Month: October 2018

Well hello stranger and thanks for hanging in there. Apologies about the radio silence but since the last post everything just got more hectic, the weather turned against us, adventuring got serious, days got harder and finding time to write just completely disappeared.

But that’s all changed now.  Yesterday we consigned our wonderful bikes, our homes for the last 10 weeks and the only reliable constants is this story, to a dealer in Palm Springs. We picked up a boring as batsh*t hire car, collected our suitcases from James in Claremont and will shortly relocate to an Airbnb in west Los Angeles to serve out our last few days on the USA mainland.  “Serve out” is the most apt term I can find because although we’re sitting by the pool in some semi-forgettable hotel in Pasadena, we are both wishing… longing… that we were back out there on the road, heading off to somewhere, or anywhere, or even nowhere, but here. Our achievement is slowly dawning on us, but for now there’s still quite a sense of loss. This was our first morning in more than 10 weeks that those 2 bikes weren’t waiting for us to load up and ride away.  There’ll be time later for the pride that will come with the memories.  But right now it’s all just a little bit empty.

But at least now there is time to try and catch up with the story.

And so you’ll recall the sun set on my significant birthday in New York by playing Imagine in tribute to John Lennon and a twilight walk through Central Park.

Well we awoke on the 14^th September, our 3^rd and final day in Manhattan, to threatening skies… and a plan.  Trust me, if you’re in NYC a plan is essential.

Along with half of humanity we just had to do that (in)famous walk over Brooklyn Bridge. Please don’t ask me why, there’s no logic to subjecting yourself to that torture, which indeed we did.

The subway took us to Brooklyn and from there we walked the mile or so to the pedestrian start. They’ve built a walkway above the traffic which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because nobody dies but a curse because there’s no movement control whatsoever.  And everyone, yes including us, needs to take a whole bunch of photos.  Although I must say we didn’t feel the need to stop every 5 paces for a dozen selfies as hundreds of younger females from those places north of Australia needed to.

In fact, despite the craziness, or maybe because of it, the little jaunt turned out to be rather epic. Certainly a must do and certainly something we wouldn’t have missed, even with knowing what awaited us.  The entire crossing back into Lower Manhattan took about an hour which I suppose wasn’t too bad really.  And we even avoided the mini tourist cities that were camped at both ends selling every imaginable shape and size of mass produced junk to the mass produced hordes.  We didn’t need to, we had a much more significant NYC memory planned for our last night.

 

Not too far from the end of Brooklyn Bridge is one of those discount theatre ticket outlets.  We found our way there and lined up, planning to see the acclaimed Book of Morman.  However, understandably, that show doesn’t do discount tickets.  So instead we decided to help the universe deliver Janelle her new motorcycle boots (ordered 3 days earlier on the internet) to arrive before we left, and we settled on the Broadway hit Kinky Boots.

Tickets were secured at a very favourable price (thanks Jock and Elizabeth) and so we took ourselves shopping.  Hey Calvin Klein jeans for $35… Wouldn’t you?  Janelle picked up a 2 pairs of blingy sandals which unfortunately didn’t turn out to be as comfortable as they seemed. But I get ahead of myself.

Now the problem with trying to walk the streets of lower Manhattan, is that they were never designed with that in mind.  Tall buildings, narrow roads and the 2 million+ humans that travel in there every day, just don’t play together that well.  It’s an overcrowded chaotic mess, straining at the seams. But it is also exactly what it is. It’s Manhattan. Arguably the most well-known city in the world.

But then again, it could all just be a great big theme park and we are all just entrants on a pay for play thrill ride.  I’m not sure the difference is that great really.

Anyway, we finally escaped back to the tranquillity of Jersey City to prepare for the evening.  Two highlights were in store. First was our shout for dinner with Rich and Flavia to thank them for their incredible generosity. The second was the Cyndi Lauper scored Broadway show..

 

And we arrived back to the apartment to a wonderful surprise. Janelle’s very own brand new kinky boots were waiting for us.  You know we just had to take a photo.

We were going to finish in style, guaranteed.  Just one small concern… we’d invited our dinner guests to choose the restaurant and we were maybe a tiny bit worried about the potential effect on our bank account.  Ok, maybe a little more than a tiny bit… because… Manhattan, New York, New York.

As it turned out they were very kind to us and chose a lovely seafood restaurant on the Hudson shoreline aptly named Pier A. However, we misunderstood the walking distance and Janelle’s pretty new sandals started to wear holes in her feet. Unfortunately, there was a lot worse to come but we hadn’t realised that yet.  Dinner was just gorgeous, the setting very New York and the bill rather favourable considering.  A truly wonderful way to kick off the evening. Sadly we had to break it off and hurry away for the uptown train where Broadway awaited us.  The timing was very tight and it was a very fast walk from  42^nd Street Station to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on Broadway. We made the show with about 5 minutes to spare and then received a huge surprise. Not only had these so called discounted tickets delivered us the front row, but we also had a perfect view of the band. We could see every bead of sweat on the stage, but could also watch the band playing everything under it. I really didn’t know where to look half the time!  So I kinda shared my time a little either way and picked up a few professional tips and tricks that I’ll be subjecting the band to when we get back.

Kinky Boots was totally incredible and we highly recommend it. I’m not sure where it’s playing in Oz, but if you get a chance, then do yourself a favour.

Afterwards we decided on the short walk up to Times Square for a final dose of NYC. It sure lived up to its reputation. Just completely over the top, huge screens everywhere, a dozen languages spoken in every direction, street sellers, scammers and roadworks right in the middle.

We took a photo or two, bought a hot dog and decided a glass of champagne was the right way to finish this chapter of our adventure.  But it had to be right, had to be iconic, so luckily Ruby Tuesdays loomed out of the glare and we found ourselves at the bar, glasses in hand, toasting each other. That’s a little strange I know but it felt that we deserved it.

By now Janelle had realised her new sandals had chewed her feet up rather badly. We took photos but I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say that new footwear and a long walks around the night spots of NYC don’t go together too well.  Bandaids and betadine would become a daily 20 minute routine for the next few weeks. Just the thing when you’re trying to break in new motorcycle boots. Not!

After a drink, a final look around and another toast to adventuring, suddenly it was done. We escaped the masses, found the subway and with a few hops made it back to the Oculus and the train to Jersey. And just to confirm… that “City that never sleeps” thing.  Naaa, it’s crap. Lower Manhattan at midnight on a Friday night is a ghost town. Really it is!

And with that our visit to Manhattan was done.

The next day we got ourselves ready to move on, visited the quarterly Jersey City street fair which was fun, wrote some of this blog, and just generally took it easy. Then just before 5.30 we walked down to the Hudson again and took in the sunset. Surprisingly the sun had actually come out and we were treated to this most spectacular sight of the Manhattan skyline reflecting a stunning golden hue. It was just about as good as it gets.

And it was certainly the right way for us to close this chapter. Now we turn south, about as far south as possible actually. We expected to hit New Orleans in a couple of weeks.

And so next morning, Sunday (so we miss the traffic) we packed the bikes up, said our goodbyes to our amazing hosts and on a whim decided to ride over to Liberty Park and also farewell that old lady with the torch. The “no motor vehicles” sign was duly ignored, we rode up to the edge of the walk way and took a few photos. A final gear check and then, in perfect weather we hit the road on a kind of loop route to Washington DC via Gettysburg.

It felt really good to be back on the bikes again and out helmet intercoms were full of happy chatter as we rode the rather uneventful, easy and fun day with a little highlight thrown in along the way. As we rode through a little town called Whitehouse in New Jersey we clocked over 10,000 kms and stopped for a quick photo to remember it.

A few hours later we arrived in Gettysburg on one of those gorgeous late summer evenings, had an outdoor meal in the centre of town and then found the Artillery Ridge Campground. We set up camp just on dark and turned in early, well satisfied and loving this adventure we were on.

We had decided on a little civil war exploration in the morning.  Unfortunately Hurricane Florence had a sting in her tail and we woke to threatening skies and a forecast of heavy rain for 2 days.

I suspected this rain was actually training us for bigger things to come.

Unfortunately my suspicions were going to be proved correct.

Ive found it pretty much impossible to compress our New York experience into 1 post, so decided to break it up over 2.  Here’s the first instalment, and given my inability to keep this thing up to date, I don’t want to commit to any time line. The second will be soon I hope.

New York City Day 1

 

For a couple of reasons, both logical and because it felt it was the right thing to do we decided to start with the World Trade Centre Memorial, so we walked to the ferry terminal, $7 each (we wont be doing that again) and caught a ride across the Hudson to Battery Park. A 10 minute walk brought us to the memorial which is actually 2 huge square holes in the ground on the original footprint of both buildings, with water cascading down into the centre and the names of those lost engraved around the edge. There are an awful lot of names, and the really shocking thing is how many are listed as firemen or police.  There was a large crowd but we weren’t sure if it was due to being the morning after 9/11 or just because New York.  Regardless, it was a very touching place, despite so many needing intrusive selfies and starting our NYC experience there was sort of our tribute. I’m very glad we did it that way.

And then we headed over the amazing Oculus Building to start decoding the subway. An impossible task actually, but we did give it our best shot.

We’d decided one of the best ways to see the city and get a feel for it was to walk the High Line. They took an old disused elevated railway line and turned it into a pedestrian walkway, complete with artwork and musicians.  It’s close to 2.5 kms long and crosses 22 city blocks and we walked most of it.  Such a great way to get a feel for city. Here’s a selection of photos.

The High Line dropped us off at Penn Station so we grabbed a quick coffee and got our bearings.  A quick 6 block walk to the closest subway and a simple connection to the train to NJ. So easy huh? Wrong! First it started raining, then Manhattan disgorged its workforce on us, and then it got dark. We found the station ok but were completely out of our depth trying to find which train and which platform.  In the end, after a minor meltdown and a significant soaking, I texted Rich who saved the day with instructions.  It was fairly easy then, we only had to negotiate the New York Subway in peak hour.  I wont bore you with the details, but believe me there were quite a few. But a surprisingly brief time later we came up on the Jersey side, found our way back to the apartment and thought we were incredibly cool for surviving the experience without needing a divorce.

A small restaurant a block or so away completed the days adventure and we shut ourselves in for the night we again sent a silent mental thank you to Rich for the amazing gift of this apartment.

 

New York City Day 2  Somebody’s (minor) significant birthday.

As if the apartment wasn’t enough, Rich’s partner Flavia just happened to work at the New York Museum Of Natural History and she arranged us free admission and 4 of the special events thrown in.  One of those special events was a screening of Dark Universe at the Hayden Planetarium.

The museum itself is quite overwhelming but the planetarium was just beyond description.  What an amazing experience to sit in a reclining chair in a huge room where the huge domed roof is the screen. It’s a step beyond Imax and if you ever get the chance, do yourself a favour.

The other exhibit that really blew us away is the (copy of) the skeleton of a whole new species of dinosaur they called Titanosaurus.  The photos below give you some idea.

We stayed in the museum until closing time, but could have spent much longer.  A very exceptional experience that, seeing as we were in the area, we decided to follow up with a visit to the Dakota Building, where John and Yoko lived.

While it wasn’t really that big a deal, for a musician like me it was kind of a nice thing to do. So we walked the few blocks along Central Park and took a few respectful snaps.  Then virtually straight over the road is the area they’ve set aside as a memorial to him called, obviously, Strawberry Fields.

Now those who have followed our previous travels would have noted that I have formed quite of habit of borrowing buskers guitars.  And so it was there too.  And although I was extremely rusty, and although I hadn’t prepared at all, there was a busker there playing John Lennon music. So, yes of course I relieved him of his guitar and I played a very bad version of Imagine while he sang it.

It wasn’t my best, far from it. But hey, I played Imagine at Strawberry Fields in New York, on my birthday. For a crusty old musician it doesn’t get any better.  A very special memory indeed.

So then Janelle wanted to buy us some cupcakes to celebrate, and she knew of just the place, best cupcakes in New York (Magnolia Bakery) were only 3 blocks away apparently. That was sorted quickly and we found ourselves back in Central Park, sitting by the lake watching all the locals go about their Central Parky routines.  We thought to join them and so it was that as the sun set we walked around the lake in the centre of Central Park.  And got some pretty amazing photos in the process.

That was pretty much it, we found somewhere to have dinner, although that wasn’t worth the effort, navigated the subway back, we were getting pretty good at this now, and finished the day off with a nice little stroll back to Rich’s apartment.

And that was our first 2 days in New York.  A mix of sights, sounds, experiences, memories and an awful lot of walking.

A fun fact to leave you with. If you wanted to rent a 3 bedroom apartment in lower Manhattan you’d be looking at $15,000 USD a month, but that again as an agents fee for letting you have it.

 

And we think Sydney real estate is out of control!

That’s it for now.

Goodnight.