Day 11 - New York City

It was an early start for us today. We headed out of the hotel shortly after 8am and headed for the ferries at Battery Park. We arrived too late to get tickets to go into the Statue of Liberty (and learned that tickets are properly acquired online a couple of days in advance.) But, there is always plenty of room on the boats to the islands and to wander around, so off we went.

First, it was Liberty Island, where we walked the perimeter of the island and enjoyed the trees, views and seeing the Statue of Liberty. Then, another short boat ride to get to Ellis Island. We wandered through the exhibits and imagined what it would have been like to arrive in America there.

We were back in Battery Park by lunchtime, so we ate street-vendor hotdogs and pretzels in the park. After lunch, it was back to the hotel for a quiet time (for me this means: find bags of ice, repack the coolers, plan tomorrow, etc.)

After a rest, we headed for Central Park. It is a stark changed from the rest of the city, with green everywhere, hills and valleys, huge rocks, and, as we found, a great childrens play area. The play area (in the south west section of the park) had fun water features, including a man-made stream that ran through the play area. All of the kids ended up wet as did the feet of all of the adults.

From there, we headed back to Times Square to visit the huge ToysRUs store. The younger kids rode the ferris wheel in the store while the older kids plotted to buy things. By now, it was getting later and we were starving. We could find the Olive Garden near Times Square, so we headed back to 23rd street and found the OutBack there. We arrived for dinner just before 9pm and got everyone into bed pretty late (but it was really quiet very quickly.)