Five of These Things Don't Belong

Day 19--New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey

We had to wake up early to get everything ready to hit the road again.  First, we had to pack all the camping stuff back into the top carrier on Shanon's van.  Heather is staying in downtown Manhattan and meeting us out in Newark on Tuesday, after the husband's leave, and so she can't haul her camping stuff around.  Plus, we needed the guys to help us put it back on top.

Then we had a whole list of things to clean before we checked out and got to church at 10 am.

Plus repacking everything.  It was a busy morning.

Church was held at the Whitmer Family Farm, where Joseph Smith did a lot of the translating of the Book of Mormon.  That was pretty neat.  There were some eclectic people in the ward for sure!

After church, we looked around the property a little bit--it wasn't open for tours yet--and then hit the road to get to Newark, New Jersey for the night.

We stopped at a waterfall overlook near Ithaca, NY but other than that, we made a straight shot over to Newark. 








Once we hit the city, it was traffic and weird directions and very stressful.

I waffled between staying in Manhattan like Heather or staying near the airport Wade was flying out of on Tuesday morning at 7 am.  I'm glad I went with Newark instead of Manhattan, but Newark is definitely not on my return list.  Holy Moly.

We decided to go to Liberty State Park to see the Statue of Liberty out in the water and Wade thought there was a walkway to Ellis Island.

Spoiler alert: There isn't.

And to avoid tolls--because we've come this far without paying a single toll--we drove through Jersey City, where it was very obvious that five little Mormon, Utah natives did not fit in at all.  It was quite the educational opportunity for the kids--like how the laundry mat was the busiest place on a Sunday evening.  They couldn't quite grasp that a lot of people don't have their own washers and dryers to use whenever they want.

We reached the park and found the walkway that wasn't a walkway.  We saw the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty.  It's a pretty nice little park.




We tried to get out of there before dark, but didn't quite succeed.  Then we had to stop at a gas station to fill up the car and vacuum it out before returning it to the airport.  We'll just keep telling ourselves it was a good neighborhood. :/

Shanon ended up staying at our same hotel, so that will be nice on Tuesday when it's time to load up the van again and set sail.

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