New York, New York

It was hard to leave Salem. The weather was still gorgeous-the feeling of fall just starting to creep in and our next few months will most likely be less than relaxing. We reluctantly headed off to NYC. The drive – over 6 hours – seemed like an eternity. I don’t know if it was the familiarity of the route and recalling all of those years of making the same trip- or our month long stay in Salem with no driving. Knowing how confusing the directions to the Jersey City campground were, we decided to call in advance to confirm them. Well, even after careful review over the phone, we got the wrong information. We were told to look for the exit marked “Grant Street”, the second exit after the tollbooth. Turns out that the exit doesn’t even mention Grant Street so we continued past it—and found ourselves heading straight for the Holland Tunnel into NYC! John pulled over at a gas station just outside the tunnel entrance and I tried to get some directions. Within seconds, a rather seedy looking black guy on a bike was knocking on the door offering to escort us to the marina/campground. With no other option, we took him up on it and followed him through downtown Jersey City. John gave him $10 – he wanted $20. It appeared to us that he had quite a business going- our neighbors had been given the same bad directions and had the same guy escort them.

For $60/night- water and electric only, we pulled into our site—cheek by jowl sites in a giant parking lot. With slides extended, we may have had a foot or two between our windows. Ah, but like real estate, it’s location, location, location. NYC is only a 10 minute ferry boat ride away-and the ferry goes right from the marina. If you want to get to the west side of Manhattan, there’s a water taxi to take you to the WTC area. And, if you need to get closer to Midtown, there’s the PATH.

On Monday, we decided to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty It was a beautiful, sunny day and the ferry gave us spectacular views of the statue and the entire island. It was amazing to see and hear the stories of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were processed through Ellis Island.

We drove to Kate and Mike’s house on Tuesday. A visit there is always exhausting- their house is like a train station, even more so now, with the addition of Sarah and Mark, baby Alexandria, dog Ajax and cat Warren. With Mike and Kate’s two cats, it’s a true zoo. Rather than cook, Mike ordered take-out for dinner. When it arrived, the delivery guy was shocked to see only 6 people waiting for the $200 worth of Chinese food that Mike had ordered. We had 6 orders of spring rolls, multiple orders of Peking duck, General Tso’s Chicken, white rice, fried rice, scallion pancakes, and just to round things out, 2 boxes of sushi.
With a few two many glasses of wine under our belts, we opted to spend the night. Kate warned us to keep our door closed- their cats, evidently not happy with the new additions to their house, have taken to peeing and pooping on everything. They ruined Mark’s burberry coat, Sarah’s leather jacket and they’ve had to replace the carpet in their sunroom. We thought we had made it OK, but in the morning, found that the cats had used the family photos as their litter box. The smell of cat piss is nothing to laugh about—I made John remove the major wet spots before bringing any of the photos into the motorhome.

We spent a day in the city doing some family history work…dealing with the charming NYC bureaucracy at the NYC Archives and the U.S. Archives. On Wednesday, we met Steph for dinner in Chinatown. We had drinks at a Malaysian restaurant then had a great Vietnamese dinner at New Pasteur.
On Friday, we arranged to meet Roy and Esta in the city for a personal tour of Ground Zero and dinner. Wouldn’t you know, that morning the mayor of NY announced intercepted chatter of a possible terrorist attack in NYC. Security was enhanced, backpacks and bags were being searched in the subways. It was an overcast, rainy day and the ferry didn’t take us close to our meeting point- so we decided to brave the PATH and the subway. What an experience – emerging from the subway to see scores of police with weapons. We met Roy and Esta at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway- the middle of Wall Street. We had a bit of time to see Ground Zero before the rain started pouring down. So, we had an abbreviated tour and headed to the restaurant. Dinner was wonderful—a small, intimate French restaurant.

The weekend started with horrible weather. We had planned to go to the city, but decided that it would be miserable trying to walk in pouring rain. So, we moved our tour to Sunday and met Steph in the afternoon. We got a tour of her new neighborhood and new apartment (a 5 story walk-up—designed only for the young!). The tour at the Tenement Museum was fascinating. The individual stories of the immigrant families, coupled with seeing their apartments gave you an inside view of life in the early 20th Century. After the tour, we made our way to the Malaysian restaurant and had a great dinner.

We had one more day in the city and wanted to do some walk-by’s of Frank Spencer (and Edna’s) first apartments – and also see where my grandmother lived around 1917. After walking the city, we took the PATH back to Jersey City and decided to stop at Edwards Steakhouse—the little restaurant we had passed every day. Located in the basement of a brick row-house, it was a great neighborhood place. We had wine and talked with the bartenders about the living in Jersey City and the real estate market.

Coming "Home"

Just the normal drive through Boston gets our hearts pounding and stomachs churning. The memories of corporate life comes alive driving on 128. We made it into Salem and seeing the gorgeous harbor seemed to make everything better.
We spent the first few days watching the news of New Orleans, checking in with John and Brenda and generally feeling pretty punked. 24 hours of hurricane coverage and seeing that gorgeous city destroyed had us down in the dumps for quite a while. When John and Brenda opted not to come up for their Boston visit, we were actually a bit relieved. I don't think that any of us really were in any mood for playing. As the days rolled by, between stories of criminal indictments of leading politicians, continued bungling of the hurricane relief efforts, global warming and the melting of the polar ice cap, suicide bombings in Iraq, a right-wing conservative as chief justice of the Supreme Court, and warnings of avian flu, it was enough to make anyone want to drink! As one of our Cajun friends said- after a trip to New Orleans after Katrina....."Sometimes I want to cry and sometimes I just want to throw up!"

Outside of doctors and dentists, we' stayed pretty close to "home"--this place is so beautiful and we had the "cat-bird" seat here in the park(ing lot). We had views of the Salem harbour from three sides of the motorhome--sailboats and seagulls, spectacular sunrises and sunsets. I' had my own flock of sparrows who perched outside in the bushes every morning waiting for their bread crumbs (and the occasional ducks who stopped by for a treat). Life couldn't be much simpler. John would fetch me two newspapers every morning from the local convenience store--Boston and the NY Times (mostly to keep me quiet for a few hours). I went to a book sale in Marblehead and got a huge box of once read best selling books for $1.00 apiece. I was in heaven--I think that this is the first time since we left Boston that I've truly felt "retired". Imagine- reading a book in the middle of the day- and not feeling guilty. It was wonderful.

We always take a walk through "Chucktown" (Charlestown) when we're back in Boston. It's strange to go "home again"-- although as each year goes by, I feel less and less attached to the house. Turns out that the current owner wants to get rid of the hot tub (imagine??!!) She's offering it free to anyone who will take it away---little does she know, but it took a crane to get that puppy in the back yard....