Thanks to crappy weather and other travel-related whims, we found ourselves in New York City—well, technically in Jersey City across the Hudson but with a great view of New York City—during the twentieth anniversary of one of the most tragic days in American history. Which meant, among other things, that we got to see the epic twin towers of light.
Thursday we dealt with rain most of the day, which wasn’t at all epic. Mostly it kept us inside, although we did peek out periodically just to see the skyline again.
Big excitement when Arizona friends Mike and Lucy Gordon showed up Thursday evening, with the plan to head up the Hudson on Friday. But Friday we faced 25-knot wind gusts. And Liberty Landing parked a huge Burger on a t-head right in front of us, shrinking our exit margin of error to about two feet. The last thing we need is the Gordons going back to Scottsdale and reporting to all our mutual friends that we not only sank our boat but also took down the Burger and a sailboat as well. So we didn’t leave until Saturday, which turned out to be September 11. And turned out to be a gorgeous day that even a passel of kayakers in our way couldn’t dampen.
Before heading up to Croton-On-Hudson, of course, we needed to swing by the touristy-things.
That’s either an awesome photo Dana took of our guests on Tumbleweed’s bow as we passed the Statue of Liberty or a Walmart photo that they superimposed on a stock background, the latter being something they’d never do but it does look a bit too perfect.
After the statue, we figured we’d take a quick look up the East River, under the Brooklyn Bridge, then turn around. We figured wrong, because another passel of vessels were in our way, but this time they all had blue lights and guns. We might get away with running over a kayaker or two, but not NYPD boats.
The Coast Guard announced without explanation that the waters around lower Manhattan were closed to marine traffic, so no need to hang around down there despite the impending hoopla.
Hey, this is new! An FBI dive team. To us it looked more like an FBI stand around team, but they stopped their boat above the Holland Tunnel so maybe they knew something we didn’t.
Hey, this is even more new! Marine One, carrying President Biden and being circled by V-22 Ospreys, passed overhead. Now that’s cool.
We’ve now been up and down the Hudson a few times. Not surprisingly, however, an area that’s home to a zillion people always seems to be tearing something down or putting new stuff up. Or maybe we’re just not very observant. Either way, we’ve never noticed this odd statue in Hoboken before. We tried to research it but couldn’t find any information and then gave up looking.
Little Island in Chelsea we did know about, because Dana had read up on it in a ULI magazine. Stirworld describes it thusly: “As a 2.4-acre public park and performance venue, the development near the city’s Lower West Side is settled atop sculptural, tulip-shaped concrete pots that sprout from the water and form an undulating landscape populated by hundreds of native species of trees and plants.” They look more like mushrooms to us, but we guess we can give them tulips as well.
On the way up, the GW Bridge was sporting a big flag. New Jersey wasted no time in taking it down, however, since when we came back 24 hours later it was gone.
Oscar enjoyed the flybridge on what turned out to be an easy trip up to Half Moon Bay.
One night was enough for a good sunset after dinner at the new Greek place that won’t be in business long if it keeps serving portions that are roughly five times the size of what a normal person might eat in two meals. Plus, we were ecstatic to learn that the mean people in the condos must have moved or passed away, because now the association welcomes pets on the path along the marina.
Yesterday was windier and choppier and some stuff sloshed around, but we made it back to Liberty Landing in time for an excellent dinner. Today we lose the Gordons, who not-surprisingly turned out to be great guests. Hopefully they’ll come back and find us next year.
Most exciting is that Mallory and Shannon are on a plane, heading for Liberty Landing. We haven’t seen them in nearly five months. They’re not that interested in us, of course, but they’ll travel across the country in a New York minute to cuddle with the Black Dog Bikinis logo model.
We’ll take what we can get.
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*Last night the Codenames battle came down to a final opportunity for the Gordons. All Lucy needed to do was give Mike an appropriate clue and they’d take home the non-existent virtual championship trophy. In a last-ditch bit of gamesmanship, we warned Lucy that we’d call her out in the title of this post if she failed. Actually her clue was quite clever, but alas, too clever for Mike. Lucy dodged the post title. Mike gets the Footnote of Shame.