We were busy doing the farm market and cooking and I forgot to take pictures, but the ribs, potato salad, corn on the cob, and still warm fruit pies (we bought those at the farm market and picked them up before dinner) were a great hit.
On Friday we drove to West Point and took a tour of the campus. Set on the western most point of the Hudson River, the campus was beautiful.
I don’t think I could do school there though--to many rules and regulations, they all wear uniforms, they can’t leave campus, they go to school 12 months of the year, and they get yelled at every day!
Saturday’s rain gave us a day off, the air show was canceled. However, we did have a wonderful dinner at the Beekman Arms in historic Rhinebeck, NY, the oldest continuously operated inn in the United States.
Sunday it was on to our new RV park in Jersey City, NJ, just across the river from NYC. We were welcomed by an amazing skyline. And that was the beginning of a wildly busy week in New York City.
We boarded the Spirit of New Jersey, a dinner harbor cruise boat that introduced us to what was to come and included a gorgeous sunset skyline of Manhattan.
A little farther on I was able to glimpse the moon and the skyline.
And a little later, the sky was black, but the city was alive with light.
Monday morning we started with a subway trip under the river into the city and a tour of the World Trade Center site. The tall mirror building is a new building on the site and is only half as tall as the Twin Towers were. The construction work will complete the Freedom Tower and a Memorial Garden.
A bronze memorial wall in tribute to those who lost their lives in 9/11.
Aboard a double decker tour bus, we rode around lower Manhattan, a great way to see the sights and have a tour guide tell us what everything was. Believe me, we didn’t want to drive those streets!
It was also fun eating our way through NYC. We got off the bus in China Town and ate at Katz’s, a great little Jewish sandwich shop with wonderful pastrami and known for the famous line from “When Harry Met Sally”--”I’ll have what she is having!”
Then we walked to Little Italy for some dessert and coffee--Italian style!
The caravan was really well planned, and Andi and Steve had purchased multi-day passes so we could enjoy a multitude of events. We decided we might as well take the night bus tour of the city. These are the lights of Broadway. (Click on the picture to get a good look at the numbers of people and taxis.)
Tuesday it was hit the subway again, and off to the top of the Empire State Building, now the tallest building in NYC. Here we are at the 86th floor.
Looking down, it was amazing to see how little the cars looked and to see the water towers on the tops on almost every building.
...and to see all the buildings going on and on and on.
We got on another bus that took us around upper Manhattan (Uptown instead of Downtown!). Again, it was a wonderful way to get a little bit of everything. We went through Harlem, by Central Park, past a ton of museums and mansions. We even caught a bit of the filming of “Sex and the City.”
After a nice dinner at a fun Italian restaurant, we all headed to the Ambassador Theater to see the Broadway version of “Chicago” starring Jerry Springer. Jerry wasn’t anything to brag about but the play was really good and the music was great.
By Wednesday we were amazed at how well we could get around the city--of course we carried a map in our back pocket and checked it often. We were surprised by how many New Yorkers would stop to ask if they could help us find where we were going.
By now everyone seemed to be going where they wanted to, and just a couple of us decided to do the Circle Tour, a boat tour all the way around Manhattan Island. I was pleasantly surprised when we saw a totally different perspective of what we had seen and, of course, all the parts of the city we hadn’t seen.
We got a close up of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, saw the Yankee Stadiums, got to see Brooklyn and the Bronx, even sailed over the part of the Hudson that the jet landed in last year. We went by the waste treatment plant for the city which processes some huge amount of waste every day and turns it into drinkable water. The chief engineer, as stated in his job description, must drink a glass of the water before it is sent back into the city.
We also went under any number of bridges, this being the Washington Bridge, which was built to become a triple layer bridge when needed.
Yes, we are tired by now, but we can’t stop yet...don’t know when we are coming back! Thursday we did a tour of Radio City Music Hall, totally restored to it’s 1932 glamour. I would love to see a show on that fantastic stage. The girls weren’t so bad either!
We traveled a little farther off the beaten path to Chelsea Market, the “foodie” mall of the Food Network. What a great place...a beautiful bakery, a fish market, fresh produce, stores of glass products and other necessary kitchen things.
Just outside Chelsea Market we found Morimoto’s restaurant. Mitch likes Morimota (an Iron Chef on the food channel) so we decided to lunch inside.
Jamison, his sous chef (sorry if that’s not what he really is) spent the day with our son-in-law Chef Jason at Table Eight during Miami’s Food and Wine Experience, so we chatted with him and he sent out some wonderful appetizer’s and
dessert, a Coconut Panna Cotta, a creamy coconut custard topped with a tart passion fruit glaze and a toasted coconut crisp. Jimmy thought it was the best dessert he had ever tasted! Thanks, Jamison!
All good things must come to an end. After a continental breakfast outside our coaches it was time to say so long. It was a great caravan rally! We enjoyed all the things we did, the places we saw, and of course, the people we spent the last three weeks with.
Check out the official Rally blog at www.hudsonrivercaravan.blogspot.com.
Today we explored Gloucester, MA and stopped at the Visitors' Center for information. Outside was this beautiful holly bush.
Gloucester (pronounced Glos-ta) was a lovely old fishing town with a lot of history being the second oldest settlement (1631) in the country. I knew of it because of the book and movie "The Perfect Storm" which told of the amazing storm that took the lives of six fisherman in 1991.
Sometimes the best museum really talks to you. That's what this Diver's Museum did! This is Paul who owns this collection of diving equipment. He began diving his junior year of high school and has been doing it for sixty years. He has used almost all of the equipment in his museum. He was a great story teller (having been a sixth grade teacher in his other life)!
A walk along the boardwalk took us to the Fisherman's Statue, a tribute to the thousands of fisherman who have died from this small but old village. The records date back to the late 1600s and are as recent as the 2000s.
After dinner we headed to Hodgie's Ice Cream. We had found this place with Jackie and Jerry many years ago and have talked about it ever since. We were surprised when we found we were only camped a couple of miles from it. The cone Mitch is holding is a "one scoop" as opposed to a small which is a $5.00 cone. The prices are up a bit from the first time we were here, but you certainly got your moneys worth.
