{"id":595,"date":"2011-08-01T10:53:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T10:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=595"},"modified":"2011-08-01T10:53:19","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T10:53:19","slug":"2011-vacation-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/2011\/08\/01\/2011-vacation-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"2011 Vacation Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many of you know, we’ve been executing a plan to get the kids to all 50 states before my son goes off the school in four more years. \u00a0In a previous set of posts, I described our trip from last August to the Northwest US. \u00a0This year’s trip encompasses the Northeast. \u00a0After a very hectic week at work, combined with coming home to chores like putting up pictures and blinds in our new house, I was ready for this trip to begin.<\/p>\n

Our first stop was New York City. \u00a0Now, you probably couldn’t see all the high points of New York in a week, but there were a few points we hadn’t seen in previous visits to the City. \u00a0On our last visit the kids were very \u00a0young, so we just wanted to give them a memory or two of the Big Apple.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Battery area of New York from the Staten Island Ferry. The World Trade Center would have dominated this view.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On our way, the GPS took us down Canal Street, where we saw LOTS of freaky people and also a drug deal taking place. \u00a0Perhaps the kids are sheltered, but on this day they saw their first green Mohawk haircut. \u00a0We met Mark Ryan, who used to live in the city, had lunch in a New York deli, and then took the Staten Island Ferry. \u00a0We just took the ferry to Staten island and came back. \u00a0This gave us a view of Governor’s Island, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/a>
Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a walk around the are of the World Trade Center (which is what Tommy wanted to see) and the financial district, we drove up town to Central Park. \u00a0Mark had relatives from Germany arriving on Saturday. \u00a0We met them at one of his wife’s stores and strolled across Central Park together.<\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/a>
Tommy and Sam on a rock in Central Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The park wasn’t as crowded as I expected it to be on the weekend. \u00a0Mark said that New Yorkers head to Long Island and elsewhere on the weekends. \u00a0We saw “the great lawn,” wandered past the the Central Park Zoo, and other sites.<\/p>\n

\"Leaving<\/a>
Leaving Central Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite being surrounded by tall buildings, there are places in the park where you can’t see any of them or hear the traffic.<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/a>
Sammy in front of FAO Schwartz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sammy wanted to see FAO Schwartz. \u00a0It had changed a lot since the last time I had been there — nearly 30 years ago as a cadet. \u00a0It seems to me that it had more floors of stuff back then. \u00a0While it was impressive, I didn’t see any unique toys that I couldn’t get elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/a>
Tommy and Indy (made from Legos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were several Lego “sculptures.” \u00a0Since Tommy is very fond of Legos, we took his picture with Indian Jones made of Legos. \u00a0We saw someone being assisted buying toys for a birthday party by a personal shopper.<\/p>\n

Soon after visiting FAO Schwartz, we fought our way out of the city through traffic. \u00a0Mark told us the “good” route to take. \u00a0It would have been worse otherwise, but there was a huge accident on the West Side Highway (9A), so the entrances to it were blocked. \u00a0We ended up taking other streets to get to the Cross Bronx Expressway.<\/p>\n

We passed New Rochelle, where Dick Van Dyke lived in the 1960’s sitcom, got some very good, but overpriced, burgers at an apparently regionally famous place called Burgers Shakes and Fries, and made it to our hotel around 2100.<\/p>\n

It was a good first day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many of you know, we’ve been executing a plan to get the kids to all 50 states before my son goes off the school in four more years. \u00a0In a previous set of posts, I described our trip from last August to the Northwest US. \u00a0This year’s trip encompasses the Northeast. \u00a0After a very … Continue reading 2011 Vacation Begins<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}