Finally!

Okay, okay, okay.  It's been nine days since Philly and I feel the need to share some of our adventures and misadventures.  On Sunday, September 19th, mom and I boarded a tour bus bound for New Yawk City.  The very first thing our very humorous and knowledgeable guide told us was New Yorkers don't pronounce their r's.  He immediately taught us three sayings that we needed to know to survive the city.  The first was to just call out, "Yo, Mitch" when we wanted to ask him a question.  The second was "How ya doin'?", followed by "fahgitaboutit."  We actually heard the locals using those phrases.

Lovely lady and the statue ain't bad either

Our first stop was the ferry that took us out to Liberty Island to disembark and view the Statue of Liberty.  What a magnificent lady!  Somehow I don't think the French would build us something like this today.  Next up was Ellis Island where so many of our ancestors arrived from all over the world.  Once there they might have their names shorted or changed by ignorant immigration officials.  After lunch we rode the elevators to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building--what a fantastic view of New York from the observation deck.  We had perfect weather and mom got attacked from behind by King Kong!  I still don't like heights--I kept thinking about having to paint that far up.

Mom did not know King Kong was behind her until the last second

Looking at the Hudson River and downtown New York
from the Empire State Building

We drove by where the Twin Towers used to be and got to see the new construction.  Sobering.  Later we went to Times Square and ate a fantastic New York hot dog from a street vendor.  Burp!  We shopped, we came back to the RV park, we plopped.  We were tired but the tour was really worth it.  I wish we'd had a guide like Mitch on at least one of our 8th grade D.C. trips.