New York City Day 2

Since it was so late when we got back the night before and then I had to give everyone a bath it was pretty late when we got in the bed. We decided to sleep in a little bit so we could stay out later and soak up the vibe of the night life at Times Square. We also decided to drive instead of taking the train. Driving your own car there when you are not used to that type of driving environment is pretty risky. I wonder how much it cost you to carry car insurance there, I bet it is pretty spendy. After a hearty breakfast at the hotel we took off in search of the Yankee's Stadium. Had a bit of a hard time locating it but finally found it. Scott was hoping to be able to go in and see it but they wanted $20 a person to tour it and we just wasn't up for giving away that much money to see it. We walked around the outside of the stadium and checked out the Yankee store and we were off to a new destination.

We headed back of to Battery Park to get a view of Miss Liberty in the daytime plus I wanted to get photos of the girls with Liberty in the background in case we never made it back there. Unfortunately it was a hazy day which made for some crummy pictures. We walked around Battery Park for a while and then headed over to Ground Zero to pay our respects. All that is there right now is just a huge construction sight but you can't help but feel the vibe of the emotional sadness it carries. Standing there looking up into the sky it is hard to imagine those two buildings ever stood there. It's hard to imagine that in that little space that there were seven buildings to collapse there. It must have been amazing to have seen those gigantic towers pre 9/11. Overall it was a sobering feeling and I hope to make it back one day when the freedom towers are finished. We headed back to our car to find a nice little gift under our windshield wiper from the state of New York City.....a parking ticket. Not just a little parking ticket mind you it was a nice hefty one, $135.00. Still not sure what we did wrong. Scott is going to call and see what we can have done about it. There was a sign where we parked that said "No Standing". Well apparently "no standing" also means "no parking". Who came up with that brilliant idea. They even have the same sign on top of some buildings like the Grand Central Station. So if "No Standing" actually means "No Parking" why would you put that sign on top of a building. I have a feeling they aren't going to have any pity on us and we will be out $135 bucks.

It was starting to get dark so we headed back over to Times Square. We searched diligently for an affordable parking garage. The average price for parking ranged around $12.50 - $19.00 per 30 minutes, oh yeah you heard me correctly...per every 30 minutes. We came to one that was only $6.50 every half hour and took the bait. We pulled down into the garage and it was quite scary. There were no actual parking spaces they just had everyone's car jammed in there like a can of sardines. I just had a bad feeling about the whole thing. We left on foot to check out Times Squares night life. We spent a couple of hours hanging out and it was time for us to head back to the car. I knew exactly where we parked but it was right past the Hard Rock Cafe. I direct Scott there but all the doors are closed and I immediately feel like I was going to hurl. Being the skeptic that I am I just knew we had been ripped off. My mind kept going back to the moving scam and how they probably locked our car up and was going to demand a this huge amount of money to release it or how they took our car and sold it. Scott kept thinking we parked on a different street but I knew differently, I knew for positive we had parked right past the Hard Rock Cafe. I was a nervous wreck and torn all out of frame thinking how stupid it was to leave our car there when I had such a bad feeling about it. Scott kept reassuring me we just wasn't looking in the right place. We circled the block a few times and finally realized that we just had not gone walked down far enough on that street and finally found the parking garage. Whewww. After another eventful day we headed back to the hotel.

All said and done we had a wonderful time. We laughed our butts off at some of the crazy stuff there. It was very different and I could never imagine living there but those that have been there all their life....well that's all they know. I was expecting a lot of rudeness from everyone but it was no where near the case. Everyone was super helpful and nice minus the spit lady. Definitely want to go back again during Christmas sometime. I hear it is absolutely breathtaking. I would also like to add we spent almost $100 in toll fees. It cost us $16 to just drive across the state of New Jersey. At one toll we waited 40 minutes to just get through. I couldn't do that on a daily basis. I just don't see how people can afford to drive up there. All ready excited about our next trip.