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Published: August 6th 2009
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Tori at the Rodeo.Hello, Friday we just mucked around at Ross and Christas. I swept the back deck, then thought I should pull out some of the weeds in a planter on the deck, which led to the garden below.Then around to the other garden, which got me to pruning the bush , which led to pruning the big trees before Josh mowed the lawn !!!! How anyone works in this weather I'm buggered if I know. Talk about sweat, I had to go and have another shower. Ross and Christa both work from about 7am to 1.30pm normally. Come home for a couple of hours then either go racing at night or just go back and feed up and put the horses out. So the only time they're home is during the hottest part of the day. Funny pulling out weeds isn't high on the priority list. We planned to go over to Trisha's place for tea. Kylie had organised what to take over. I went down to the farm with Ross and Christa to feed up and get Ross going as he was off to the races . When all of a sudden it got blacker and blacker, temperature dropped about 10
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Us up the Empire state building. degrees in 10 mins. It poured down just as Ross was about to load the horse onto the trailer. He got him in there after backing the trailer into the barn to keep dry. Then Trisha rang to say don't come there is a tornado warning for their area.So I rang Kylie to tell her not to come down , she was already half way and said all the roads have surface flooding. Cars were aquaplaning at the bottom of each dip in the road. The tornado went up the main road not far from Trish. A big tree, 300mm diameter fell on their small horse shelter. Lucky the 2 horses in that paddock weren't in there as Trish had the door shut to it. By 8pm it was all over. It cleared up, so we decided to go over to Trish and Tommy's for pudding.
Saturday morning I went and picked up Ethan and Grace to come and play at our place (Ross and Christas). I set up up a small pool that Ross has out in the yard, when the neighbour came over and said did the kids want to go for a swim in their pool. Off
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Statue of Liberty. they went, that kept them amused for a couple of hours. Then we all went down to the local school and played baseball on the diamond down there. It was still pretty wet from the rain the night before , but the kids had a ball. At night time we all went to a Rodeo about an hour away from here. Its on every saturday night during the summer. They had bucking broncos, bull riding, barrel racing all the works. A good crowd too. They had a live band that plays between the events and of course 'The clown' that keeps you entertained.
Sunday , we just hung around here all day. Trish and Tommy and the kids came over and we all went to ten pin bowling at night. Christa won, then back here for tea. Tori won on our handicap system, so she chooses where were going for tea next time.
Monday we headed into New York City, Drove up the turnpike to Jersey City to the port where you get on the ferry to the ' Statue of Liberty'. New Jersey is on one side of the river and New York is on the other. On the
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Tori and Josh next to a bike stand on Wall st. map it shows the Statue of Liberty on the New Jersey side but I'm sure New York lays claim to it. So we jumped on the ferry.We had about a 1/4 of an hour wait to get on. The book says you will have about a 2 hour wait if you get on , on the NY side. 1st stop is Ellis island. This is where during the early 1900's that the ships would dock when bringing new immigrants to America from England and Europe. 12 million people went thru there over about 50 years and only 250 thousand got sent back. They turned you away if you were sick, not very nice or disabled. To make their job easier they made the shipping company pay for all of those who got rejected.So the shipping company vetted most people before they even got on. If you came over on 1st or 2nd class, you didn't need to do immigration as it was presumed that you were healthy and wealthy enough to enter the United States. We watched a short play about the plight of a Hungarian actor who came to America after being kicked out of his home country. It
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Inside M&M shop. told of his set backs and how he managed to stay here, Then went on to become a great Hollywood actor of his time. Then we caught the next ferry , they go every 20 mins, to the Statue of Liberty.It is amazing, Her body is green as she is made of copper. 150 sheets that were moulded to shape in France and transported here. Mr Eiffel engineered the structure that holds her up before he went on to build the Eiffel tower in Paris. We walked around and took photos. They have opened up, walking up the spiral stairs to go to the crown again, but when I looked into it , the 1st available time we could get on that tour was 4th of November. And they reckon it is 20 degrees hotter inside there than outside. It was hot enough outside. Caught the ferry back to our car and we headed into town. Thats an experience itself. Driving in New York. Dad told me years ago, look after the front of your car , dont worry about the back . If someone hits you in the back of your car its their fault. We managed to find
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Infront of the fill your own . our hotel alright. Its in a bit of a dodgy neighbourhood, but was a fairly new hotel, so it was nice and clean and not far from a subway station. Checked in and parked our car there. They only have 22 carparks and its 1st come 1st serve to get one. $24 / day to leave your car parked there. Thats cheap , some of the carparks advertise $12/hr. Dropped our bags and headed for the 'Union street station' on the 'R' line. Once we worked out how to buy our tickets we were off. Not quite as flash as Washington DC, but this is NY.Came up right on Times square. What an eye opener for the kids and even for us as it has changed so much. The noise, The people , The lights , its hard to describe. We walked along looking at some of the shops. Shops selling all the New York parafanalia , T-shirts 9 for $10 was the best Kylie saw. Statue of Liberty stuff, NY Yankees, everything. We went into the 'Toys R Us ' store. It has a ferris wheel in there. Kids were going for rides, 3 floors of toys and hundreds
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Central Park. of people in there. Next was the M&M shop, wow the people in there were just pushing there way thru to get to the long wall of M&M's that you can bag up your own ones. Every conceivable colour and flavour that weve never heard of was there. Tori bought some Pajama's there. Kids got some more of their souveneir pennies made while they were there. We watched some street performers that drew a great crowd. They were doing gymnastic tricks and one guy was double jointed and could bend himself into positions that people just shouldn't do. Then we just sat in Times square watching all of the huge electronic billboards scrolling thru , advertising everything imaginable. They are on the sides of buildings, everywhere around you. My favourite game is to see how many peoples photos I can get myself in pulling a funny face in the background of their photo. In Times square it was just to easy. I think the count was at 13 by the time we headed home.
Tuesday, Kylie and Josh headed down to the dinning room for their free breakfast. Tori and I had 'Chex' and toast in our room. Yes I
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View of Manhatten, from the Empire state building. bought my own toaster and bread, butter, jam. On the subway again, 1st stop today was the Empire state building before it got too busy.1st line was to get thru security, 2nd line was to buy the tickets, 3rd line was to get in the elevator. They tried to sell us fast passes (like at wet'n'wild) to get you to the front of each line. $20 extra/person. It cost me $20 adults and $14 kids as it was. And the line wasnt that bad , we were up there within 1/2 hr. We had a great view from up there. We could see for miles, sometimes the smog is so bad you don't get to see much. We managed to get to the sides reasonably easy to get to look out. One good side of a recession aye. We bought the map that shows you all the buildings and things you are looking at. Took some photos in the mirror, as you do !!
From there we jumped on the subway again as we bought an all day pass, go anywhere for $8 each. Next stop ' Ground Zero' . Walked around there, but you can't see much past the
construction fences they have around it. Went to the World trade Finance Center, It is just next to the site and you can see over the fence at what they are building. They are going to replace the towers with 5 smaller buildings. 2 ponds are going to go where the towers were as memorials to those who died there. We went to Fire house 10 . Its a fire station that is just across the road from the twin towers. The whole station and the people that worked in were killed that day. They have a bronze mural on the side of the new station of the sept 11 attacks. We went to the WTC memorial center. A building that shows pictures and stories of the day of the attacks, video footage and pieces of debris from the plane and buildings. Very humbling.From there we took the subway to Grand Central station. The saying " As busy as Grand central Station " is deinately true.
Next was a walk down Wall st, not much to look at really. The New York Stock Exchange is just another big building with its name on the outside. They were doing road works
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Inside WTC finance building. down there, so it was bit crazy walking around, so we headed back to our hotel for a rest. Talked to Rhonda and the boys on the computer. They said Paul Henry had been over here last week interviewing Helen Clarke. About 5pm we headed back into town. So we walked over to the 'UN Building' where Aunty Helen works, but all the flags were down by then and they had all gone home. Josh has found himself a job. He wants to be the driver for one of the Consulate people. Who sit around in a nice black car all day, then take their special person to wherever they want to go . Then wait for them with the other drivers of special people to take them back again.LOL Then it was back to Times square, We had kebabs for tea from the little carts on the side of the street, they are everywhere. Then just looked around and laughed at the different people from every walk of life that congregates in a place like this. The Buzz of the place really does something to you, I know every big City has its own feel for it. But Times
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New WTC buildings going up. square has got rid of most of the road ways now. They are footpaths and seating areas. Its a one way road down broadway past Times square and by the sounds of it, That may be shut off soon too. There are just soooooo many people walking around, and the later it gets the more people there are. The cars don't honk their horns as much as they used to. I found a sign saying " $350 fine for honking your horn " dont know if they actually give out fines but there certainly is a lot less of it.
Wednesday morning we had a bit of a slow start. Tori went down for breakfast as they had bacon and eggs this morning. Id already had my breakfast by then. Packed our bags and checked out. They let us leave our car there which was a plus.We headed for Central park, which is a massive recreational area dead smack in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. 8.3 million people live in NY. Central park is where they go to exercise, play, relax just hang out. It really is quite a nice park. Like alot of
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I thought this photo was appropriate.A red light on Wall st. the touristy part of New York , they have definately cleaned up a lot of the homeless and the bums. Dont know where theyve gone but we didnt see many. Came across one nutter that scared one of the horses that takes you for tours through Central Park , then when the owner abused him he walked off down the road abusing other people that were working there. A bit freaky !! A very muggy day didn't make it a great day to be walking around, which was a shame.Watched some kids playing softball, walked around a lake and then past a skating rink. We thought we would try and come back here in winter time as you can go ice skating in Central park then. Walked through " Strawberry fields " and over to where John Lennon got shot. His appartment was right across the road from Central park. Back to Broadway and picked up Kylie's and Tori's tickets to see " Mama Mia" the musical. I managed to get them tickets on monday night.To go to a broadway show for them was high on their list of things to do. So they went and enjoyed it .Josh and
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This guy was looking for a job. I went and found a movie complex and went to the latest Harry Potter movie. After that we met the girls at ESPN zone. Its 3 floors of sports. 1st floor a bar and heaps of tv's with baseball, football etc on. 2nd floor, private glass rooms to drink in comfort while still watching the big tv's from downstairs. 3rd floor Hello !!!!, Gamesroom for kids of all ages !!!! We bought a ticket and they were just having a happy hour, so all games were half price. Tori had a go at Ice hockey practice thing, Josh and I went head to head on Nascars. Josh and I had a go at this boxing game where you put the gloves on and you box against a computer. Because you are standing on a special mat, it knows where you are. So you have to duck and dive and weave your way in to punch the computer. I worked up a sweat playing it. It was awesome. We had a go at ten pin bowling. So many games and so little time. Theres one in Vegas so we kept our card and well definately go there again.So it was on
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Honking sign. the subway with the 6 oclock rush, back to the car . Hit the roads out and back to Ross and Christas. What a busy 3 days !! Man we did some walking.
For me going to New York City was always going to be a highlight. Yes we blew the budget. Ive been to NY before and loved it, but I hoped that I could take the kids and they could experience the wonder of the place too. I think they did. When we were sitting in the middle of Times square watching the world go by I said to them " How do 4 people from Mudgway Place end up here ?" . Our worlds are so different. Im really proud of what we've managed to see and do here. The kids have taken so much of it in and really enjoyed themselves. Just got on with the walking , knowing you will get to see and do some really cool things along the way.
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Gran
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This is great, brings back so many memories....sounds as though you all had a great time.