A Small Bite of the Big Apple

All in all, this was a jam-packed but very fun trip! 

Escape from New York

To start off our last day in New York City, we walked with MH over to Central Park, stopping by Grabstein's Bagels on the way. We sat on a bench near the East Meadow to enjoy our picks. My toasted bagel with a schmear of cream cheese was sooo good!

Lovely Lady Liberty

As soon as we knew that we could definitely make it to the wedding in New York, I booked tickets for us to go up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty with Statue City Cruises. As the only authorized concessioner to ferry passengers to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, there are a limited number of tickets to the crown each day. I was a little concerned since we would be there during the summer travel season, but I was super excited to find out that there were still some 9:00AM spots available two months in advance! Yay!

The Power of Water

To get to Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park from West Orange, the iPhone sent us there via small local roads instead of the Garden State Parkway. I'm usually happy to avoid traffic and tolls, but the problem with blindly following directions on this alternate route was that we didn't see the usual signage directing us to the park as we got closer.  On top of that, the streets of Paterson were super congested with kids getting out of school nearby, so we had a little trouble figuring out exactly where we were supposed to park the car. But after an extra trip around the block, we managed to find a spot in the lot next to Overlook Park.

25 miles

The Wizard of West Orange

After leaving Morristown, it took us about 30 minutes to drive to West Orange, NJ and Thomas Edison National Historical Park. 

☑ #166 of 424 NPS units

While Thomas Alva Edison invented the phonograph (1877) and incandescent light bulb (1879) in his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ, by the mid-1880s his business operations had outgrown the facilities there. He moved his industrial research and development laboratory into the West Orange complex in 1887, a campus ten times the size of Menlo Park. Here, along with his teams of scientists/engineers, he perfected his phonograph, developed motion pictures, and invented many other devices and technologies.

Where America Survived

After we finished our visit at the Wallace House & Old Dutch Parsonage State Historic Sites yesterday, we stopped by the Jockey Hollow area of Morristown National Historical Park on the way to our hotel in Parsippany, NJ. 

We arrived about 5:45PM, long after the visitor center closing time of 4:00PM. But since the grounds were open from 8:00AM – 8:00PM, we still had plenty of time to check out the outdoor portions of the park. And we were back again first thing this morning to finish up what we missed, all before the visitor center opened at 10:00AM. How's that for maximum travel efficiency?! 😉 

Ten Crucial Days

When R and I received an invite to the wedding of our close friends' daughter, we decided to tack on some extra days and make a vacation out of it! Working son (M) and college son (J) didn't come with, so just us two empty-nesters flew into Newark yesterday. 

The air quality is so much better than it was a week ago!

Travel tip: Seats 48A/B on a Boeing 777-200 are great because there is no third seat in the row = extra room for economy price!