And finally, an update…

OK, so we have had issues with getting this blog updated. First off, we have been really busy and have had little down time. Second, is that I (Tyler) took my turn to do the blog update for the last week and then it all was erased when I was just about done . So, here I go at a new version. I am now using Live-Writer rather then doing this manually on our blog. I will see how it goes and with any luck, you will all get to read this update.

The last time we added a post, we had driven all day and we ended up in St. Clairsville, Ohio. Well, a LOT has happened since then. The day after this drive, we set our eyes on Allentown (want to know more about Allentown, just go listen to Billy Joel’s song about it). Anyway, we left early and drove to Hershey’s Pennsylvania. Not too long of a drive (I think it was around 4 hours). This may seem long to some, but when you are driving across the country, this is just a small jump .

While in Hershey’s we toured the chocolate factory (ride) they had. I thought it was just as good as the Disney Land “it’s a small world”, but better because I did not have to get that annoying song in my head. We chose to only do the tour and not the amusement park due to time and costs. Those things are way to over priced for what you get, unless you live in the area or purposely came for that reason. Once we finished the tour and purchased souvenirs, we continued on to Allentown to spend time with Tonya’s friend Jen.

Jen is the one who was involved in setting Tonya and I up for our blind date, or in other words the first date we had. We are very grateful to her for that.

Jen made us a wonderful lasagna dinner. It was a good change from eating on the road. We spent the remainder of that day with Jen and her family. Jen also helped us prepare for our next two days of visiting New York City. Next we went to our hotel in Bethlehem, PA which is about 20 minutes from Jen’s house.

The next morning we woke up and headed to New York City. The car GPS took us the long way as it had toll roads disabled, which we were not aware of. Funny thing here is that it made us take the toll way which had an initial fee of $8.00 and then took us off the next exit to then wind us through the neighborhoods of Staten Island. This added 2 hours to our original plan. Did I say, stupid computer, oh, I did. Anyway, we ended up getting to our destination, which was the Staten Island Ferry. We rode the ferry to NYC and it passed by the Statue of Liberty and gave a good view of it and NYC.

 

 

 

 

 

Once in NYC, we took a ride on the subway (handy!) uptown to time square. We walked around time square for a little while and then went to the play Wicked. May I say, this play was Wicked!!! I really enjoyed it. It had a very interesting story line, which I will let Tonya or the girls comment on if they like.

 

 

 

 

After the play we went and had dinner (pizza) and then went and had some delicious New York Cheesecake. The cheesecake was very thick and rich and I finished it first . Everyone else was a little surprised that I could eat it. Not everyone finished theirs, but they were able to finish it another day. We then went on the subway down to the financial district and walked around on Wall Street. We also went to where the World Trade Center was. Not much to see right now, it has fences around everything.

We then went and caught the ferry back to Staten Island. We timed it so we could see the city at night and get some good pictures of the city and the statue of liberty, and then on back to our hotel in Bethlehem. By the way, at this point we figured out that the car was ignoring toll ways and we fixed that. We got back a lot faster then what it took to get there.

 

 

 

 

Day two of New York City was a bit different in that we decided to drive into town. I had a good time doing this. For some background on why, most of the taxi drivers in NYC are of foreign decent. Places like India. If you have had the opportunity to ride in a taxi in India, it is crazy! Basically, there are not rules other then, don’t hit the other guy. So, this makes these drives very aggressive, but also very good at not getting in an accident at the same time. Well, I loved driving in it. I have driven in environments around the world like this before and it was nice to do it again. Excellent place to learn to drive, especially if you want to learn to be a defensive driver (I guess this could be argued ).

OK, so back to the day. Once we were parked we walked down to the Empire State Building. We did the 86th floor and the 102nd floor. It was a pretty penny (surprised even me as I was not aware of an extra $15 fee per ticket), but in the end I decided that we would do it. We will probably never do it again, so… I believe everyone enjoyed the view. For me, this is my second time up and just like the first time, I was once again surprised at how many buildings there really are. It is amazing!

After the Empire State Building we took the subway to Central Park. Oh, I forgot to mention for these two days in NYC it was HOT!!! NYC broke heat records for both days we were there (100+). NYC had declared some sort of emergency and had all public places open for people to go in and cool down (i.e. libraries and such). They even had watering stops out on the streets with cool water for people to drink all they could. Oh, man, one of these was heaven sent when we passed it. We had water, but it was all hot. Having the cool water gave us the energy to make it from Central Park, down to time square where we cooled off more with Jamba Juice.

 

 

 

 

Later this night we went to the play Phantom of the Opera. This was my second time seeing this on Broadway, but the first for everyone else. Once again for me, it was great! As far as I could tell the others really liked it as well. We then left NYC (driving under the Hudsen river for the second time that day) and got back to our hotel around 2:00 AM.

So, this next day, or the same day we came back from NYC in the morning. We went with Jen and her kids to Philly. We did a quick tour of old town and then went to one of Edger Allan Poe’s homes in the area. The one we went to is the only one still standing in this area. We were told that he wrote “The Black Cat” and “The Golden Bug” while living in this house. We were shown the basement and you could picture him sitting in his basement while writing “The Black Cat”.

We then left Philly and went back to Allentown where we went swimming with Jen’s kids at our hotel and then had pizza and just spent time with them. The kids then had a sleep over at their house.

Whew!!! this is one long post. I will hold off for someone else to write about the next few days, but here is a picture to help get you exited.