NY/DC Day 3

On the schedule today was the Statue of Liberty and to go across the Brooklyn bridge. Let us go on another photo collage for the day.

This is where the trail terminal was. We had to go under the water to get to NY.

Isn't he so hansom!

The train let us out just around the corner from the World Trade Center memorial.

The names of those who died in the building, fire fighters and those on the planes surrounded the two fountains.

The new building. The Freedom Tower. Not quite opened yet. It is designed to represent both of the twin towers.

The famous bull. Yet again, so many people that to get a picture of all of it there were people in it. Funny story about this though, I was talking to Michael about how I would like to see this if I could. Then I looked up and saw a big crowd of people and looked at what they were looking at and it was the bull. Haha

We finally were in the line for the boat to go to the Statue of Liberty and there was this statue that of people pulling a guy out of the water. I thought it was cool. The guy that is "the water" was actually in the water.

In line for the boat.

The tall one is the Freedom Tower

On the boat. Windy as any boat is.

There she is!

The line to get back on the boat after you saw Miss Liberty. It took us probably about an hour to get back on the boat.

View from the island. That is a black spot on my camera. That's why it is in so many pictures.

This is the spiral staircase from the pedestal leading to the crown.

It was so ridiculously tight. It felt like I was climbing a sideways ladder. It was easier to go sideways then forward like regular stairs.

The inside layering

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WE MADE IT! It was SO hot and humid and steep to get there. Can you tell?

A view out of one of the windows in the crown.

The inside of the crown, just below the spires.

Michael had to crouch down in most of the spots on the small platform at the top.

It was really fun even with the heat and humidity

The torch. This window did not open.

The inside of the hair.

Can you see her face? The eyes and nostrils are open.

If you look really close you can see the ladder that leads up to the torch. Back in the day you were able to go up to the torch but not anymore.

Michael's second favorite part of the trip, first was flying first class, was that he had a ticket to go all the way to the crown. I only had a ticket to the pedestal. There was some difficulty when we were buying the tickets a few months ago. We could not buy both tickets on the same day and by the time I got around to getting my ticket all the tickets for the crown were sold out. They only sell something like 5 tickets per hour per day. Well, one thing lead to another and I was able to go to the crown too. :) There were some nice older guys working the desk that were tired of people not being able to speak English that they were excited that we could so he gave me a pass to the top to go with Michael. I was excited. Michael was excited that I was able to go to the top but sad because that was the one thing he was going to be able to do that I was not going to do. I could see the torn feelings so I looked for ways to make up for it.

This is the original torch. It was replaced in the 1980's. Because of the design to enable it to be lit from inside let water in which caused corrosion and therefore needing to be replaced.

A model of the inner workings of the statue. See the spiral staircase?

The back of the real thing. We walked all the way from the white tent to the spires on her crown. That is some vertical!

Not sure what he was looking at.

Ellis Island

A picture of back in the day.

I thought the floor all over this building was really cool.

An interesting statement from 1851.

The Registry room back in the day.

The Registry room today.

When we got back there were a lot of street performers. Look at how big that snake is?!!

The squerls are use to being feed. This one was eating right out of these peoples hands.

After we got back from seeing the Statue of Liberty Michael really wanted to bike across the Brooklyn bridge. We ended up renting these City Bikes sponcered from City bank. They have little stations all over the city. It was fun to ride across the bridge. It was also REALLY stressfull. There was a walking lane and a bike lane on the foot bridge across but the people kept walking in the bike lane. I very quickly learned to ding my bell at them. That would work to clear the way about 95%. The other times you had to dodge the people and the bikes going the other way. There was at least once that my handle bars pegged someone in the arm. Woops. She heard my bell though and was so clearly in the bike lane. There is also a time I had to hit the brakes and stop or else I would have collided into 4 other people standing in the bike lane. There was a bike going the other way that had to stop too. We decided to walk back so that we could take it all in. I made sure to stay clearly in the walking lane.

The walking path above the Brooklyn Bridge.

I thought this was cool how all the lines combined.

I love all the lines in this.

The stone working on the bridge.

The Manhattan Bridge.

After the bridge we headed back home. As we were almost to the hotel we saw the Freedom Towers spire was lite in red, white and blue. I got the beast picture I could which was not very good but you can see it in the distance in the middle of the picture.