard a door slam behind us and a burly, 50ish guy strode forward and knocked on my window.  I rolled it down.  “You cut the line,” he bellowed.  “You gotta wait your turn, you don’t cut the line!”  Then a guy from the car in front of us got out and came back to join him.  “You don’t cut the line.  We don’t cut people off here.  Go to the back of the line!”

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By this time it was clear the first car at the light wasn’t moving anyway, so Ed said, “Sorry, guys,” and we pulled out of the line.  Then we made a right turn in front of the stalled guy, cutting off everyone!  Ed felt it was poetic justice, because from what we’d seen of New Yorkers’ driving, everyone cuts off everyone else all the time.

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It was 11:30 when we finally found a place to park near the beach in Coney Island (luckily, the city’s parking meters were down, so there was no charge) and we stopped at the first fast food place we found, which happened to be Nathan’s Famous.  It was very good, although I did want to gag at the sight of people eating whole soft-shelled crabs on a bun!

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Eating lunch at Nathan’s Famous: That’s Mary and Ed at the far left table.

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After lunch we walked down to the beach and enjoyed finally seeing the Atlantic Ocean.  It was beautiful.  It wasn’t too crowded, either.  We noticed the crowds really started to arrive as we were leaving around 1pm.  That’s also when the amusement park rides on the beach began to operate.  

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The Boardwalk at Coney Island.

Views of the beach at Coney Island.

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I couldn’t convince either my husband or my son to kick off their shoes, roll up their pants, and wade in the Atlantic with me.  So I did it myself.  It felt so good!  I walked up and down a small portion of the beach, collecting pieces of shells to take home to my friends and family.

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 11 July 2012: Mary wets her feet in the Atlantic Ocean. 

(Ed didn’t understand I wanted a picture of my feet in the water!)

Dylan considers riding a roller coaster.

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We stopped by the amusement park, where Dylan considered riding a roller coaster before rejecting the idea, and then we purchased souvenir tee-shirts in a beach shop.  By then, we were all feeling ready to head back to the trailer in Canandaigua, so we got back on the road.  From here on, our travels would all be southwestward toward home.

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Approaching the New Jersey Bridge as we head back to upstate New York.