Hello from Mystic, CT!
We started the day at Granddaddy’s house. After waking up, eating a quick breakfast,
throwing stuff in the car, and saying our goodbyes, we headed up 95north. Our drive was a fairly uneventful four hours or
so. We arrived at Liberty State Park in
New Jersey at lunchtime to see the Statue of Liberty. We had read that the New Jersey side was
easier, had more parking, etc. That was
true – we had no trouble finding a good spot.
We enjoyed a beautiful view while picnicking on peanut butter and honey
sandwiches. We had the NJ skyline to one
side and the Statue and the harbor to the other, hard to beat that! After eating, we headed for the ferry. The lines weren’t bad at all and we had a
good seat at the front of the boat by the window. Chloe cried just a minute when boarding the
boat, but after that everyone was fine.
Our first stop was Ellis Island.
There wasn’t too much exciting on the island itself, but the views were
amazing. NYC has such an awesome
skyline. And of course the Statue on the
other side. We meandered a bit, took
photos, and the girls “climbed” a tree.
We then rode the ferry again, this time to Liberty Island to see the
Statue. We had pedestal tickets, so we
headed up first. The climb was somewhere
around 200 steps, not too bad of a climb [and way better than a claustrophobic
elevator ride!]. The views were great,
although it was a narrow squeeze and pretty congested up there. And I was sad that you really couldn’t get a
good straight-up view of the Statue. We climbed back down and enjoyed more
beautiful water views and picture taking.
We treated ourselves to a large fresh lemonade, as well as tshirts for
the kids. Our only long line was waiting
for the ferry back to Jersey. There was
a very large student group ahead of us; I guess we now know how others must
have felt when the Walton Band showed up oh so many years ago!
It was a great day and a fun experience. The kids have really been looking forward to
this day. We had read about the Statue
in a Scouting magazine Ryan gets in the mail, so we knew lots of fun
facts. And Abby told her Waumba Land
teachers at church last week that she’d be at the Statue of Liberty this
Sunday! We were pretty worn out by the
end, but that’s okay! Nothing that some
Oreos and naps in the car can’t fix. As
usual, Chloe was asleep almost right away, but as a nice surprise, Abby also
took a short nap. We wound our way all around the sidestreets of Jersey City on our way out of town [the “avoid tolls”
option :)]. Once safely on our way, we
stopped at a small, local restaurant on the side of the road just inside New York state, before the Tapan Zee bridge. We actually passed it and made a U-turn to go
back – it looked fun and we weren’t sure what else we might find! It was called The Filling Station and was a
small burger place. We walked up to
order and sat at picnic tables to eat.
The food was pretty good, the atmosphere was nice, and the employees
were friendly and helpful. We had dogs
and burgers and yummy fries and Cokes that tasted really good after a long
couple of days of travel!
We arrived at our Holiday Inn Express here in Mystic about
9:30. It appears to be a great hotel –
nice room, continental breakfast, and an indoor pool. Fortunately we weren't going towards New York on a Sunday night. The traffic was crazy going the other direction; all the city folk returning from their weekend beach houses were sitting on the highway forever! It was still packed at 9:30 even 90miles into CT. We’ve got some fun ideas for tomorrow, but first
we’re really looking forward to a slow start in the morning. Good night from Connecticut!
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