We had a non-sightseeing day today, just driving from Philly over to the NYC area. We're actually staying NW of White Plains, NY, in Croton-on-Hudson, which is pretty much the closest campground area to NYC.

Today was one of the worst travel days we've had, not in distance, but just aggravation. For those of you that haven't had the joys of towing a trailer on the East Coast, boy do those tolls add up. They charged us almost $20 just to cross the George Washington Bridge into NYC today. That was, after we waited in traffic for almost an hour due to a wreck at the toll plaza. Oh...how I've missed this traffic. ;-> Couple that with the dreaded "passenger cars only" signs on several highways we had planned on taking, and reprogramming the GPS to avoid them, you end up with a long day. For those that don't know, when these roads and bridges where built out here, they didn't have RV's, so the overpasses on some of the parkways are under 10' tall. I love convertibles, but I don't want my travel trailer to be one, so we went around.

The campground is pretty nice, rustic and very quiet. The weather is pretty cold, and with the humidity, it feels way colder to us Montanans.

We're heading up to New Fairfield to see Jerry and Jane Serfass's son, Josh marry his long time sweetheart Allison. It'll be fun to see old friends.

Saturday Update:

What a day! We just got back from a great time at Josh and Allison's wedding, and it was quite the event. We really had a good time at the wedding, and the girls had an outstanding time at the reception. They put on quite a show, the band was awesome, and the girls loved the dancing, of which they did about 4 hours worth.

The highlight of the night was watching Josh and his mom (Jane) do the jitterbug. It has to be my favorite all time wedding moment, only surpassed by that of watching my own bride walk down the aisle on our wedding day. They were so cute, and it was awesome to watch.

The only downside of the day was we had to drop off Peanut at the kennel, and because they are closed on Sunday, we're forced to leave him there for a few nights. We'll miss him, it's the first time we've not had him with us overnight since we picked him up.

We're off tomorrow to NYC to celebrate Faith's birthday (which is Monday). We'll do a few hours at American Girl Place, lunch, then off to see Wicked on broadway...should be a great day!

Sunday Update:

What a day! After a rough start (dead battery in the rain, crabby family, etc.) we ended up having a very good day. We started out at American Girl Place (well, the girls did, I become a 5 year old boy in the clothing department, with the strong urge to lay on the floor, so I went exploring), and the girls spent a couple of hours there. Then we met an old friend, Samantha, and a new one, Christy for lunch at Ellen's Stardust Diner in Times Square. All of the wait staff sing, and since they are all aspiring Broadway talent, the songs were very good. They even sang to Faith for her birthday, and Flip did a great rendition of Celebration for her. It was great.

Just when we thought the day couldn't get any better, we went to our first Broadway show today. Thanks to Scott, my brother, we had wonderful seats to Wicked, an outstanding show based on the Wizard of Oz story. Kerry Ellis, the lead (the wicked witch) was simply unbelievable. I love the tone of her voice, her emotion, and just her presence on stage. The show was just great, and we loved every minute of it.

Monday Update:

Happy 9th Birthday FAITH! We made sure to celebrate her birthday as much as we could today, including a fun and good tasting birthday cake from a local bakery whose owner has authored a few books that Michelle owns.

Today, we made the trek back down to the city, starting with Battery Park which is where you catch the ferry over to Liberty and Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We were able to see both parks, and found both interesting.

We also took a short walk up to the World Trade Center area to see the site of the 9/11 tragedy. They have made pretty amazing progress with the project, and we were surprised to see that they are expecting to finish the new buildings by 2012. It's still a moving place to be near.

We're heading up to Hartford on our way to Cape Cod tomorrow, and we're looking forward to finishing up the East Coast in the next week or so.

Faith's blog:
I love New York. But what I like even more than New York is New York City which happens to be one of our stops. In New York we went to a Broadway show called Wicked. It was really good. Did I mention it was live? Well, anyway, it was awesome. The person who played Wicked played her in England as well. We also went to the American Girl Place. I went inside. You could tell it was for GIRLS ONLY, all the dads sat in the corner. I thought that was cool.

Kenzie's blog:
Today we got to see Wicked. It was the best Broadway show ever! We also got to go to Ellis Island and Liberty Island. It was pretty cool. Last, but not least, we went to a restaurant where waiters and waitresses sing live. Since it was Faith’s B-day, they sang two different songs to her. This was fun!

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New York City, NY

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