NYC

We said a sad good-bye to our Virginia friends, with promises that we would see each other soon and head off to our last destination.

The drive to New Jersey was uneventful, but, let me tell you, it was FILLED with the MARVEL that are highway service stations.  Growing up in the Northeast, I just assumed that most major highways had service stations.  Maybe not frequently, but, you know, every so often.  WRONG.  Listen rest of the country: you don't know what you're missing.  They make traveling so much easier.

Anyway, we made it to New Jersey and let ourselves into our host's lovely home, and then took off to get some seriously much needed haircuts.  We wanted to look spiffy for our time about town!

The next morning we hung around and then took the train into midtown because we had tickets to Matilda!  I didn't know how it was going to go, but we had a great time.  Both kids loved the show.  We'll definitely have to make a trip back.

Before the show.

After dinner we hung around Times Square a bit until we met some Bryn Mawr friends for dinner.  Once again, people came way out of their way to meet up with us, and I am so grateful.  It was a lovely time.

One of these things is not like the other.  (Little bugger wouldn't get out of the picture)

We came back into the city the next day for a couple of totally different experiences.  After the craziness that is Times Square, we wanted to see some other parts of the city.  Originally the plan had been to meet up with a BMC friend for the day, but she was called out of town on business (boo!)  The upside was that her wife took the day off and hung out with us instead!  We had never met, but it was nice to make a new friend and she was awesome about shepherding us about town.

So we started in Chinatown where we got dumplings from Prosperity Dumpling.  Delicious.  I have no pictures because we were all so busy stuffing our faces.

We then hopped on the subway and made the trip uptown to the Met.  The Met is far too huge to do in one day, so we went in knowing that we would only do a few small parts.  We checked out the Egyptian art, 

Mummies.

Arms and Armor (which was awesome), 

meandered through medieval art, and saw some of the Modern section.  We also got to have cookies in the members lounge, which was a very fancy way to end our trip to the museum.

Our plan was to make dinner for our hosts, and we were getting pretty tired, so we walked across the top of Central Park (the day was gorgeous) and we caught the subway back to Penn Station and we made it out of the city and back to NJ.  We had a nice night hanging around with our hosts (a zipline in the front yard means an automatic good time).  

The next day was our last day, and it felt incredibly fitting to end back on the Atlantic Ocean.  So we made a trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Lea had been asking to see the Statue of Liberty for about 3 years, and studied immigration last year in school, so it was neat to finally be able to be there for real.  

The kids outside at the top of the pedestal.  We didn't go all the way to the crown, which I think was a good choice. 

Good bye, Lady Liberty!

Ellis Island was really great, even if it is still recovering from Hurricane Sandy.

main hall

view from the ferry

And then that was it!  We drove back from Liberty State Park, hitched up the camper, and hit the road.  We made it home for dinner.

It was an amazing trip.  We're readjusting to being back home, but it's good to be back.  

HOME!

Kids have already seen friends.  We've seen some of the family.  More of both are coming tomorrow.  

I'll have another post or two wrapping things up, but right now, my predominant feeling is gratefulness.  We had an amazing opportunity and it was filled with an untold number of wonderful people.  And now we're back, and I'm hoping that we can all hold on to the magic of those experiences right here at home.

View from 4 miles from our home tonight.