Shepherd's hiking adventures : Day 28

Day 28 - NYC

Starting location: Southeast Train station

Ending location: NYC

Mileage today: (13 miles) unofficial

Total Mileage: 302.1 miles

Today’s Photo

The story behind this photo ...

today we got up at the crack of dawn (5:15 am) and grabbed our continental breakfast and headed for the Southeast train station to catch the 7 am train to NYC. Since Amee and I lived in NYC in 2012, I planed on giving them the full NYC experience in one day!

We made it in to NYC by 8:40 and immediately grabbed the subway to get to lower manhattan to try to catch the Staten Island Ferry. We missed the 9:30 am on but we had time to walk part of the Brooklyn Bridge before getting on the 10 am one. It’s an 25 minute free ride where you can get great views of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan. It was pretty chilly but the boys had a great time riding their first ferry.

Then we made our way to the World Trade Center to see the Freedom Tower and pools. It was pretty amazing to see how big the footprint of the twin towers were.

We also saw the NYSE and Trinity church (from the National Treasure movie). lol.

Then we grab some pizza slices from 2 Bros Pizza for lunch. Plain and pepperoni.

After lunch we made our way uptown to Washington Square park. My favorite place in NYC. So much to see and do there. There was the “Loudest Mime” doing a routine there. A band playing music and tons of people to watch.

After resting there we headed up to the Flat Iron district. We accidentally ran into the Harry Potter World store. This is why we hardly take the subway because you accidentally run into things when you are actually walking on the street! The boys each bought a wand with their spending money. CJ got the Ravenclaw wand and Lucas the Sword of Gryffindor wand. These wands we didn’t see when we were at Hogwarts at Universal Studios, so the boys couldn’t resist.

Then we got our first sight of the Empire State Building. My favorite building at night since it is lit up each night in different colors.

Across the street from Harry Potter shop was the Lego store, which use to be at 30 Rock. Thankfully, we saw it when we did or we would have missed it. We finally made it to ESB.

After the ESB, we hiked up to the NYC public library. CJ really wanted to see the library but we warned him it’s not like a normal library. There are no books lying around lol.

But we do actually go up to the 3rd floor of the library where people actually read books but you had to be a researcher to enter. We do see some cool painted murals though that I had never seen.

After the library, we headed up to 30 Rock and all that is around that area. A toy store, Atlas statue & St. Peter’s cathedral.

Then we made our way up 5th ave to the Trump Tower! The boys were really hoping to see Trump there. lol.

Then we saw this extremely weird yet very satisfying building. We think it was the Louis Vinton

So finally we made it to Central Park and with it being a beautiful Saturday in the city, it seemed all of NYC was there today. We started at the pond and bridge. Then made our way to Bethesda fountain to see that famous landmark. The fountain wasn’t on but it was cool to see where Santa’s engine came off Santa’s sleigh in the movie ELF.

Then we hit the sheep meadow and couldn’t believe all the people there.

After the park we hit the main event. Times Square. They were really looking forward to seeing all the billboards and crowds of people. Also the M&M world. lol. We grabbed some lemon merengue M&Ms which were delicious.

Then we got some over priced food but the boys loved it. Corn dogs and fries from Nathan’s.

We got some must have cheesecake from Junior’s (Oreo Cheesecake). Glad we don’t have to go to Brooklyn to get it.

Finally worn out and 13 miles of hiking on AT miles we called it a day and headed to Grand Central Station to see the Chrysler building and board our train.