A SUNDAY ROADTRIP TO NEW YORK CITY PART1

Back in August my sister and I had to cancel a weekend trip to New
York City, but last week Cheryl suggested we try a one day run down
this past weekend. So Saturday night I went to bed early and got up
Sunday Cheryl picked me up at 5 and we were on our way down to
visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

We made fairly good time and were at Battery Park before 10am. We
found a parking garage across the street with all day parking for under
twenty dollars and then made our way over to buy tickets. We chose
the self guided audio tours with monument access up to the base of
the statue and then went to join the line to board a boat. It was a
warm sunny day and while the line was long it moved along quickly.
As we waited our turn we could hear many foreign languages being
spoken by the tourists around us. I was struck by the irony that a
century ago there were equally large crowds of immigrants waiting on
Ellis Island to board boats to take them where we now stood!

As we stood there I noticed the monuments to the Merchant Marines .
I noticed that the figures are leaning over to grab at a hand coming out
of the water and as the waves rose and fell I could see the head of the
drowning figure emerge.

It took about a half hour to reach the building where we all had to have
an airport style security check. It's sad to think it's come to this but I
know it had to be done. Afterward we boarded our boat and we were
on our way to Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty.We sat outside
on the second level and had a great view of everything. My only concern
was that my camera batteries were dying, but I optimistically hoped the
gift shop on the island would have some. That hope was squashed when
we arrived. My camera takes AAA batteries and all they had were AA's!
But we picked up our guide audio players and headed over to the
Statue itself. After another security scan we moved on inside.

Now while I'm walking better nowadays I haven't climbed many stairs
for a long time. I'd brought my cane with me, and luckily there is a small
elevator that takes you up to the mezzanine. There's an extensive display
on the construction of the Statue and even replicas of it's face and a foot
that you can pose with.

Once we were done there we went up to the base of the statue to take
in the view. Again, I took an elevator which didn't take me all the way
up but got me close enough so I only had to climb four flights of stairs
up the rest of the way. It was worth it. The view was spectacular. I
coaxed more pictures out of my camera and then we headed back
down to the ground. By now it was nearly 1pm and we wanted to visit
Ellis Island next so we returned our audio players and moved out
to the dock to wait for the next boat.to arrive.