Category: 2015 Vacation

2015 Vacation Destinations: Ellis Island, New York/New Jersey

After we finished at the Statue of Liberty, we took the ferry to Ellis Island.  We did a few of the activities in the museum, but I had another goal in mind.  You see, my maternal grandfather and his mother (my great-grandmother, of course) came in through Ellis Island very early in the 20th century.  I was far more interested in sort of getting in touch with their experiences while they were there.  I looked at floors and walls and doors, searching for things that were probably there when my ancestors were.

The Main Building has been restored and looks beautiful. The museum was mostly photographs and interpretive signage and things of that nature and didn’t have much in the way of artifacts.  We spent some time exploring the building and discovered the Great Hall, which I was totally unable to do justice to in photographs.

Then we went outside and my son got some rest while I examined the Wall of Honor.  The Wall of Honor is a series of metal plaques that have immigrants’ names inscribed on them.  The Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation raised the money to renovate the north side of the island by putting names on the wall in exchange for a donation.  I am not sure if they are still adding names to the wall.  The Foundation’s website seems to indicate that they are, but I thought I saw something at Ellis Island indicating that they are not taking any more names.  If they are, I am very tempted to add my great-grandmother’s name, since she has many more descendants than my grandfather does.

The area behind the Main Building is well worth visiting, if you go to Ellis Island.  The Wall of Honor circles a little bit of greenspace.  There is also a place where one can see some of the foundations of Fort Gibson, which stood on the island before Ellis Island was used for immigration.  You can see the skylines of both Manhattan and Jersey City from the grounds of Ellis Island, as well.  And off tucked by the northeastern corner of the Main Building, there was the prettiest little bed of lilies (see image).

Lillies on the north side of the main building of Ellis Island
A bed of lilies on the northeast side of the main building of Ellis Island.

Overall, I was not terribly impressed by the museum, but I found that my visit to Ellis Island was definitely worth the time it took to explore the island, nonetheless. And maybe someday they will get the money to complete the restoration of the south side of the island, the buildings of which are falling into disrepair.

2015 Vacation Destinations: The Statue of Liberty

We went on the Statue Cruises cruise to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on our first full day in New York City.  I don’t like to leave things to the last minute, but I am also afraid of setting up a schedule that turns out to be unfeasible once I get on my trip. When planning my trips, these two sort of sit in tension with one another until eventually I decide that the time is right to make definite plans.  July is one of those months where tickets to the crown of the Statue of Liberty tend to sell out six months ahead of time. As a result, by the time I scheduled our Statue of Liberty day, there were no tickets to the crown available.  However, I was the one who really wanted to climb to the top.  My son wasn’t enthusiastic about climbing 377 steps.  So I got pedestal tickets, which turned out to be an excellent compromise.  From the indoor part at the top of the pedestal, you can see the inside of the statue (which was designed by Gustave Eiffel, who would go on to design the Eiffel Tower six years later), and which was what I wanted my son to see. Continue reading “2015 Vacation Destinations: The Statue of Liberty”

2015 Vacation Destinations: Grand Central Terminal, New York City

I made my first trip to New York City as part of a family vacation in 1988.  There is a whole backstory to that, which I will tell as part of my travel memories at a later date.  While my parents and I were, I think, walking from our hotel to the United Nations Headquarters, we took the walkway along the Park Avenue Viaduct through the Helmsley Building.  When we came out the other side, I realized that we were close to Grand Central Terminal.  I asked my folks if we could walk the couple hundred feet to Grand Central so that I could see it, but they didn’t want to go out of our way, so I didn’t get to see the station on that trip.

My son has always been a fan of trains, and with a Midtown Manhattan hotel, I knew that we would be able to fit a trip to Grand Central Station into the week somewhere.  As it turns out, when we checked Google Maps for a subway trip to Battery Park for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island cruise, the best way from where we were was the 4 or 5 train from Grand Central.  We had about three hours to get to Battery Park, so that gave us plenty of time to explore the station. Continue reading “2015 Vacation Destinations: Grand Central Terminal, New York City”

We Just Got Back From New York

My son and I had a fantastic (and exhausting!) time on our trip.  My travel tends to be jam-packed with activity.  With the exception of Saturday, when we went to visit some friends in Philadelphia, we did at least two things every day of our trip.  We also walked, on average, 11 miles every day.

It was amazing, and fun, and I got both a lot of exercise and quite a bit of sun (and yet my skin is still the same color it was when I left).  I hope my son learned a thing or two while we were out there in the big city, as well.

Over the next few weeks I will be talking some about our destinations, of course.  I will also be sharing some information on how we got from one place to another as well.

But for now, I am exhausted and I have to get back to work tomorrow, so I’ll be saying good-night for now.

1/12/2019 On or around November 28, 2018, I realized that I need to start monetizing this blog. To that end, I’m starting to put what I call Gratuitous Amazon Links into my posts. As of January 12, 2019, I’m going back to add GALs to my older posts. If I can’t find anything exactly on-topic to the post, I’m choosing from among the highest-rated items on the same topic as the post. For example, for a post on a park, I’ll search Amazon for books on parks and choose one of the ones with the highest reader ratings. Here is the GAL for this post, since we’d just returned from New York: Humans of New York: Stories Kindle Edition, by Brandon Stanton

My Packing Checklist

I usually check a bag when I travel.  As much as I love to travel, I don’t have the time or money to travel enough to qualify for frequent flyer perks like seat upgrades, so I usually end up with the cheapest seats available.  This means that, despite generally arriving at the airport at least two hours ahead of time, I am in the last “boarding group.”  by the time I get on the plane, the overhead bins are full.  I am also five feet two inches tall, so shifting stuff around in the overhead bins so that I can fit my bag in there just isn’t going to happen.

There are some pluses to checking a bag, however.  For example, while everyone else is still fighting over the overhead bin space, I am usually buckled in my seat and reading whatever book I brought with me.  I also can walk faster through the airport than many others because I only have the one bag, rather than having to drag both my carry-on and my personal item through the airport.

As a result, I can bring some things with me, like a full bottle of shampoo for my son and me to share.  I keep my hair short, but my son is growing his out, so he uses more shampoo than I do. Rather than trying to see if one of those three-ounce carry-on bottles will hold enough for both of us, or taking my chances that the little freebie bottles of shampoo won’t have an unfortunate effect on my finicky hair, I can just bring a bottle of shampoo that I know makes my hair look pretty good, and know that I will have enough to get both of us through the week.  I also spend most of my hours indoors, so we are still working our way through the same container of sunblock that we bought in 2013.  It expires in October, so I will want to bring the same container with us so that we can get as much use out of it as possible.

Then there’s clothing.  I generally pack at least one more shirt and pair of underpants than the number of days I am traveling.  If I am going for more than a week and know that someplace where we will be staying has a laundry facility, I will pack eight of each and plan to do some laundry while I am there (and if I am planning to do laundry, I will bring some of those laundry detergent packs/pods in my luggage so that I don’t have to pay inflated prices for detergent at my destination).  I also pack at least three bottoms.  I generally wear these foofy skirts when I travel (one of the skirts I travel with is a “broomstick skirt” that my mom bought me.  My mom died in 2006, so the skirt is at least nine years old, but I only wear it when I’m on vacation, so it still looks pretty good).  I bring one of those skirts (I generally wear the other one on the plane) and either a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, or a pair of capri pants.  I generally only bring one set of pajamas, since I don’t wear them for that long in any one day.  I only pack my bathing suit if the hotel I am staying at has a pool or if I have an actual planned beach day.  I don’t have either for this trip, so I will not be bringing my bathing suit.

Since I am wearing a top, a bottom, and a pair of underpants while I travel, that actually means that I have two extra tops and pairs of underpants.

I generally bring at least two pairs of shoes, one pair of sandals and a pair of the Skechers Go Walk shoes that I wear for work at my day job.

I have asthma, so my maintenance medication and at least one rescue inhaler are required.  I got a new rescue inhaler a couple of weeks ago, so I’ll probably bring that one.

Then, at the last minute, I throw my daily things in the bag, my allergy pills, my acetaminophen (paracetamol to anyone reading this who speaks UK English), my vitamins, my facial sunblock and cleanser, toothbrush, toothpaste, anti-perspirant and things of that nature.

I used to knit on plane rides, but I haven’t done much knitting in recent years.  These days, I now bring at least one physical book, several ebooks, and my tablet computer.  Now that I’m doing my National Geographic reading project, I will start bringing a couple of those with me on trips, as well.  And since I am bringing my phone and tablet, I have to remember to pack their chargers.

 

We Did Some Pre-Trip Shopping Today

I should have picked up some of these things earlier, but as much as I try to get things done early, sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.  Last year we had a nearly twelve-hour delay getting to Rome and I lost quite a bit of money on train tickets to Naples that I had booked gambling that we wouldn’t be delayed by more than five hours.  This made me a little wary of spending too much money too early in the planning stages.  Then, just as I was about to start spending the money for things, an old health problem of my father’s popped up again.  About four years ago, my dad hit himself in the eye with a bungee cord a couple of years ago (Public service announcement:  Please be careful with bungee cords.  My dad’s ophthalmologist says that she sees a lot of bungee cord injuries.  If you cannot consistently keep your head out of the range of the cord, then please wear eye protection) and that eye was pretty red last week, so I thought that if it got much worse I might have to cancel the trip entirely so that I could be there for him.

Anyway, as of 7:45 this morning, we were 48 hours from departure, so I figured that we had better pick up those last few things that I’d been putting off.

My son and I started out the day walking in a new-to-us park that was pretty convenient considering the locations of the stores we wanted to visit.  We got there sometime around 11:30 this morning, and it was 90 degrees in the shade and there was no shade.  That may have been the fastest walk we’ve ever taken — the S Health app actually thinks we ran for part of it.

I also needed a lighter suitcase and carry-on bag.  I dragged my old suitcase and carry-on about half a mile through Naples last year and nearly considered just leaving the bag behind. My new suitcase is one of those ultralight ones and my carry-on is a fabric backpack.  Together they weigh maybe seven pounds.  So that will be so nice compared to dealing with my old 11-or-so-pound suitcase and three-or-so pound carry-on.

The pair of sandals that I’ve been using as my main walking shoe, a sort of Crocs knock-off made by Skechers, for the last three or four years are starting to wear out and they don’t make that shoe anymore, so I needed to look for an alternative.  I’ve only had the shoes I ended up with for about six hours now, so I don’t know how they’re going to work out, yet.  I will be bringing the old sandals just in case.

I lost my favorite jacket at Roma Fiumicino airport last year, so I also hit a couple of Ross Dress for Less shops to see if they had any lightweight jackets that would do for this trip, but wasn’t able to find anything.  Last summer, I bought something from L.L. Bean that was similar to the jacket that I lost, but I wasn’t perfectly happy with the jacket, so I haven’t used it much.  I’ll take it anyhow and see what I think of it after living with it for a week.

Then I ended my errands with a new haircut.  I keep my hair short largely because it’s easy to care for.   I just wash it and towel-dry it and then run a brush through it and it looks pretty good.  Additionally, I need some height in my hair and the only time my hair has the proper lift when it’s long is when I am living in a place with high humidity.  South Texas is not that place.  So I keep it short.  Unlike this post.

Now I am working on my second load of laundry for the night.  I will be pretty much done with my laundry for today after this load, though I may throw another one in just to get a head start for tomorrow.  My suitcase is about half-packed, as is my carry-on.  I have five books on my phone (including two in Spanish) and am bringing the May 2014 and June 2015 National Geographic magazines in hopes that I can get a head start on those articles.

My 2015 Vacation: Preparations

My son and I are out the door for our annual vacation in just about 72 hours.  We’re going to New York City with a day trip to Philadelphia.

Why New York?  When I was a kid I always wanted to visit New York and in 1988 when I was starting to date my now-ex, my folks finally agreed to go.  We had a fantastic time and I’ve always wanted to go back.

Fast-forward to my son and my 2013 vacation to North Carolina.  We rented a car and drove through the Smoky Mountains and the Outer Banks.  I’m not a huge fan of driving at the best of times and driving in places that I am unfamiliar with makes me really nervous.  Nearly all of that vacation was driving in unfamiliar places.  As a result, we were both so stressed out from some of the driving that I told my son I needed a couple of years off from rental cars.  In 2014, we went to Rome and Naples and pretty much took public transportation or walked everywhere (we took a cab a few times as well).  Then, for 2015, I needed someplace else we could go where we wouldn’t need a rental car.  I asked a dear friend who grew up in the New York City area if she would recommend New York City as a vacation destination and she said of course she would.  So when the time came (about six months ago), we started planning for New York.

Now, in the next 72 hours I have to pack, clean my bathroom, clean my bedroom, do all of my laundry, and board my cat.  I don’t have to do much other cleaning because my dad will be home.  We invite him every year and every year he refuses to go.  We’re boarding the cat because my dad and the cat don’t get along and I will be more relaxed knowing that they’re out of each others’ hair (or fur, as the case may be).  I’ve gotten a start on those first two, and am about to start on the third.  I’ll do most of the fourth on Sunday and that last item has to wait until Monday.