Let's Hear it for New York, New York, New York

 

So, my May trip of the year was Nueva York. I had been before and thought it was fun, but didn't really *LOVE* it. But I'm glad I went again because going this time it made me really love the city, and I actually thought I could see myself living there, though I don't think I ever will. It's so exciting and there's always so much going on, I am sure I will go back for another visit sometime in my life. So my Cinco de Mayo was mostly spent on a plane heading to New York with my good friend, Becky. When we got to the area, we had to circle a couple of times before we could land because Obama was giving his big speech at Ground Zero after the death of Osama bin Laden, and no air traffic was allowed to land while he was there. It's kind of too bad, had we been there a day earlier, I'm sure we would have seen the President because our hotel was quite literally across the street from Ground Zero; we probably could have watched the speech from our hotel room. Oh well. This sign was posted on a gate near our hotel...

And this is the view of Ground Zero from our hotel room...

It's crazy how quickly the new tower is going up. I think the goal is to have it mostly built, if not all the way built by the 10 year anniversary. Can you believe it's almost been 10 years since 9/11? Here's the view of the new tower at night...

I love it. I think it's so cool that they light it up red, white and blue at night. It's cool to see in person.

9/11 Memorial.
So, we did all of the typical New York stuff; I really think we hit all of it, except we did miss the United Nations. I need to save *something* to see for next time. Day 1, we hit Liberty and Ellis Islands...

On Ellis Island, they have a HUGE plaque of all the names of people who went through Ellis Island when they immigrated to the US. Pretty sure I have *some* relatives that belong in the "England Family", from my Mom's side of the family...

 But I know for sure I'm related to this guy...

Too bad they misspelled our name even back then!

We also hit up a Broadway show that night. We saw this show, with Harry Potter...I mean...Daniel Radcliffe (one in the same, right?)

That's Becky. If you want to see this same picture with me in it, you can look on Facebook. I will not volunteer that picture, because I look no bueno in it.

The next couple of days were spent doing the typical sightseeing. We went up the Empire State Building. Saw the new Yankee Stadium (they weren't in town, or we totally would have gone to a game. And I totally would have rooted for the opposing team...)

But it's a cool stadium, nonetheless. The last time I went, it was in the old stadium.

We walked the Brooklyn Bridge, and took some...er...LOTS of pictures at this little park of the bridge. We even went back at night to take pictures of it. Becky really likes to take pictures :) Which is good for me, because then I don't have to worry about documentation of the trip, because Becky has it covered :)

Our museum of choice was the Guggenheim. The architecture of that place is so darn cool, but it's not my favorite layout for a museum. I'm glad I got to see it, though.

We of course did Central Park, had New York pretzels and pizza, gelato, hot dogs (well, Becky had a hot dog. The last time I ate a hot dog was the last time I was in New York. Didn't feel the need to have another one...), Wall Street, the charging Bull, Times Square, M&M Factory, Rockafeller Plaza and the Lincoln Center.

Lincoln Center...

I like M&Ms...

We then caught a train and went up to Vermont to hit Becky's 48th state...

While in Vermont we saw lots of these...

Vermont is famous for their covered bridges. We drove through a few of them. We also went up to the birthplace of Joseph Smith in Sharon.

We got there kind of late, but the missionaries were kind enough to reopen the visitors center so we could see everything there. I do believe the obilesk is 39.5 ft tall, for each year of the prophet Joseph Smith's life.

This is where Joseph's house would have been. It was pretty cool to be able to go there, though, it truly is in the middle of nowhere. It's not somewhere you can really stumble upon. This was a good start to my church history trip that will recommence in July :)

Great trip, great company, great city! Next up, Santa Fe...