On Sunday evening, Steven and I went over to the airport in Newark, NJ, to pick up Sarah. That was a long, though uneventful trip across Manhattan and back. Sarah was pretty worn out that evening, having been on the go for quite some time. We just hurried across town and back to Garden City.
On Monday, everyone headed back to New Hampshire, except for Sarah and I. We stayed in Garden City for a few days. That afternoon, we decided to take the train to Oyster Bay. It was cold, and windy by the bay, but it was nice. We walked around town for a while, and took the train back to Mineola a few hours later. It was nice.
On Tuesday, we went into New York, and we covered a lot of ground. We started by going to Times Square. I had never been to street level there, and it had been a while since Sarah had, so we decided to see that. It was pretty well lit, even during the day. From there, we went a few blocks away to Rockefeller Center. We saw the Christmas tree there, and then looked into going to the Top of the Rock. That was expensive though, so we stayed at street level. Ice skating was also expensive, and cold, so we didn't do that. Also, neither one of is a good enough skater to justify spending a bunch of money to do it just for a few minutes. When we left Rockefeller Center, we headed over to Brooklyn, and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cold and windy, but there was still a big crowd there. I was surprised. It was nice, but we didn't make it a slow trip! From there, we got back on the subway and went over to Bowling Green. From there we walked a couple blocks to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. We sailed across the harbor aboard the Spirit of America, which is the newest ship in the fleet. It was nice. We went just to see the sights in the harbor, like Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We got to Staten Island, and got back on the ship and sailed back to Lower Manhattan.
Once back in Manhattan, we took the train back to Penn Station and got a late lunch nearby. We also went into several stores in the area, because Sarah needed to get a swimsuit and some flip flops, which she had forgotten in Alaska. At one point during this trip, we found ourselves in the Manhattan Mall. Someone in there got my attention and stopped us for a minute. They asked if I was a driver. I was completely confused, and they went on to ask if I had been a driver in Alaska, and if I had driven to a place called Whittier. I told them that I was, and they explained that I had been their driver, and they had recognized me. What are the odds of that?! There are millions of people in that city, and even more there for the holidays, and I managed to run into someone that knows me. I did not recognize them, having driven over 7,300 passengers during the summer. I am not sure I would recognize any of my passengers at this point! I must have made an impression if they were able to pick me out of a crowd in the largest and busiest city in the US!
Wednesday we went to Target and finally found Sarah her swimsuit. Other than that, it was a pretty quiet day. We really did not do anything else. John took all of us out to eat dinner at Leo's, in Garden City. That was nice. I do like that place.
On Thursday, Sarah and I went back into New York to get on a train to Florida. It was snowing as we left New York. It was cold, and all around miserable. The train was held up about two hours in the Sunnyside Yard for some reason. We were told there was some equipment problems, and that was the cause of the delay. We got underway, and they headed south. It was not a whole lot warmer in Washington. We got out for a few minutes to watch them change the locomotives. As soon as they were done coupling the diesels onto the head end of the train, we got underway again. Once underway, the power in the train kept going out periodically. We arrived in Richmond while we were at dinner, and power went out again. They traced that to a problem with one of the locomotives, so they removed that locomotive from the train, and we kept going. After locomotive #66 was removed, we had no more problems with the power going out.
I woke up briefly this morning in Columbia, South Carolina. I woke up for the day in Folkston, Georgia, and shortly after that, we stopped in Jacksonville Florida. This is the 40th state I have visited. We traveled all day, still heading south, and this evening, about an hour behind schedule, we arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale station. We had a cab take us downtown to the hotel. We got quite lucky on the hotel. I paid about $100 for the room. Turns out, it is a deluxe room. The normal price is $899 per night. It is very nice, as you can imagine for that price! Fortunately, we are not paying that! We also get all the additional amenities for free with the room. It is nice and warm here too. It is partly cloudy, and 75 degrees. There are palm trees everywhere, and it is great. We were walking around earlier this evening, and it was balmy and wonderful!
This evening, we checked in for our cruise. We are in stateroom #6004 aboard the m/s Zuiderdam. Tomorrow we sail for our ten day trip to the Bahamas, Aruba, Netherland Antilles, Panama, and Costa Rica. I am really excited. We got a Verandah room on the ship, which was normally selling for nearly $4,000. We got that at a huge discount too! We managed to get a handicapped room, which is about 50% larger than a standard room, and it has a nice balcony. Tomorrow we will get to go aboard the ship, and it will be great! I am really looking forward to that. I have never spent a night on a ship. Actually, I have never been on a ship for more than 15 hours. I think it will be nice, and I am really looking forward to it. I will not have phone service, so I will update this periodically during the cruise to keep everyone informed on where I am and what I am up to. I will take lots of pictures too, and post some of them as I can.
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