Curly Girl in the Big Apple

A few years ago, Sandy read a book written by a woman who specializes in cutting curly hair. Ever since, she has wished she could have her hair cut at this woman’s salon in Manhattan. So, for her 60^th Birthday, she is having her hair cut at that salon. At first we were going to drive the car to NY but hotels are really expensive. Then our friends Al & Tena told us about an RV Park in Jersey City NJ. Adjacent to the park is a ferry terminal with frequent service to Manhattan. Although $60 a night was easily the most we ever paid for a campsite, never before could we see the Statue of Liberty from our parked motorhome!

We left Hooksett by 8:30 and, with some trepidation, took the direct route (I-90 to 84 to 91 to 95) including the Cross Bronx Expressway and George Washington Bridge. It rained most of the way but except for the last few miles across the Bronx, traffic was not too bad. Liberty Marina & RV Park is a simple campground with about 60 sites adjacent to the marina and the ferry terminal. Once we got the coach set up we hopped the ferry to Manhattan and discovered that it dropped us off just below South Street Seaport Museum. We looked at the restored ships and outside displays but unfortunately the museum is closed on Mondays so we could not go aboard any of the ships. We then walked up to NY City Hall where we headed across the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian walkway. Yup, you can walk across the bridge. Actually there’s one lane for walkers and one for bicycles. Even in the intermittent drizzle it was fun to walk across this historic and picturesque bridge. The walkway is above the traffic lanes and away from the exhaust smells as well. Great views of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the two similar bridges to the north, the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges. Back off the bridge, we walked across town to the World Trade Center Site. It is stunning to see the enormous size of the area, gaze at the list of nearly 3,000 people who perished at the site and be touched by dozens of poignant photographs capturing the pain and courage of September 11, 2001. The plans we saw for the 1,776 foot tall Freedom Tower already being constructed on the site, the memorial pools and the section of original slurry wall being retained seem like a fitting reconstruction for the World Trade Center plaza.

The supper plans for tonight was China Town, specifically, Joe’s Shanghi which was recommended by both friends and the guide books. We were seated at a round table for six with four other people. Everyone was having the signature dish, Dumplings, or more correctly, steamed Buns. They were delicious though hard to eat neatly. Carl felt right at home since many foods are hard for him to eat neatly. After eating too much Chinese food we walked back to the ferry terminal and soon we were back in the motorhome. It seemed like a very full day in Manhattan and it was hard to believe we had started the day up in NH!

We started the day with another ferry ride from Jersey followed by a 20 minute walk uptown to the subway then the “C” train to the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West. When we lived on Long Island in the late sixties, this was Carl’s favorite museum. We began our visit with a neat planetarium show about collisions in outer space. After the show we toured the dinosaur galleries, the exhibit of South Pacific Island artifacts collected by Margaret Mead and sevearl halls with bird specimens and dioramas. We ended our visit in the Hall of oceans where the life size Blue Whale holds sway. The Oceanic Bird exhibit was closed but otherwise it was a wonderful visit.

We then walked through Central Park, visiting the castle, wandering through the Rambles and lunched on crepes from a lunch cart along the park lake. We exited Central Park at 5^th Avenue and window shopped our way south for 17 blocks to 42^nd street where we headed across town to Times Square. The square is really impressive with flashing neon and advertising everywhere. It bustled and throbbed with energy bordering on overload on a mid week afternoon. It’s hard to imagine Times Square with hundreds of thousands of people on New Year’s Eve. By now we had walked off the crepes so we headed for the Carnegie Deli where we shared the biggest sandwich either of us had ever seen. It was a “Woody Allen”, half corned beef, half pastrami. That plus a potato knish had us ready to burst.

We walked slowly back to the theatre district and saw “Spelling Bee” a delightful and at times hysterical musical about, well, a spelling bee! After the show we took the subway back to the financial district, walked back to Pier 11 and caught the last ferry to liberty harbor where the coach is parked. Whew, a very busy day for two 60 year old (more or less) people! Arriving back at the motorhome, we found Ginger sitting on the dashboard taking in the sights. She seems to be adapting to a life of travel very well.

Well the big haircut day has arrived. We take the ferry and subway to the SOHO district and find the salon easily. Sandy goes in for her best ever haircut and Carl heads off the B&H Photo, a huge photo, video and computer equipment store not too far away. He had fun gawking at the latest cameras, lenses and accessories but didn’t buy anything, in part because he would have to carry it around all day. Back at the salon, Sandy met Anna, a talented young Brazillian woman who gave her a fantastic haircut and taught her how to care for it. Sandy was very excited before, during and after the haircut. When they were finished, Carl took a picture of Sandy & Anna. I think we will be back here.

After leaving the salon we wandered around SOHO checking out the neat shops and street vendors. We had lunch in a great natural food restaurant Anna recommended then took the subway uptown to the Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately we arrived after four and they close at 5:30; not much time to do justice to such a museum. Sandy had “Plan B”, the museum shop (actually two of them) plus the shop at the adjacent Folk Art Museum. These shops were full of fascinating gadgets and artsy pieces. In many cases we had to read the signs to figure out what the items were for. Of course, being a modern art museum, some of the things were not actually for anything! By now it was well after five so we got back on the subway to Greenwich Village where we had dinner at La Foccaccio at the corner of W 4^th and Bath, described by the person who recommended the restaurant as the prettiest intersection in the village. A very nice dinner, a great bottle of wine and were headed back uptown to the theatre to see “A Year of magical Thinking”. This one woman show with Vanessa Redgraves was a poignant story of a woman trying to cope with the loss of her husband and daughter in the same year. The show was sad but wonderful. The show didn’t let out until almost ten so the ferry was not an option. We ended up taking the PATH trail to NJ and walking six blocks back to the Marina/RV Park. Another wonderful though tiring day.

We packed up early and drove the coach to Liberty State Park about ten miles away where we caught the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The security screening prior to boarding the boat was identical to taking an airplane flight, reflecting the importance of the statue as a symbol of our freedom and liberty which sadly makes it a potential terrorist target. Carl had to surrender his Swiss Army knife so now we have to go back to Switzerland to get another one. At Ellis Island, we took the audio tour and enjoyed 90 minutes of interesting commentary while blocking out most of the noise from thousands of students on field trips. Both of our families were immigrants from Europe and we felt connected to the process which examined the, soon to be, Americans and allowed them into our country. We then reboarded the ferry and went to the Statue of Liberty. We decided to stay on board and enjoy the statue viewed against the Manhattan skyline while reading the history of the statue in the brochure we got on Ellis Island. The ferry returned to Liberty State Park and by 12:45 we were on our way home. Along the way we were treated to the worst of NY traffic. The approach to the George Washington Bridge was clogged with traffic. Not just stop and go, we spent 18 minutes in exactly the same spot! The worst part was that we knew that every minute we were stuck in NYC traffic meant two additional minutes in rush hour traffic in the Bronx and Connecticut. As we came off the bridge on to the Cross Bronx Expressway, our right mirror caught a truck in the adjacent lane and broke off. The bad news was that we had to stop on a busy highway to remove the remains of the mirror that was banging against the front of the coach. The good news was that, with the backup camera and side cameras on our motorhome, we could drive safely without the mirror. Once in CT, Carl called an RV service place in NH and scheduled an appointment to replace the mirror. We got home about 9:30 after dropping the coach in Merrimack for service. A wonderful experience in NY in spite of the trip home.