Sorry about the absence. Bad internet at the last hotel left us with not enough bandwidth to upload pictures or update the blog.
On Sunday morning, we woke up early, packed up and checked out of the NYC hotel in Times Square. We’d originally planed on staying longer, but we did a lot more on Saturday than we’d originally planned, and ended up seeing just about everything we wanted to see. Sunday morning, we drove south to the tip of Manhattan, called Battery Park, and boarded a boat for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Before we did, though, we walked a few blocks over to the former site of the WTC, and Ground Zero. While they weren’t getting much attention from visitors like us, they were still impressive to see. We could recognize several landmarks we’d seen in the news reports, and answered a lot of questions about 9/11 from the kids.
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were fun, and riding around on the boat for a few minutes was somewhat relaxing. We spent about half of the day there, looking like tourists in our “I love NY” t-shirts.
After that, we were ready to say goodbye to NY and headed toward Providence. We decided to spend a couple of nights there, relaxing and recharging before the final leg of our trip. We found a hotel with cheap rates, comfy beds, and a nice pool (the BIG 3 for the Moseley family). We spent the next couple of days/nights swimming (a lot), checking out the town and Brown University, and eating some good food. We even saw Disney’s new movie, Up, which we all really liked. Providence is a cool town, neat looking and smallish, but with some nice places to go. I told Dominique that if it didn’t get freezing cold 10 months of the year, I’d love to live there. Maybe Brown will offer me a summer job once I finish my PhD… Like Janitor, maybe?
We left Providence this morning in the rain, and drove to Boston, our final stop on the tour. On our way in we visited a friend from Pepperdine at his bookstore, the Blue Bunny. It was a great little shop in a cute little town outside Boston, and the staff there treated us like royalty. Later this week, we are planning to visit Paul’s other company, Fablevision, where he and his brother, and a very large staff, create children’s books, software, and other great stuff. I’m looking forward to it.
We drove around Boston a bit, checked into our hotel, and got in touch with a local swim club to see if Stanzi and Robby could work out with them. They were open to the idea, so this evening we all drove over to Harvard University, where they practice, and Stanzi and Robby had a great workout. It was really fun seeing Harvard’s pool – we’ll be back a couple more times this week before we go home. Thanks to the Bay and Ocean State Squid for letting us join them.
It was a good day, although I have to say I’d rather drive through downtown New York than through Boston. At least the NY streets make sense. My GPS is worse than useless here. I’m going to wrap up now and go study my map.
Tomorrow we drive about 1 hour north to Salem to visit the Witch Museum. Should be fun and the roads look pleasantly straight.
