I swear they say this to taxi drivers in the movies.
Answer: It may be faster but at what cost??
Today we left Rhode Island, the smallest state in the U.S., for New York City, the largest city in the U.S.! I was up at 5:30 am wondering if it made sense to leave at 7am…
Answer: I decided that no, it did not.
So instead I woke the girls up at 8 and we hit the road at about 9. Not too shabby! I have a small grocery list but decided to shop later tonight or tomorrow. I knew the 3.5 hr drive would feel longer than that because of the city driving. I was prepared to stick to the route this time because last time I was here, I ended up on the Parkway. People honked and looked angry and I didn’t know what to do! The Parkway is “autos only” and has low clearances. So I said to myself, “Parkway good?”
Answer to myself: No, Parkway bad. Notice the picture at the bottom of this informational flyer about the parkways.
We crossed the border from Connecticut to New York State. Then, suddenly I followed a direction on Google Maps and I was on the Parkway. What??? When will Google Maps come up with a button for RV friendly routes??
Answer: Who knows but there isn’t one, and I know because I’ve checked.
Anyway, I got off the Parkway and called the campground. She told me to take the “Truckers Route” which is I-95. After several scares where Google tried to route me back on to parkways, and an hour of stand-still traffic, we finally made it to New Jersey and then to the campground.
Here is where we are in relation to NYC. Yellow dot is us, green dot is the Statue of Liberty, purple arrows point to Manhattan.
We set up and I’m kind of impressed with the campground. Friendly staff, gravel sites (I thought they were concrete), water/electric/wifi, large and clean laundry room and bathrooms/showers, 24-hour security.
Here is our set up.
The Yatzeck’s are right next to us.
Most of the Yatzecks left for Broadway. Joey hung out in the camper on his laptop. Joey, Nova and I went exploring and checked out the convenience store that’s just down the block. First though, Joey pointed out the Statue of Liberty! 🗽
What do you mean you can’t see it??
Here is 60x zoom. Is that better? Yup, that’s right. Statue of Liberty views from our campground.
Then we found this teeny Statue of Liberty on our walk to the convenience store.
And this was our view of Manhattan on our walk back from the store. Turns out there was nothing we wanted for the prices in the store. I think I’ll run to Walmart before going to the airport to get the guys tonight.
We noticed a restaurant and Nova and I went in to see what they were offering. We left with a pound of shrimp cocktail. They had seasoning on them so Nova gave hers a bath first.
I did laundry and some reading and got sleeping places set up for the guys.
Earlier this week, we entered some lotteries for discounted Broadway tickets. Nole and I each won the chance to buy Book of Mormon tickets (the cost with fees comes to about $49 a ticket). We bought all 4 which means 4 of us are going to see Book of Mormon on Sunday, yay!
The guys are currently boarding a Chicago-Newark flight. This was the news out of Newark in early May…
And then this, 2 days ago.
A few weeks ago, United announced they would be cutting flights to/from Newark. They guys’ red-eye flight was cancelled and they were rebooked on an earlier flight. We picked the red-eye because of the unbelievably low price so this was a win for us. The guys are now expected at 11pm.
Martins Take Flight 