Trip to ABR - Day 9
Saturday, April 26th
We left this morning at 6 am. We had decided that since it was only about 2 extra hours of driving, we would drive down to New York City and then to Hartford, Connecticut. Going across the border went smoothly. And it was a beautiful drive back through the Adirondacks. We did encounter another border patrol about an hour back into the U.S., but they simply asked us if we were all American citizens and then let us pass. We ate breakfast in a cute little town and then finished the drive to New York. The only annoying thing was all the toll roads we had to pass through. I ended up spending $20 just to be able to drive into and then back out of New York City. That’s crazy!
Once we got to New York, we discovered there is simply no where to park in downtown. There are cabs everywhere and all of them have dents in them. People walk across the streets all the time despite the color of the lights. And everyone honks at everyone to the point that you can’t even tell if they’re honking at you. We finally found a place to park and were able to go to the Empire State Building. We ate lunch in a little café on the ground floor and then took the tour on the 86th floor. It was an awesome view of the largest city I have ever encountered. This picture is in the cafe.
We spent a long time up there just looking at all the sites in the city we will probably never actually see up close. You could see Central Park, Times Square, Ground Zero, the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty and tons of other things. I have to admit it was pretty cool. But at the same time, I was completely unimpressed by the fact that they tried to sell us something at every turn in the tour. They wanted you to buy maps and binoculars and tour guide tapes. There were extra charges if you wanted to go to higher floors or take movie virtual tours. And you literally had to walk though a place in line where they took your picture. There was not option not to walk through it. (Our picture is hillarious as I was not happy to have to stand for it and Tom was goofing off knowing we weren’t about to buy one. To view it,
click here. You have to click on it to enlarge it.)Even at the end of the tour, you had to walk through the gift shop to get out of the place. It was a little much for me. But here are some cool pics from up there. (Click on them to enlarge.) In the first one, you can see central park. In the second one, you can see Times Square. The third one is just another view of the city. The fourth one is of Tom and Samuel back inside on the 86th floor. And the last one was an irresistable picture since those are the elevator doors that Meg Ryan took to the top of the building in the movie Sleepless in Seattle. We only got to see those doors because we couldn’t take the regular tour route due to Samuel’s stroller.
Once we got back to the car, we headed to Hartford. When we got there, we stayed in the same hotel as we had on the trip down and basically just carried our stuff in and went to bed. It would be an early morning again the next day.That night as I was falling asleep, my phone beeped and I picked it up to find that my sister had sent me a picture of Tanner and his date at Junior Prom. I had thought of him and his “big day” probably 50 times that day. It was very hard to miss being there with him. I wish I could have been. Sometimes I hate that I have to miss things in life because of what happened to Samuel. My other boys are incredibly important to me also and I wish there was some way to be two places at once. But I am so grateful to those in my family who took the time to take pictures for me and make sure all went well while we were gone. Thanks, guys!
Until tomorrow…Love,
The Jewkes
Posted by admin @ 4:27 pm
RSS feed for comments on this post.
TrackBack URI
One Response to “Trip to ABR - Day 9”
Leave a Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 12:29 am, Sue Searles Says:
What a beautiful picture of your son and his date. I’m so curious to hear if you’ve noticed any differences in Samuel yet? I think about going up there but am not sure if I want spend the money, as just like you we would have to have a fund raiser to go. I’ve enjoyed reading all your daily entries, it sounds like you had a nice time and that you learned a lot, thanks for sharing.
Love in Christ,
Sue