It was all over "in a New York minute"

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Last Tuesday we set out from Cape Elizabeth towards New York City on the last leg of our journey. We stopped for lunch at Plymouth as a handy and historic half-way point between Maine and Cape Cod where we planned to spend a couple more seasidey days before hitting the city. Plymouth is where the so-called Pilgrim Fathers decided to settle after their voyage from Plymouth in England on the Mayflower. It wasn't actually their first landing place, that was Provincetown, Cape Cod which proved too sandy so they sailed back across the bay. A large granite oyster-shaped boulder called the Plymouth Rock (at Plymouth) is where, according to legend, the Pilgrims first set foot when landing for good. There is now a memorial 'shrine' around the rock and the year 1620 is engraved into the rock although its probably a load of old rubbish as it was never mentioned by the original chroniclers of the voyage and wasn't referred to in any accounts until 140 years later. At anchor in Plymouth is a replica of the Mayflower (called the Mayflower II) which was built in the '50s and sailed from Plymouth (UK) to Plymouth, Massachusetts. We went aboard and were thoroughly entertained by the out-of-work actors doing brilliant impressions of some Devon-types who had sailed on the original voyage in 1620. The passengers were not all Puritans (specifically those of the Leiden church known as the 'Pilgrims'😉 about 50% were ordinary fortune seekers. So they formed an early colony of what became the USA and the rest is history, as they say! We enjoyed Plymouth as its not only historical but also pretty – George and Ruby also liked all the English and British tourist stuff there as it reminded them of home. We found a shop that sold tinned haggis, PG Tips, Marmite and Branston Pickle.

The following day we had made it to our Cape Cod campsite and prepared to spend a pleasant day exploring the peninsula (its the funny horn-shaped one that sticks out of Massachusetts and curls back on itself) and swimming in the sea for the last time this trip! The traffic was similar to Cornwall in the height of summer but we managed to dawdle along from our Inner Cape campsite to the Cape Cod National Seashore on the Outer Cape. We were rewarded with the beautiful sweep of sand and dunes that is Marconi Beach (named after some radio towers erected nearby by Marconi in 1902). We set up our stuff, along with hundreds of others, and watched the tide come in and reduce the beach to a small sliver of gold. The surf was exhilarating; the waves knocked us all over at least once. Such fun! After this we drove right to the end of the land, to Race Point, and visited the beach there. On our way down the board walk trail we saw a sign saying 'Recent Shark Sightings'. Gulp. Wish we'd known earlier in the day. Later, whilst watching the TV news in New York, we found out that there have been a high number of shark sightings on the New England coast this year including a Hammer Head right in the breaking surf on the Jersey shore and fifteen Great White sightings around Cape Cod, including one attack on a human. Blimey. In order to spend two nights on the Cape (and hang out with all the holidaying Manhattan-types) we had to make up for it by driving for 6 hours on Thursday to get to New Jersey ready for dropping off the RV the following morning. So we drove through Rhode Island at a trot (crossed it in half-an-hour), stopped at Mystic, Connecticut for lunch (in a bizarre shopping mall masquerading as a recreated New England village, although we did manage to see the 'famous' pizza place, pop culture lovers) and then drove on through New York and New Jersey. Five states in one day – we were very proud. And so Friday came and we sadly said goodbye to our not-so-trusty RV. We sang the theme-tune that we had made up for El Monte the rental company. “Going places with smilin' faces, El Mon-TEE ARRRR VEEE”. You can replace smilin' with ugly, miserable, angry, bored, tired, beardy etc – it's great fun. Despite us having blown up one of their lovely vehicles they still amazingly gave us a two-day refund on our trip to make up for the fridge repair débâcle in Seattle. Hurrah – spending money for the city! Well that was what we thought until Carla stepped on the laptop in the hotel room and broke the screen, so now it's more like repair money for our computer. Boo. Whilst we waited for our shuttle into the city the staff at El Monte apologised and said that they couldn't provide the bus service today as the traffic in Manhattan was all screwed up by the shooting at the Empire State Building. “What?” This was the first we'd heard of this and so we thought, excellent, welcome to New York everyone. However the nice EM people kindly paid our train fare on the New Jersey Transit into Penn Station and we easily picked up a cab from there to the Upper West Side where our hostel was. We managed to keep the news of the shooting from George and Ruby until the next morning when they saw it on the TV news and so avoided a rather nasty introduction to the, actually rather safe, borough of Manhattan. That night we headed Downtown to the Hudson River Park (on the west-side of the island) for a free outdoor screening of The Smurfs the Movie (yikes) on Pier 46. It was actually rather charming to be on a promontory sticking out into the river, with the lights of downtown in the background, picnic food and wine and beer spread out on a rug. We were amazed to find that there were people there WITHOUT children. We weren't sure that we'd have chosen The Smurfs as the perfect date movie, but each to their own. Perhaps it was a little bit romantic.

On Saturday morning we walked the few blocks to Central Park and ambled through it for a while. We took in the weekend-league baseball games, the joggers (of which Alex became one later in the week), the Jackie Kennedy Onassis reservoir, the horse-drawn carriages, and the Belvedere Castle; the scene of the final battle between Papa Smurf and Gargamel the Evil Wizard from the movie the night before. In the playground, George and Ruby met a New York boy called Sebastian, who had a bag full of water-balloons, and they spent an hour filling them and throwing them at each other. The weather was hot enough for it. As we had promised ice-creams earlier we went in search of them down 5^th Avenue. We searched in vain. We did, however, get to the Rockefeller Centre, and George found an amazing Lego shop, so the day was saved.

The next morning was time for some educational fun, so we went to the Children's Museum of Manhattan on the Upper Westside. George and Ruby got to look around the Inside Our Body exhibit before joining a workshop based around Bjork's new iPad music app. We got to go and get a coffee in peace round the corner while the museum helpers lead George and Ruby in making guitars out of cardboard and elastic bands and composing masterpieces using the iPad. Afterwards we made skyscrapers out of boxes and wooden blocks in the architecture exhibit and solved some brain teasers. After all that brain-work we needed a walk and headed west to Riverside Park. Along the way we found people queuing up for free kayaking on the Hudson. Who could say no? We couldn't. It was fun, but quite wet. We weren't dressed for kayaking, but anyway we dried out quickly enough. We went down to Greenwich Village for look around, and found a coffee and cake shop. G and R had there own table across the room, so they were happy. On Monday we'd planned separate girl and boy days. Following the RV fire Ruby had lost some lovely birthday present clothes and although we'd replenished her wardrobe a bit on the journey we'd promised her a shopping day in New York to pick up some special items. Carla and Ruby, therefore, spent a pleasant day (and a pleasant amount of money) shopping in Macy's and JC Penney and concluding with afternoon tea in a Greenwich Village 'parlour'. Ruby picked up some rather fancy dresses and a, now beloved, pair of Lelli Kelly boots (apparently they're famous) so the shopping was successful. The tea was scrumptious – Boise on Morton Street, highly recommended. Alex went with George on a tour of New York toy shops, including the Disney Store and ToysRUs on Times Square and FAO Schwarz on 5^th Avenue. Lunch was at Katz's Deli in the East Village. The wall was covered with photos of all the famous customers including Bill Clinton. Al had a pastrami-on-rye that contained over an inch thickness of pastrami. It was very tasty, but he really struggled to finish it. In the afternoon, the boys went up to the top of the Empire State building. The first time they went the staff said that the visibility was down to almost nothing – so they passed an hour returning to FAO Schwarz to replace the Spiderman toy that George had bought earlier in the day which had already broken - his arm fell off. By the time they had returned to the ESB, visibility had cleared and they went up to the observation deck. Al had been up there with Carla 16 years ago, and remembered the view. It had changed only slightly (obviously the Twin Towers are no longer there), but it is still fantastic. George particularly enjoyed being 'in control' for the day, with the only conditions being “it doesn't cost too much” and “we must be back on time”. A lovely day was had by all.

The next day we set off to the bottom tip of Manhattan and got the Staten Island Ferry (which is free) there and back. The views of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the New Jersey side of the river, were very pleasing. When we alighted we 'subwayed it' (can you say that?) up to Ground Zero where they are building what looks like a tasteful memorial for the 11^th September 2001 terrorist attack, involving sunken waterfalls and lots of trees. The NY Fire Department depot that adjoins the memorial square was particularly moving as there was a display dedicated to the 343 fire fighters who died whilst attempting rescues on that day. After this sombre visit we high-tailed it to John's Pizza on Bleecker Street and following some argie-bargie about having to share large pizzas (we managed to persuade George with the help of the waitress that this was the best idea) we enjoyed a tasty lunch. That was until Ruby got knife-happy carving her name in the wooden bench (which you are allowed to do). Her perfectionism at making sure her name would be visible to future generations meant that we had to physically drag her out of the place as she seemed intent on being there all afternoon. Oh well, as we beat a hasty retreat from Greenwich Village we hoped that New Yorkers would not take too dim a view of UK child-rearing techniques. On our last whole day in NYC, and our last of the trip itself, we spent a good deal of time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the newly-added American Art wing we found a sort of summary of our adventures in the US. We saw a Thomas Moran painting of the Teton mountains in Yellowstone (he was one of the campaigners for the formation of the national park), paintings of the Adirondacks and portrayals of some of the events in US history that we had learned about. Other parts of the gallery reminded us of other parts of our travels in Asia, Australasia and the South Pacific. It does all seem a rather dreamlike story now; the fact that we've travelled this far and spent so much time away from home. We have had a few ups and downs, fights and compromises, fantastic hospitality, fantastic people and places. But it is quite nice to be going home.......to Brighton.

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Comments

[Len & Marion]

Welcome Home
Its been great following your blogs but we are glad you are now coming home and we are very much looking forward to seeing you all. Lots of love, Len and Marion, Nanny & Grand Poppadum