Pennsylvania and New York City
Our stop in Pennsylvania was at Silver Valley Campsites in Saylorsburg. We initially booked 7 nights at this park, but we really loved the location so we added another 5 nights onto our stay here. The campsite was near the Pocono mountains and on our first evening here we took a drive up to the top and watched the sun set from the top of the mountain. It was beautiful. There were tons of deer here. Every time we went for a drive we saw quite a few deer and even saw a whole field full of them on one drive. This park also had an indoor pool which was heated and almost as warm as a hot tub. We took advantage of this lovely feature and went swimming pretty much every day we were there. Our campsite was about an hour and a half from New York City, so we booked a hotel for one night in Secausus, NJ and left our giant truck at the hotel. We were able to take a 15 minute bus ride from our hotel to downtown New York City. We checked into our hotel at 4:00 and headed right into the city. We grabbed hold of our children and made our way through the crowds to Times Square.
I was thinking that since it was during the school year, it wouldn’t be as insanely crowded as it had the last time I had been to the city; but I was wrong. It was just wild! The crowds thinned out a little as we left Times Square and headed up towards Central Park. By the time we made it up there it was starting to get dark. We walked around a little bit and the kids had fun climbing on some of the huge rocks located in the park. It seems though, that at night in Central Park, the rats come out to play. We saw one scurrying around and thought it was kinda cute, but then it seemed that everywhere we looked we saw rats running through the bushes and climbing on the rocks. One crazy rat came running right at me and ran right into my foot which caused a bit of screaming and jumping around on my part, and laughter from Eric and the kids. We left the park soon after that and headed out to find dinner and then head back to our hotel. So the hotel we booked was only meant for four people, but we figured we could just lay the kids sideways on the queen bed and they would be fine. We have done this before, and while it is not the best option, it works. Alas, our kids aren’t so little anymore, and complained that their feet were hanging off the bed. We might just have to spring for a suite next time! Our hotel offered a free hot breakfast, so we enjoyed a lovely meal before heading back into the city for the day. Having 5 people in your family is expensive! I am always looking up free or cheap things to do in each city that we visit before we go so that we don’t break the bank. In New York City I found out that you can ride the Staten Island Ferry for FREE every day of the year!! So instead of paying $30 or $40 a person to go on a harbour cruise, we rode the ferry across to Staten Island and back for nothing! We got to see beautiful views of the skyline as we left and saw the Statue of Liberty as we rode past.
When we got off the ferry we walked around the lower part of Manhattan, saw the financial district and walked over to see the 9⁄11 memorial. We took the subway up to Central Park so that we could see it during the day and wandered around there for a while longer.
We stopped and had dinner, and then decided that we wanted to get the kids pictures drawn by a street artist before we headed back to our hotel and then home. We found a lady who did $5 kids caricatures so we got each of the kids pictures drawn by her. She was super nice and said she just loved kids, so I think she spent way more time drawing our kids pictures than she normally would. They turned out amazing!! Definitely a perfect souvenir for the kids to bring home with them.
