Philadelphia and New York: 2018 East Coast Tour Update #2

I’m so behind! We’re coming off of a couple of weeks with lots of visiting family, which has been great, but which kind of makes time pass in a different sort of way and fills ones evenings with family dinners and cousin time. But now we’re on our own again….and in Canada! Which I will not tell you about yet, because I’m behind. For today: Philadelphia and New York (state and city).

We left DC and headed to the Philadelphia South KOA, our base camp for exploring Philadelphia.

 

Our Philadelphia day was super hot and humid, but we saw lots of historical stuff:

 

 

And, of course, ate ice cream:

The next day, mysteriously, was cold and windy. We met up with some college friends of Dave’s at Valley Forge. We did a ranger led tour which was not at all interesting to Abe, but then we made it to the re-creation of the encampment:

and there’s really nothing more fun than getting to run around in little cabins. On the way out we ran into one of these storytelling guys (they have them in Philadelphia around the NPS sites, too) and Abe (and Dave’s friends’ kid) got pretty into that, too:

And then on to New York! Earlier versions of this summer’s itinerary had us going through the east coast cities at a more leisurely pace, but then we decided to make it all the way to Nova Scotia, and things got a bit compressed. So we kind of raced up the coast and only had time to hit a few things in each place…but of course, the east coast is where we live so we’ve been to all these places before and will no doubt be back again.

In New York, we stayed at Croton Point Park, a county park north of the city. We boarded the dogs at a vet nearby for a couple of days so that we wouldn’t need to worry about getting back to them in time after long days in the city. The park is right by the train station, where you can take a train to Grand Central station and be there in about 50 minutes.

So we did that. Except really we got off at a station farther north because it worked better for getting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which we wanted to do. But then we got all lost. Well, Dave did. I knew which stop we were supposed to get off at. Anyway. Armor!

In the afternoon, we went by the National Museum of Mathematics, which is sort of grandly named, but is really just a pretty small, hands-on museum with lots of math-based activities for kids. All of ours had a blast; I think we need to sing the praises of small, manageably sized museums more often.

We finished up our marathon day with dinner the super kitschy and touristy Ellen’s Stardust Diner in Times Square. Where there are singing servers. The kids loved it; Abe was transfixed; there was an hour wait and it was overpriced, but not as expensive as a Disney World restaurant. And then on to Grand Central for the train ride home!

 

Next up we had our Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty day. The older kids and I had crown tickets (Abe’s not tall enough, so Dave stayed back at the pedestal with him.

And our final day in New York we visited FDR’s home at Hyde Park, where the kids all said hello to the Roosevelts:

And then Ari had his first college visit of the trip (we have a total of 7 scheduled, I think, but he has a long break from them while we’re in Canada), to Vassar. Which has an absolutely gorgeous campus:

And that brings us…not up to date at all, but close enough for one post. I’ll get all caught up on the next one and bring you another installment of RV disasters! (Verizon doesn’t want me to use too much Canadian data, so….I’ll do my best).