Our great adventure

My plan was to blog each night about our trip. Obviously I didn't do that. We had a great time! We spent the evening of the 30th and the 31st in Washington, DC. We used the train to get there the second day rather than trying to drive around DC. We hopped on the double decker tour bus and visited all the monuments. It was actually raining when we got to DC so we spent the first hour in the train station, eating lunch and looking through all the little shops.

On Saturday, we headed to Williamsburg. There we met Cami, Gentry, Judy and Gerry Anderson and went to Colonial Williamsburg. Judy and Gerry were a wealth of knowledge. Most everything was closed, but we walked around and Judy gave us a lot of information about all the homes, taverns, shops, etc. The next day, Cami and Gentry met us again. We got to see a reenactment, tour the governor's palace, tour the capital building, and many other buildings. Bailey got to be the magistrate at the courthouse. It rained again, so we went into some of the shops while the rain was falling and tasted lots of goodies. Then we walked around until it closed. Cami, Bailey and I went to dinner and just enjoyed visiting. (Gentry had to go back home for work). It was a great time.

We had discovered that a brake light and turn light on the rental car were not working, so we got up Monday morning, met Judy at the Jamestown settlement for a short visit there, and then headed to Norfolk to exchange the car. By this time, I had decided I wanted to just turn the car in early and take the train to New York. But the train from Norfolk did not check luggage. We could have gone to Richmond, but it would have cost an extra $1000 to turn the car in there! So we turned it in, and headed on our way. We drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. It was amazing! We stopped at the little restaurant/store on the bridge to get a good look. We continued on our way, crossing over the Jersey Turnpike into New York City about 1 AM. Crossing over was another beautiful sight. There were so many lights!

When we got to our hotel (after being lost and having to drive awhile to find it) we couldn't find a parking garage. So we parked on the street in front of the hotel and I had to get up early to move the car. After driving around that morning and still not finding a garage with a parking place, we decided to take the car to the airport and turn it in. We took a bus and the subway back to the hotel. Our hotel ended up being in China Town, and since Bailey didn't really want Chinese food for dinner, we decided to take the subway and just find some place to eat. We ended up at Coney Island and it was a blast! We walked along the boardwalk, ate NY pizza and had ice cream. On the subway home, we met a family from the Bronx. They had been to the beach for the day and were very friendly, answering questions about NY and asking us about California. The next day, we took the double decker bus and saw many of the sights. We stopped at Ground Zero and spent longer than we had intended. It was still very emotional for me. They are in the process of building the memorial and it won't be completed until 2013. But there was a small museum and a memory walk. Then we headed on to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Going over there on the ferry helped us to imagine what it must have been like for the immigrants coming to the United States.

That night was our night to see Lion King on Broadway as well. We managed to find the subway back to the hotel, got ready, and headed out. The play was fantastic. Bailey was sitting right on the aisle which is the best place to be for this show. She loved it! We hadn't eaten dinner so we walked until we found someplace open and had dinner. Then we walked through Time Square and headed over to the Empire State Building. We had seen it earlier in the day, but Bailey wanted to go up to the top. The view at night was beautiful. You could see all the bridges with their lights and all the other lights of the city. We took a bike-drawn taxi back to the subway and headed home. We had to get up early the next morning to head to the airport to come home. There was so much more in each place we visited that we would have loved to see. But it was a great experience and one I am sure neither of us will ever forget!