Planes, Trains, and Tow Trucks: Logan Goes to New York City (Part 2: Sunday)

Sunday

For our first full day in New York, we had quite an eventful day!  After breakfast we headed into Lower Manhattan to explore.  Logan loved the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) and the subway as we added to our many modes of transportation.  We came out of the subway near Battery Park, so we started there.  The bonus was that there was a playground right at the entrance, which is always good when embarking on some sight-seeing with a 2 year old.

Grammie also had fun on the playground AND is going to kick my ass for posting this.

mmm...NY pizza

The goal was also to see the 9/11 memorial (which is still under construction), in addition to Battery Park and the Staten Island Ferry.  However, apparently one needs advanced tickets to visit the memorial since its on limited access thanks to the ongoing construction. I checked the night before, but forgot to get tickets. This turned out to be a good thing though since it looked pretty packed when we walked by looking for lunch after a walk through battery park and the waterfront there. On the way to find lunch, we found huge ass bull testicles on display.

If only I could have caught her
rubbing them instead of snapping
a picture...

We stopped at a random pizza place for a slice of genuine NY pizza before continuing on back to Battery Park to see the Sphere and walk through another way on our way to the Staten Island Ferry. We almost made it to the building housing the ferry dock before the sky opened up on us. We probably could have made it with just a few sprinkles on us, but with Logan's cast, I didn't take any chances and put his raincoat on even though I probably got wetter just getting his jacket on. The weather wasn't a detriment to us though, as the rain tapered off while we waited for the ferry.

With skies like this, it kind of makes you
wonder where the storm came from!
The answer is "from the other direction".

It's far away, but the Statue of Liberty was in view.

Logan loved the boat ride! The cool thing about the Staten Island Ferry is that it is essentially a free boat ride that passes the Statue of Liberty. Sure, you don't get a tour guide telling you all about lady liberty, nor do you get to stop there, but you ride past it twice - once on the way there and once on the way back. We wandered around Lower Manhattan a little more, stopping for a cupcake and cookie snack before heading back to the subway. We got off the subway at Penn Station to switch over to the LIRR and quickly realized that it was much easier to take the train INTO the city. We had to wait for about 20 minutes to just find out the track the train would be arriving on, only a few minutes before it came. Logan rested on the train and we still had plenty of time to freshen up for dinner at the hotel.

We met Heather and Iris for a delicious dinner at Sole (Heather's favorite restaurant on Long Island), where we gorged ourselves on delicious pasta and dessert.  It was SOOOOOO GOOOOOD!!!  The pastry chef is a genius for the "cannoli chips".  They basically give you a giant pile of cannoli filling and mini chocolate chips with the empty cannoli pastries.  NO.SOGGY.CANNOLIS!!!

Heather and Logan were fast friends as he showed her his new airplane play set from Grammie and Randy.

More pictures from our trip are here.