Ellis Island and SOL

We caught a ferry this morning to go out and tour Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  Interesting enought, the ferry departed from the train station.

It was a cloudy day, and looked as if it might rain any minute.  There are a couple of fleets of J-24's here, and most of them are red.  (Those are the sailboats you can see in this photo.)

Ellis Island is where over 12,000,000 immigrants legally entered the U.S. between 1892 and 1954. It's a great tour.

Lots of interesting displays and stories.  It's still a work in progress to restore it.  It stood abandoned for 30 years.

Next we jumped back on a ferry over to the Statue of Liberty.  It is undergoing restoration, so we were unable to go inside the statue itself, but we could walk around the grounds.  Both Ellis Island and the SOL provide self guided audio tours that helped us understand what we were looking at.  For instance, I didn't know that the copper outside skin of the SOL is only 3/32" thick.  The same thickness as two pennies held together.

 

 

There are many 9/11 memorials around NYC.  Pieces of the WTC everywhere.  Understandably so.  This one is near our marina on the Jersey side of the river.  The names of those from New Jersey who were lost are inscribed inside the walls.  If you look between the walls toward NYC, the empty sky is where the twin towers were.

This is not a small marina we're staying in.  We walked west a while this afternoon to see where the permanent slips are for the small boats.  Our boat is on the transient slips. If you count 16 of the little white huts with blue roofs, that's the walkway out to our slip.

On beyond the end of the marina, we found this thing sitting in a boat yard.  (It has wheels, so I don't think it's a boat.)

I like New York State.  We cruised Lake Champlain, and found it to be beautiful.  The Hudson River is also very scenic.  And I honestly have to say that New York people are as friendly as any.  But I'm not a big-city kind of guy. Yesterday, while we were in Soho--an expensive shopping area, I was thinking to myself..............where do these people go to Walmart?  Then I thought "at least the shorts I'm wearing don't say Walmart on the outside."  But today, before we could get on the ferry, we had to go through an airport like security check.  Off with the shoes, off with the belt,  off with the hat etc etc.  I think they were just trying to find out how much of my stuff came from Walmart.


I was last in New York City 48 years ago, and it would be ok with me if it was 48 more until I return again.  My visit 48 years ago was on my senior trip.  Funny thing is, this trip, I get all the senior discounts.

We start NOrth tomorrow.