The Statue of Liberty

One of the things I was most excited about in going to New York was seeing the Statue of Liberty. It was on my bucket list....so of course we had to go. I am so glad we did! We spent most of the day there. The museum part at the base of the statue is amazing. I learned so much about lady liberty. Sorry for the pic OVERLOAD-- I had way too many to choose from. Here goes..

These first couple pics were taken at Liberty Island. It is in New Jersey. You can either get to the statue from there or Battery Park in New York. Love that New York skyline!

The first stop was Ellis Island. This is where alot of the immigrants who first came to our country came.

At Ellis Island we learned alot about what those early immigrants had to go thru to be able to stay in our country.

This was one of the main rooms where they would stand in line, and wait to be checked. They went thru medical and psychiatric testing.



Making pennies! I tend to to this a lot! Thanks Shari- it's all your fault--I'm addicted!

This is the boat we rode to the statue.

Here she is--I'm almost there. It was such a beautiful day!

I love this shot!

This is a bronze replica of the face of Lady Liberty.

This was a picture of a picture. I thought it turned out neat.

Check out the size of those toes!

This is one of the only pic of Brett and I together on our trip. Thanks to the sweet lady who took it for us!

I took this from the pedestal of the statue! I loved the view!

The view from the top of the pedestal looking up!

Have you seen enough yet?

One last thing I learned was her right leg is actually popped. I never knew that. I love her hair from the back!

Thanks for your patients thru the many pictures! If you ever get the chance I totally recommend visiting The Statue of Liberty. It's an awesome experience!

New York....New York

Wait--What happened to New Jersey? Well- our hotel was actually in NJ, but I realized I never really took any pics there. We had a very nice hotel with a hot breakfast each morning. We decided to stay in NJ because it was cheaper that NY, the rooms were bigger, and we didn't have to pay to park our car. All the hotels in NY were going to charge us $40-$60 per day just to park our car! Brett picked us a hotel that was right next to the largest outlet mall in NJ! Yea for me! It was huge! Each day we had about a 20 min commute into NY but it wasn't too bad. There really isn't much else to say about NJ- all I saw was the hotel and the mall. They were great! Our first day going into the city we decided to ride what they call PATH. It is a metro that goes from NJ to different stops in NY. One of the stops just happens to be the WTC and that was on the plans so it worked great. The PATH station is right next to ground zero. It was humbling to see ground zero. We went to the World Trade Center Tribute Museum and I am so glad we did. Here are a few of the pictures.

BEFORE

AFTER

This Statue of Liberty was in the Museum. It is covered with badges of those who gave their lives. Sorry the pictures aren't the clearest. Everything was encased with glass and had spotlights glaring- so it was hard to get good pictures.

Left over piece of an airplane window.

The shoes in this pic belonged to a lady who followed the mayor around the city after the attacks. She donated them to the museum because the ash had melted parts.




These are posters of victims of the attacks. It was sad to read about so many that lost there lives. Many had young families at home.

This too was recovered from the site.

This was an actual beam from one of the towers.

This part made me cry. All the faces of those lost...So humbling..I could have looked at these innocent faces forever.

More faces... 3 entire walls covered with faces.

Ground Zero is entire surround by chain link fence. The fence is then covered so you can't acutally see the site itself very well. There was howerever a small area in one of the corners that wasn't covered so I snuck over to get a pic. They didn't really turn out but I was trying to show how far down it goes. Its a HUGE hole in the earth.

Near ground zero we also visited an old church. It has basically been turned into a monument now for all victims of 9/11. Right after the attacks it served as a resting place for all the service men and women who were helping in the aftermath. I never realized how many people 9/11 affected in one way or another. It made me proud to be an american to read stories of people who jumped in and were willing to do anything to help. I am so glad I had the oppurtunity to visit this area. They are currently working on the 9/11 Memorial and I think it will be a great tribute to those we lost. Ok.. Sorry.. I know that was depressing. Let's end on a more positive note. After the WTC- we were able to do some street shopping. (it got kinda scary, but thats a long story... so instead I'll just show you my good find..



Knock off purses! What more could a girl ask for! We also went to Century 21. It's Awesome. I am a shopper, and I even got overwhelmed in there. If you ever go to NYC you have to go. They have great prices all designer items. They have everything-shoes,purses,clothes,watches, makeup- everything. What a great way to end a depressing day!

Next stop...Philly

When we originally left for our trip we planned on going to The Sacred Grove after we left CT. Then I put it in the GPS and realized it was like 5 hours to get there and then it would be a six and a half hour drive back-- we changed our minds. Oh and can I just say for the record--I love Garmin! We have had our GPS for awhile now and only used it a couple of times. Well --it paid for itself on this trip. It was awesome! How can they be so smart? We used it the whole trip. Anyway- we got studying the maps the night before we left and decided to see how far we were from Philidephia. Only a couple of hours! We must go! I am so glad we did. Philly is a very interesting city. It has the historical part- which includes Independence Hall, and Liberty Bell, and it has the big city part. Just withing a few blocks of each other. And can I just say--we are still dreaming of those Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches! YUMMY! Beware!! Picture overload to follow--just think- this are only a select few!!

If you go back east and drive a car at all-keep lots of change in your pocket.
This is George Washington Bridge and it cost $8.00 just to cross it. Most of the freeways are toll freeways too, so you are constantly stopping to pay tolls. Bet you can guess how much my hubby loved that element of the the trip. We figured if we took a pic at least we would get something for our $.

Loved the cool buidings in this town!

Ok-there really is a reason for posting this picture. One of the weirdest things to us in Philly was parking. Every parking space is long enough for two cars to fit in. At first we couldn't figure out how to park. I'm sure we looked like idiots. We finally found a sign that explained it. If you are the front car, you have to leave your key with a parking attendant, so if the car behind you needs to leave, the attendant will move your car. My husband (aka..Mr Security) was not about to leave the keys of his rental car with some freaky looking parking attendant-therefore you can see we are the back car. I don't know if you can tell or not, but we are even parked on a roof because parking is so limited there. It was definately something new to us!

This is Independence Hall Visitors Center. This is where you picked up your tickets to Independence Hall. I am glad I reserved tickets because it was a Sat. and if not we wouldn't have been able to get tickets until around 5:00. So if you ever go--reserve tickets!

Independence Hall- Formely called "The Statehouse"



This is one of the rooms in Independence Hall. They have tried to keep all the rooms looking much like they did years ago. It even looked like the floors were the original wood floors.





Another room in the hall- This was the room where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed. It was neat to be in the same room those famous men were in!

Our guide told us this is the original chair George Washington sat in to sign the Constitution.

After we took our tour we came out to this beauty!! It smelled so good. Brett's friend told him if we went to Philly we had to try a Philly Cheese Steak sandwhich. I don't think I have ever had one before but I was starving and it smelled good so I said "Sure, I'll try one" Like I said before, Brett and I are still dreaming of that taste. They are so good there! We learned an important lesson from this little vendor- do some price checking! Just 20 feet from this guy was another guy with his cart and his sandwhiches were $2.00 less! We bought another sandwich from him because Brett wanted another one, and his tasted just as good! Lesson learned from the big city!

Carriges just like this were all over in the streets of the historical part of Philly. If we would have had more time, I would have loved to take a tour of the city in one.

Deeelicious! He wasn't real happy I was taking a picture with his mouth full- but I wanted to capture the moment!

After our bellies were full- our next stop was Liberty Bell. It is much bigger in person than I thought it would be.

Our next stop in Philly was this place...

What-- may you ask is there? This!!!

Does this building look familiar? It will if you are a Rocky fan. This is where the steps are that Rocky runs up in the movie. Its not unusual to see people running up these steps just like Rocky did in the movie. I did and I yelled "Yo Adrienne". I know I'm a dork--but I'm telling you, I'm not the only one who did it. Of course Brett got a pic of this- but I'm not posting it!

This shot if from the steps-looking out over the city. I guess this is also a famous place to come for wedding pics if you live in Philly. We saw a couple of wedding parties while we were there.

Brett wouldn't run up the steps for me, but I did at least get him to put his arms up like Rocky did. He is going to kill me when he sees I posted this! (ha ha )

All in all we had a great day in Philidelphia. We wished we could have had more that a day to spend. There was just too much to see. I guess we will just have to go back some day! After the museum- we jumped in our car to head to our next destination.....New Jersey! To be continued.....

Yale

Yea- I finally got up to date enough to post about our two week vacation back east. Due to the fact that I took over 800 shots and the fact that my blog is the only journaling I can seem to keep up on, I am going to have to post several entries to cover everything. Some parts may have more detail than you would ever want to know, so I am warning you now, you may have to skip over the fluffy details. I just want to write enough so I can remember. We got to go on this trip because Brett's work was sending him to a class in Connecticut. I had already planned on going with him where ever it was, but can you imagine my excitement when I realized we would only be an hour and a half from NEW YORK? I was thrilled! Over the course of our trip we were in 6 states.{Idaho,Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia, and New York} We had to include ID and Ut because 6 sounds cooler that 4. The first state we stayed in was CT. The thing I will remember most about CT was how green it was. It was beautiful. The crazy thing was--we are driving thru the Bronx in New York- and then before I new it we were in lush green CT. I got to enjoy 4 wonderful days at the hotel while Brett was in class. We would go out sightseeing after he got home. One of the things Brett had to do while in CT was visit Yale University. I never realized how old it is. It has been around since the mid 1700's. Here are some of the pics from our evening there;

Gotta love that cheesy grin he gave me!





Aren't these buildings awsome. Some were over 200 years old!

This was the Yale bookstore. We both wanted to buy a sweatshirt, but they were way expensive so we saved our $ for New York!

Walking down by the ocean!

It was definately a relaxing 4 days for me--- but it was a good thing, I needed to rest to prepare for the next leg of our journey. To be continued........