Day: August 12, 2018
Liberty Park 2018
Our journey to the Statue of Liberty both begins and ends at Liberty Park where an old train station is used for tickets to the boats that take you to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We had a long walk to get here as the place was very busy and we figure we parked about a mile away. We caught the 3:30 ferry from here (after going through security) and returned around 6pm. On exiting we visited the 911 memorial which has two parallel walls with the names of all those souls lost that horrible day. When looking directly at the memorial it creates an illusion of hose the NY skyline must have looked from that location before 911. At the front are twisted metal from the fallen towers on display which really brings the reality of the tragedy home.
Liberty Island 2018
What a thrill it always is to see the Statue of Liberty on a beautiful day in August. While it was a bit hot, it made the cool breeze coming across the Hudson river that much better as we walked around the giant colossus and trying to get the perfect selfie with a structure so big (many of those selfies are in the gallery of this post). After our walk around the statue we took a break in a nice shady area of the park and James bought us all water which made for a perfect family moment. After relaxing in the park drinking our water we made our way to the souvenir stand where James got a hat, Mom got a T shirt, and Dad got a sweatshirt all featuring the statue of liberty!
New York Skyline 2018
No matter if we were at Liberty Park, on the boat, Ellis Island, or Liberty Island, the one constant picture was the fabulous New York Skyline. When last we saw it construction was still being done on One World Trade Center so this is technically the first time we saw it completed (it opened in 2014). The building has 104 Stories and is 1776 feet high (a symbolic height for sure). Also far to the left of the One World Trade Center is the Empire State Building which is actually taller than the One World Trade Center building minus the spiral on top. Regardless of who is taller, its a beautiful skyline and we literally could not get enough pictures of it.
Ellis Island 2018
Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay next to the Statue of Liberty, was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the U.S. as the United States’ busiest immigrant inspection station for over 60 years from 1892 until 1954. It was the first stop on our journey from Liberty Park to Liberty Island. While it no longer is a place where immigrants enter to U.S., it has been modified into a beautiful museum and a tribute to another era when immigration was done the right way. We included a pic of how the NY skyline looks from Ellis Island, taken from the boat docked outside the museum. One has to wonder what the immigrants of the past thought seeing the NY skyline as they awaited their entrance into the United States.
Washington DC Jefferson Memorial 2018
There were many places we did not get to see as we only had a finite amount of time in Washington before we had to drive to New York. One place we saw at a distance everytime we took a cab was the Jefferson Memorial which was located on the other side of the Potomac. This was as close as we got to the monument, although we did try driving there later, only to make a wrong turn and end up heading back toward the hotel (and NY so we kept on driving). The driving is not easy in Washington DC and we did not take the car out of the parking garage until we left for NY. Our apologies to Thomas Jefferson but we tried.
