To continue from our cliffhanger previous post, the creek stopped rising, and the fridge situation turned out to be good-news/bad-news. The good news is that our fridge is operating as designed; the bad news is that its a sucky design. It just doesn’t do well when the temps get above 90 (I’m sure it would prefer, oh I dunno, a 32 to 40 degree climate.)
We have since bought a little fridge fan to circulate the cool air inside, and that has thus far kept us out of the “Danger Zone” (insert Kenny Login’s Top Gun theme song).
On Tuesday we took a side trip to Woodstock:
Don’t be too impressed. While a “Woodstock Museum” sounded promising, it turned out to just be a guy who showed us some Woodstock paraphernalia and then talked about what it meant to be a hippie:
Nice guy, but I was wanting to see the actual site of the 1969 Woodstock music festival. Turns out the city of Woodstock is only where the event was planned. The event itself took place nearly two hours away in Bethel NY. Oh well.
We took in some more presidential history last week. On Wednesday the girls visited the house of president Martin Van Buren in Kinderhook, NY:
Then on Thursday I tagged along for a tour of president Franklin Roosevelt’s house in Hyde Park, NY:
Friday was our big trek into New York City. We started with a train ride…
…that took us to Grand Central station:
We then took a ferry to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty.
Looking back on Manhattan from atop the ferry:
After that, we visited the 9/11 memorial:
The 9/11 museum is still under construction, but looking through the windows I could see the original World Trade Tower “trident” beams that will be on display. I’d go back to NYC if only to see this museum when it opens.
On the New York City subway:
We met up with our friend Megan (and later her husband Eric) who gave us a walking tour of Central Park. I didn’t ever completely get away from the sounds of the city, but I was struck at how secluded Central Park felt at times. I couldn’t believe that such a natural setting could exist in the middle of such a large city.
On Saturday, Amy took Emily to do some plane-spotting at JFK International Airport. Some highlights of the day were seeing a Dreamliner, a Dreamlifter, several 747s and four A380s, among many others. She took some good photos, too:
Another of Emily’s photos, this one looking back at the NYC skyline:
Before taking this trip, we lived in a neighborhood called “Irvington” which was named after the author Washington Irving. So we HAD to visit the original Irvington while we were in New York:
…as well as the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a major character in Irving’s classic The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:
Appropriately, Mr. Irving is interred in the Irving family plot in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. His is the taller, rounder head stone on the left:
Having lived in the Indianapolis Irvington most of our adult lives, Amy and I felt a strange connection to this area. It was cool to be there.
Before we left, we toured Washington Irving’s home. It was a cozy little place.
This week in New Jersey we’ve been spending time with some friends from Greensboro who are vacationing on Long Beach Island, which is about a half hour away from our campground. Our girls were pretty excited to see their girls and have some sleep-overs. It also afforded Amy and me some kid-free time for our 18th wedding anniversary on Monday (thankyouthankyouthankyou, Bob and Jo!)
This campground where we’re staying this week would otherwise blend in to the blur of previous campgrounds if it weren’t for one realization: this is our final campground.
After we leave here in a couple days, we’ll land in Ohio at Amy’s parents’ house for the week. Then it’s back to Indy, and with that, this trip — this amazing 2+ year epic adventure — will come to an end.
I thought I’d feel more ready for that, but I’m not.