If you thought we were crazy to pack 8 people into an RV in the first place, I'm certain you now know we are insane for taking this RV to New York City. (OK, we didn't drive the RV down 5th Avenue). Our RV park was in Liberty Harbor in Jersey City. We woke up to pretty heavy rain on Friday morning and were a little concerned about our plans, but the rain ended around 10:30 AM and we headed out on our adventure. We walked to the subway station, and after we figured it all out, we rode the train into the city. We started our day at the 9/11 Memorial. I was surprised by my emotional response to this. All of our kids were born several years after this occurred, so we spent some time explaining it and remembering that day. From here, we took the train to Uptown and walked to the Empire State Building and Times Square. We ate lunch (and some famous cheesecake) at Juniors and walked to Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, and then on to Central Park. We spent a good part of our day in Central Park. It was a beautiful day and the kids love climbing on the rocks, watching the street performers, and wandering through the park. We headed back to Rockefeller Center for dinner, and then rode the train to Wall Street and the Financial District to catch the ferry back to Liberty Harbor. These kids are troopers. Once again we walked almost 10 miles over the course of the day. Our ferry back to the RV park passed by the Statue of Liberty. It was beautiful to see at sunset, and the backdrop of the city lights and skyline in the background was truly the perfect way to finish off our trip.
Once we got back to the RV park, we decided to rest, pack up, and then head out of the city (particularly New Jersey), and to get a head start on our trip home. We drove a couple hours and found a place to park for the night in Pennsylvania.
This has been a great trip. We have packed so much into these past 9 days and truly have created a lifetime of memories. We are exhausted and definitely ready for our own beds (and bathrooms), but I'm so glad that we did this.
I'll do one more post with thoughts on renting and RV, RV travel in general, pros and cons, and what we've learned along the way. This definitely isn't for everyone, but it's been worth it for us, and I'd love to help anyone out who is thinking about doing something like this in the future!