The Great Road Trip of 2013 - part 3

Last Friday, we got up early, and Josh's dad drove us over to Trenton, where we got on a train to NYC.  Josh & I have done this a couple of times on previous trips - once when I was pregnant with Zachary.  It was around Christmas, and we went to see the Rockettes and Radio City Music Hall, and we went ice skating in Rockefeller Center.  The other time was when Zachary was about a year and a half old - we went up when Les Mis was re-opening on Broadway, and that was one place I hadn't ever seen it.  On that trip we also had lunch and frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity 3.  But this was our first trip there with the kids, and our first hot weather trip there.  We spent a lot of time before we went planning out what we could reasonably do in a single day.  We immediately eliminated some things, just because of their location - we knew we couldn't go to a completely different part of the city just for one thing.  We finally had a plan in place, but what we hadn't counted on was a massive heat wave.  I think the temperature there was about 95 or 96, but with the heat index it was about 105.  Ugh.  We just made the best of it, and still had a great time.

We started off our day by heading over to the Empire State Building.  We knew that was a must, for one, because it's just a neat NY site, but also because Zachary is really into the Percy Jackson books, and in the first book, he travels to Olympus.  The way he got there was by taking the elevator in the Empire State Building to the 600th floor.  So we thought that would be a fun thing to do.  The only problem was because it was so hot, it was pretty hazy out, and we couldn't really see much.

After the Empire State Building, we headed over to the Hudson River Park to get on one of the Circle Line cruises.  We had chosen the Lady Liberty cruise - it was one of the shorter ones they offered, but our main reason for doing it was to see the Statue of Liberty., so we didn't need the super long option.  We had a nice breeze going out to the statue, but no breeze at all coming back.  Liam fell asleep on the way back too.  But it was really cool to see the Statue of Liberty sort of up close.  We didn't get off or anything, but I'd never seen it that close before, so it was neat even for me.

The USS Intrepid

The Concord

Freedom Tower

After the boat ride, we were all starving.  So we got caught a bus and headed over towards Times Square.  We were dead set on getting good, NY style pizza for lunch.  We found some at a place called Bella Vita, and it was YUMMO!

After pizza, our next stop was dessert.  Several people had told us to get cheesecake at Junior's, so we headed there next.  However, we did run into a few "characters" along the way...

 

After cheesecake, we took the kids into Toys R Us, and then we headed over towards Rockefeller Center.  We walked around over there a little bit and then went in the NBC store (where more minions were purchased!)  We had hoped to take them to over to Central Park, and we had also planned to stay long enough to have dinner before heading back, but it was just so hot, and we were all exhausted.  So we made our way back to Penn Station to catch the train back to Trenton.

It was a really fun day, despite the heat.  The kids loved it, and they were so good - they hardly complained at all about being hot or tired.  If you ask them what their favorite part was, they will tell you that it was Toys R Us.  Shocker.  But, I do think that they thought it was cool to see the Statue of Liberty.  We also went past Macy's, so I think this Thanksgiving when we watch the parade, they will get excited about being able to say they've been there.  Hopefully we can take them back to New York the next time we visit Josh's parents.  There was a lot we didn't get to see - Central Park, the 911 memorial, maybe even a show.  And now that we know they can handle it, we can possibly plan more into our day.