We set our alarm for 4am! Of course, because we knew we had to get up - we didn't sleep well. Tom was up at 3... I was just falling back to sleep about the time the alarm went off at 4. Ugh!
Drove 45 minutes to the Beacon station, hopped on the Metro North train and rode about an hour and a half into the city. Train dropped us off at Grand Central Station, we hopped on the 7 to 42nd & Time Square and then transferred to the 1 to go up to 50th & 7th. Now, I make this sound like it was just a piece of cake. HA! There are a MILLION people in Grand Central Station, all running and bustling to where they need to be, and here we are, need to get little metro cards and trying to figure out which goes up and which goes down... All under the time pressure of needing to be on the corner (SW Corner to be exact) of 53rd and Broadway by 8:30 am! So glad we left at 5!!! The lady in the office at the campground told us we'd have plenty of time if we left at 6!!! I DON'T THINK SO!
We got to where we needed to by at 8:15. Plenty of time! Don't know what everyone was so worried about! (I think I started breathing again by the time we got to our first stop of the tour.)
Pictures everywhere from the bus. Time Square, Broadway, buildings, people, people, people. Amazing!!!
First stop - Grand Central Station. Was nice to see what we had just flown through a short while ago!
Next stop - Empire State Building. Unfortunately, it was not a nice day in NYC and there was a lot of low-lying cloud cover so we didn't get spectacular views from the top. Still an amazing experience!
Then we moved on to Little Italy where we had lunch. By now it's raining so we didn't get a lot of great pictures...
All the while the bus is moving, Mike, our tour guide, is talking. He's got more history of New York City than a true historian! He points out this park and that building, this neighborhood and that. All the while I'm trying to take pictures from a moving vehicle. Sometimes with raindrops on the window and sometimes not.
From lunch we went to the World Trade Center and visited both the north and south pools. Did not go in to the Museum.
After the 9/11 memorial, we headed to Wall Street and the financial district. Raining a bit there, but then it quit.
Final stop was the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We got out at Lady Liberty; the tour did not include getting off the boat at Ellis Island. The rain had stopped for this part of the journey which made the boat ride over and the walk around the island much more enjoyable.
Once we were done with the tour, and deposited back at the corner of 53rd and Broadway, we headed over the 7th and up to 59th - Central Park. Walked around in the park a little bit and then found our way back to the NQR train which took us to 42nd & Time Square where we caught the S shuttle back to Grand Central. At this point we finally had to ask questions since we had absolutely no idea what train we were supposed to take back to Beacon. Who knew the Metro North train had 4 lines??? The information desk at the "clock" in Grand Central was very helpful, pointed us in the right direction, we caught the train right before it pulled out of the station and away we went. After a very, very long and wonderful day, we got home about 9:30. And crashed!
Such an amazing experience! The sights and sounds, the people and buildings, and to see all the things we saw! Truly fantastic day!
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