10/22/08- New York City

This was a whirlwind trip. We drove into the park by 10:30 AM and was on the Ferry to Ellis and Liberty Island by 12:30 PM.

We are parked in a parking lot for $60.00/night. This was the most expensive and least exciting park we have been to yet. It does meet our needs though because it is in New Jersey, right across the harbor from New York City. It is literally a parking lot with water and power. If you saw the brochure you would think you could look out the front of the RV and see the Statue of Liberty. But in reality you had to strain to see it :)


We went to Ellis Island first. It is really amazing that more than twelve million immigrants came here during the 1892-1920 when it was active. About 1-2% never passed the physical and was sent back. At one point they decided to not let those stay that did not have $25.00 cash and sent them home. I wonder how much that is in today’s money. Walking through the rooms you can just imagine how it sounded with so many people in the building at one time. In 1920 Federal law set quotas on the amount of people that could immigrate to this county. Therefore after that time Ellis Island served more as a deportation center and finally closed in 1954.

Our next stop was the Statue of Liberty. I guess I didn’t remember that this Statue was given to the United States as a gift from the French. It was built in France from 1881-1884 and brought over here to be reconstructed in 1886. Only a limited number of people can actually go inside the base up to the observatory deck. We were lucky enough to get those tickets so we walked up the approximately 200 steps to the deck and stood outside for a long time just taking in the view of the surrounding area. New York from this point is incredible. The sky was blue the clouds overhead and a wonderful sight. We got home early evening in time to go out again for Italian food again with of course a huge pizza.

Today we went into NY City. We took the Path to the Empire state building and started walking. We walked and walked, in fact we walked 16.67 miles. My feet are so tired tonight. I guess I need to walk more. We saw all the things that tourist should see plus some. Since we were here in 2002 there was not much changed. Even ground zero had very little work done on it.

Tomorrow we are off to Pennsylvania for a visit and to see the kids.