On Monday morning, May 21st, we left Reston, VA,
drove to Circle M Campground, a Thousand Trails resort in Lancaster, PA. We had visited Lancaster, a town famous for
its nearby Amish and Mennonite communities, last year when we were in
Hershey. We decided to go back and stay
at Circle M for two reasons: the camping
would be free with the Thousand Trails Zone Pass and we could take the train
for a day trip to New York City.
It was raining and the traffic was horrible when we left
DC. But Chuck kept driving and I kept
navigating and the traffic finally eased up after we got around Baltimore.
Circle M is about 4 or 5 miles outside of the city of
Lancaster. If we had followed the GPS
directions or Google maps directions exactly, we would have ended up on a
dead-end street in the middle of a wheat field.
We knew there was a problem when the GPS told us that we would be
approaching our destination on the right in ½ mile after we had just
passed a big billboard sign saying “Circle M – Entrance” on the left. Fortunately, we were able to turn down a few
streets to head back to the correct entrance without having to try to make a
big U-turn somewhere or disconnect the tote.
As with all Thousand Trail parks on the Zone Pass, you check
in at the office, go select your sight, and then come back to give them your
site number. We disconnected the car and
drove around the campground looking for the most level site with full hookups. There were a lot of seasonal sites and
permanent residents leaving very few sites to choose from. We finally decided on #B-50.
The park is in a beautiful countryside location and has
indoor and outdoor pools, a 9-hole 3 par golf course, and putt-putt golf. It also smelled of horse or cow manure as
soon as you stepped outside we guess from where the nearby farms were
fertilizing their fields.
On Tuesday, we drove into town to check out where the train
station was located, go to the grocery store and get Chuck a light rain jacket
because there was a chance of rain in New York City on Wednesday. When we got back to the campground, we went
to the golf course where Chuck played a round of golf while I watched, walked
with him and looked for golf balls. I
hit a few golf balls too since there was no one on the course; but I’m not very
good. Next, we played a round of
putt-putt. It started out as a close
game. Around the 6th hole,
Chuck had one of those “putt-putt” holes where it seems like you can never get
the ball in the hole and scored about 10 on the hole. I held the lead until the very end when I choked
on the last hole. That was the first
time we had played putt-putt in years.
On Wednesday, we got up at 3:30 am to catch the 5:30 train
to New York City. We took the earliest
train because it was a 3 hour train ride and we wanted to see as much as we
could in NYC and still get back before too late that night. The train ride had several stops but was
surprisingly quiet and comfortable and even had free wi-fi. Plus we got to see another view of the
countryside as well as the cities of Philadelphia, Newark, and New York
City. Given how expensive it is to live
in the city, I can see why people choose to live further out and then commute
via the train into the city.
The train station in Lancaster, PA, had one train route
either going west to Harrisburg, PA, or east to
NYC, and probably no more than about 50 people getting on at any one
time. Penn Station in NYC, on the other
hand, had it seemed like a hundred different trains going in hundred different
directions with thousands of people getting on and off them. When we got off the train, we just followed
everyone else figuring they were going out of the building somewhere.
Because we were only going to be in NYC for the day, I had
pre-determined a general route to follow once we got off the train and used the
Google maps on my smartphone to guide us to the sites we most wanted to
see. When we stepped out of the train
station, we walked down 34th Street to the Empire State Building.
Next, we walked towards Times Square where Chuck got his
picture taken with the “Big Apple” (glad we found that). :)
After riding on a train for 3 hours and walking around for
another hour, we were both needing to find a bathroom which is not something
you readily find in New York City. We
discovered that the easiest way to find a bathroom was to go eat at a
restaurant. Right off Times Square we
found the Brooklyn Diner where we shared a nice breakfast, took advantage of
their facilities, and I had the “best cup of coffee in the world.” :)
After leaving the Brooklyn Diner, we headed around the
corner to Times Square (that’s it behind us in the picture Chuck took):
Times Square was not as busy as we thought it would be.
And the lights and billboards were not quite as dazzling as
they are night.
Just imagine. On New
Year’s Eve, year after year, Times Square is filled wall-to-wall with people
waiting for a big ball to drop at the stroke of midnight to ring in the new
year.
After leaving Times Square, we walked towards Rockefeller
Center where I talked Chuck into going up to the Top of the Rock. I had read that the view from the Top of the
Rock was actually better than from the top of the Empire State Building even
though Rockefeller Center is not as tall as the Empire State Building. He was a little hesitant about going. But I knew that, weather permitting, we could
really get a birds-eye view of the city.
We were lucky in that we did not have to wait very long to ride the
elevator up the 70 stories to the top.
Unfortunately, when we got to the top, the sky was very
cloudy obstructing the view of a lot of what I hoped to see. We were able to see Central Park…
… and the Empire State Building…
…as well as many other skyscrapers; but were unable to see
the new World Trade Center or the Statue of Liberty, which was a little
disappointing.
The battery on my smartphone was dwindling which was also aggravating which meant I could not take as many pictures. I had planned on using my smartphone to take all the pictures so I would not be toting around our new camera in NYC.
After leaving the Top of the Rock, we walked to Central Park
and stopped in front of Trump Tower on the way.
After we got to Central Park, we sat on a park bench for a
while to attempt to figure out the New York City subway system and how to get
to Battery Park at the far end of NYC.
I
finally gave up and asked a park ranger.
On the way to the subway, we stopped and bought a hot dog from a street
vendor, one of the things Chuck wanted to do.
We walked several blocks and walked down the stairs to the subway
stop. We asked the attendant for
confirmation we were at the right stop, bought our subway ticket, and waited
for the R train that would take us all the way to Battery Park.
Where we got off the subway was the same place the Staten
Island Ferry arrives and departs. It had
just arrived and there were people everywhere.
We decided to take a 60 minute river cruise on a site-seeing boat so we
could not only see the City from the river but also see the new World Trade
Center, the Brooklyn Bridge, the
Manhatten Bridge, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. Chuck was being very careful not to drop my phone over the boat while taking this picture of Ellis Island (another one of Chuck's good pictures) :)
His picture of the Statue of Liberty was much better.
The Statue of Liberty is going through major renovations which is why you see the cranes on the side of the building. Still, it is an inspiring site to see, our favorite while in NYC:
.jpg)
After the river cruise, we walked up to Wall Street where
Chuck got his picture with the bull on Wall Street. (FYI, there is no bear on Wall Street – just
a bull.)
Next, we walked toward the new World Trade Center. The sun came out at just the right time. Pretty cool, huh? Interestingly, the week prior to our coming to NYC, the new World Trade Center now exceeds the Empire State Building in height becoming the tallest building in NYC once again.
We walked to where we thought you could get passes to go to
the 911 Memorial but it was the wrong place.
Because we were starting to run short on time, we decided to walk part
of the way and take a subway part of the way to Little Italy where I wanted to
go for dinner. Mulberry Lane was full of
Italian restaurants with head waiters standing out front encouraging you to
come in and try their restaurant. Since
we were tired and hungry, we stopped at one of the first restaurants we came
to, Il Cortilo, where we were seated in
a nice, quiet indoor terrace room.
Chuck ordered one of the entrees the waiter recommended
which was some sort of half of a roasted chicken type of dish while I
“chickened” out and ordered the traditional spaghetti with meat sauce. The meal was delicious and we enjoyed a
rather leisurely dinner.
The only thing we hadn’t done while we were in NYC that I
had hoped we could do was take a taxi cab ride.
We were amazed at the taxi cabs everywhere. In fact, seeing someone driving a personal
car was a rarity. However, since we still had $5
left on our subway pass, we decided to take the subway back to the train
station.
After we got off the subway, we quickly walked into and out
of Macy’s (just so we could say we had been there) and took one last picture of
the Empire State Building:
After asking a policewoman for directions to the train
station and asking someone else inside the train station where to go to catch
the Amtrak train back to Lancaster, we finally got to the waiting area where we
waited for the train to Lancaster to arrive.
We got back on the train and collapsed in our seats. We arrived back home around 10 pm after a
very full day in NYC. It was a fun day
trip; but we were glad to be away from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple
and back home in our RV.
No comments:
Post a Comment