September 28-29, NY City (Day 2 and 3)

We loaded all 51 suitcases on the bus (plus things we put overhead) and got started on the second leg of our trip around 8 a.m.  About an hour into the trip, the passenger who fell the night before and had stitches over her eye, became weak and fainted.  Fortunately we had a Dr. (a peditrician) on the trip and he quickly came to her aid and helped her lie down in the aisle of the bus, up front.  The driver got off the interstate and went to the parking lot of a CVS drugstore.  After a few minutes there, an ambulance was dispatched to come get Ann Davis and take her to Duke Univ. Hospital nearby to be checked out.

We waited around in the parking lot of a WalMart store (where we all went inside and shopped around to kill time) until we heard how she was doing.  They said she could not travel and kept her in the hospital for some tests.  Her sister Betty Hudson got their luggage off the bus and we helped her get checked in at a hotel near the hospital, and we went on without them.

We were headed for Bergen, NJ to spend the 2nd night - a long way from Greensboro, NC!  We stopped along the way for lunch and again for dinner, arriving at our hotel around 9 pm.  Our hotel was near the Lincoln Tunnel, where we would enter to get to Manhattan on Wed and Thurs.

We got up early on Wednesday, Sept 29, and were riding into NY city by 8 a.m. - along with thousands of other motorists going to work.  We met our step-on tour guide in mid-town Manhattan and he took us on a tour of several sites, including China Town, Harlem, the theater district, Wall Street, Central Park, and on to Ground Zero, where we got off the bus and went to the Merrill Lynch Building to view the construction taking place at Ground Zero.  Then we got back on the bus and went to Rockefeller Center to go to the Observation Deck (Top of the Rock) to view the city and have lunch.
Streets were very crowded after we left Rockefeller and headed toward the south end of Manhattan to the ship docks to get on the water taxi
to go to the Statue of Liberty.  We missed our boat by about 15 minutes and had to wait until the next morning to do that tour.

Our bus driver drove all around the island of Manhattan, showing us the various bridges, and the entire outer rim of the city.  We traveled through some areas we had seen earlier in the morning when we had our guide.
We had reservations for dinner at Heartland Brewery Chop Shop, not far from the Gershwin Theater where
we went to see the Broadway Play "Wicked" - which was very good by the way.

After the play, we got back on the bus and went back thru the Lincoln Tunnel to our hotel for another night there.  It was a  l-o-n-g  day but we saw so many things and it was exciting.

It was misting rain when we checked out of the hotel on Thursday, Sept. 30.  We headed back to Manhattan and out first thing to do was to go to the top of the Empire State Building.  We were the first tour group and went up to the top in heavy fog.  We went to the observation deck and could not see very far because of the dense fog.   After this we got back on the bus and went to the wharf to get on the water taxi (the one we missed the day before).  The misting rain continue and there were whitecaps on the big Hudson River.  I was glad the boat was big and heavy!  We crossed the river and went past Ellis Island which was "fogged in" on to the Statue of Liberty, which we cruised around the foundation and looked up at the large statue which was most impressive.

water taxi

After the ride on the Hudson River, we got back on our bus and headed north to Bangor,Maine to escape the rain that was moving into the area.  That night they had 10" of rain and flash flooding.