The night before, I'd
resigned myself to not getting much sleep, but I cranked up the AC, nestled deep
under the covers, and amazingly wound up with a fairly decent night's
rest. Maybe I've stumbled onto the key?
Anyway, the morning of
departure had arrived and I was up and ready to go. The first rally point was the Post and
amazingly; everyone was early! So we hit
the road to N. Attleboro to the second rally point, and those folks were early,
too! Which meant we were on the road
about a half hour earlier than I'd hoped.
Sweet!!
The ride down 295 to 6 to
395 to 95 went very smoothly. Merritt
parkway was backed up in a couple of spots, but nothing like the traffic headed
in the other direction. Holy crap, that
was miles and miles of continuous logjam and we were so happy to not be in it.
First gas stop; everyone still in good spirits, LOL.
Arriving at the outskirts
of NYC, we encountered a toll booth which had gates. WTF.
Who the F still uses these antiquated things? They never work right, especially for
motorcycles! And sure enough; I arrived
at the booth, approached the gate...and...nothing. I pulled my transponder off my windshield and
waved it around, but no luck. The rest
of the crew was stacked up behind me, and behind them; an ever growing line of
cars. Fantastic.
Eventually, a toll
collector appeared, took my transponder and held it up to a reader on the
booth. The arm opened, I grabbed my
transponder, and rolled forward just far enough to let the crew behind me stack
up together so we weren't trying to catch up to each other out in traffic. When the last person was through, off we
went, picked up the FDR south, and were slammy-slammed in traffic. And what traffic. These idiots are bombing between lanes and
just missing each other by inches. We're
only going 40 miles an hour, and there's nowhere to go! What's the point? And then there was the NYPD cruiser in the
slow lane, ambling along with its lights on, paying no attention to anything
around it, or anyone paying attention to it.
We even came upon a fender bender in the middle lane. Cars stopped in the lane, other drivers
working their way around them...and the cruiser just slides on by. No pause, no look, no anything. I guess they were on their way to something
more important...which was surprising, given their utter lack of interest in
speed.
And then word came up from
behind; we'd lost Kevin and Heather.
Huh? How?? I'd stacked us up in a single lane at the
tolls, and...what's that? Oh, they
peeled off into a different lane? Well
why would they do that???
There was nothing to do
but just keep on going. We found our
street, made the turn and found a place to park. I texted Heather (passenger) and she replied that they were using GPS and would find us shortly.
Waiting for them...
About this time, a text from Mike
arrived. He'd taken the train from
Jersey City and was in the neighborhood.
We were trying to locate each other and as a reference, he said he was
standing at the corner of Broad and Beaver streets. Ha, that stud.
Kevin and Heather finally arrived, we got
rolling again, and hit the hotel we'd be staying at.
We lined up in front of
the hotel (in the taxi stand section)...
...and I ran in and asked where we were to
park. The clerk gave me the name and
directions of their parking garage, and I ran back out, ready to get the bikes
settled. Some folks wanted to leave
their bags here rather than carry them back (the parking garage was a few
blocks away), so we pulled off some things and got ready to roll. Wait, now we're missing someone. Bob...where is Bob? Nobody knew where Bob was. But then one of the crew came out (had used
the bathroom) and said that Bob had checked in and gone to his room. Say what?
Oh, I'm going to strangle him! He
finally came back out, we got the bikes fired up and off we went.
Down two streets and took
a right. And there was the parking
garage. We pulled in...and were greeted
by a steel grate gate across the opening.
What the...? I dismounted, went
up to the window and asked the attendant about parking. They were full. Huh?
Whaddya mean 'full'? We've got
hotel reservations and this is the garage they use and they said we'd have
parking. No luck, the guy was full and
not accepting any vehicles. Well that's
just awesome as fuck. Now what are we
supposed to do. Fortunately there was a
patron hanging out and he informed us there was a parking garage on the other
side of the building, so we rolled back out to the street, two more right
turns, and there's the garage. And the
entry ramp was quite steep, but we rolled on down, found the very nice
attendant who moved some cars for us and we were finally parked in our own two
slots (crammed 6 bikes in) and set the kickstands. Here, Bob made up for his past sins by
breaking out a cooler and handing out very cold Bud Lights. His timing was perfect for we were all hot,
tired and sweaty. The temps were in the
90's and the humidity seemed like it was 100%. These frosty libations were just what we
needed. Ahhhh! Oh Bob, you rapscallion. You raised my ire before, but all is forgiven
now!
Here's Ed playing "Hide the empties" while the nice parking attendant was printout out our parking passes.
Back at the hotel, a quick
plan was agreed upon; everyone shower and meet back at the hotel bar. Mike, not having had a bike to park, had
already showered and was down in the bar.
I headed up to get cleaned up, and as I was opening the door to the
room, I thought "I wonder how small this room is going to be...". I was immediately answered as the door swung
into the side desk, preventing the door from opening all the way. Huh. I
guess that answers that question (as I turned sideways to make my way in).
Nothing says "upscale Wall Street hotel" like industrial plumbing...
And just look at that view outside our window...
Cleaned up and ready we
assembled in the bar and laid in to the stores.
I needed something good and boy did I find it! 16 ounces of 8+ABV chocolatey goodness!
We discussed the trip down and the headaches of traffic and the parking,
and agreed that next time; we do what Mike suggested in the first place. Ride to Jersey City, park there (for free),
get hotel rooms there, then just take the train into the city for GZ and then
head back out. Plenty of night life out
there, he says, so we will definitely have to give that some thought for next
time.
After about three or four of those Youngs, I realized I needed to switch to something lighter. Having not eaten since this morning and then riding all day in the heat and humidity, they were going right to my head.
As can be attested to by the look on my face in this pic...
I don't know what the statue was there for but the hostess seemed intent on not letting anyone get up next to it so I had to surreptitiously keep an eye on her and when she left her post, bammo; I got my pic!
The bar also had this giant bull on display which seemed too cool not to take a picture of...
...and there was a placque describing the legend behind it...
Checking the time we
decided we should get moving. The
Observatory was on tonight's docket (museum was tomorrow), so we needed to get
rolling. It was drizzling off and on but
not too bad. We came across a restaurant
along the way and headed in for dinner.
The waitresses set us up at tables inside the place but its front opened
up to the sidewalk so we commandeered a couple of small tables and proceeded to
set ourselves up right there so we could watch all that was going on outside;
mostly people.
Dinner was fun and then we
were on our way again, off to Ground Zero.
We were a little early so we walked around the memorial plaza, looking
at the reflecting pools and the grass and trees that now grew here.
We couldn't see how deep the center holes were but someone said they were as deep as the visibile (gray) side walls were, so it seemed they were designed to be just deep enough that from the street, it looked like they were bottomless.
The water actually flowed out from the sides, creating long slivers of reflections, before cascading over the edges and into the pool, below.
All along the outer edges were the names of all the people who had been killed that day. Office workers, emergency responders, plane passengers.
Underneath the edges, there was open space where the water was being pumped up and out to the top flat level.
The cascades were very cool; the water was actually funnelled into thin streams as it crested over the edge, giving the impression of falling rain, rather than just a solid fluid fall.
Looking up at the new World Trade Center
building, it was amazing to see the glass stories going up and up and up,
seemingly right through the sky.
I found
myself thinking of the people who had been forced to jump from the burning
towers. Was I standing on a spot where
someone had landed? What thoughts would
they have been thinking as they fell?
How horrible their choices were if they were forced to leap to certain
death, rather than stay and certainly die.
The mood was completely somber and sad, and it seemed everyone on the
plaza felt the same. Anywhere there were
conversations, they seemed muted and respectful.
Our turn to enter the
Observatory arrived and we strolled in. This image was faded in and out on the wall at one point. I tried to time it so I'd get a clear picture but you can see how I made out. (If you click on and open the pic, you'll be able to read what it says.)
The elevator ride up was amazingly quick (my ears popped 5 times in 30 seconds)
and in no time at all, we were exiting near the top of the building. The view was spectacular and we had a near
360 degree view around the building.
There were two floors which we could look out from, and folks were
gazing out across the city in all directions, cameras saving memories, and
excited fingers pointing out different landmarks.
Ellis Island in the middle...
...and zoomed in on...
The tickets allow you a
specific time of entry so we assumed you'd be shuffled along and have to exit
at a given time as well. As it turns out
this is not the case and you can stay put as long as you like.
They had a mini cooler off on one side which actually served beer...well...sorta...
...Miller Lite and IPA. I will pass, thank you. But turning around, we found a full mini café and fully stocked
bar behind us, so of course...well...you know what happened next.
I met a nice couple from
Michigan and spent a fair amount of time talking to her beautiful blue
eyes...er...I mean, talking to the guy (Scott) because that's the respectful
thing to do (talk to the guy so he doesn't think you're interested in his girlfriend, which of course; I was). They were funny as hell and
not pretentious at all, so the conversation flowed easily and we had a lot of
laughs with them. I snapped some pics of
the sunset as well as the traffic down below...
...and after a while (when it'd
gotten completely dark and there wasn't much else to see outside), it was time
to head on back down and join in the night life.
But not before taking in the sights of the reflecing pools once again; so unchanged, but so different at night time...
They had an awesome effect with the lighting. At first, we couldn't figure out how they were making it look like a bank of lights were behind the water, as well as right at the bottom where it was landing. After looking at it from another angle, we realized the bank of lights were at the base of the wall, thus behind the water. The cascading water wasn't riding down the face of the wall, it was free-falling and landed several feet in front of the base. So the light was actually behind the water when it hit, illuminating it from behind, but also casting illumination on the point of impact, where water was tossed up and the droplets would catch and reflect the light.
From here, we slowly wound our way back up some streets, looking for a specific tavern that had been recommended. Along the way, we came across some street art; a giant cube, standing on one point. I tried convincing Nelly and Ed that we could spin it (and those of you on FB have seen those pics).
We found the
bar and settled in, sampled some whiskey...
...we asked for Johnny Walked Blue but the bartender said they didn't carry any expensive whiskeys. Huh? In the heart of the city?? Anyway, he recommended this stuff...
It wasn't bad, but it was no Johnny Walker, either.
Hey look; more industrial plumbing...sorta. Man, what's with the color scheme??
We tried several other things, had some mixed drinks, and fully enjoyed ourselves
before deciding we needed to find another place to check out. I mean, we were in downtown NYC, let's not spend the entire evening in just one establishment.
Besides, Ed was getting tired of this place...
The next place (I forget the name of it); we'd asked for a place that would have some good stouts, and man, this place didn't disappoint. Just check out their sign!
We capped out our night here but lasted well into the evening. I'm not quite
sure what time we retired but I think it was about midnight. I know; that doesn't sound terribly late, but
it'd been a long hot day for us and we'd had an early start (~2-ish), so it was
a respectable showing on our part.
The next morning we were
up and looking for breakfast. No food
here at the hotel, and the hotel bar wasn't open yet, so we found a small
breakfast place on a side street, filled our bellies, and headed off to the
museum.
Along the way, we found this place...
No visit to Wall Street can apparently be complete withouth visiting The Bull.
I think it's supposed to bring you good luck if you touch it, and judging from all the shiny spots, there's been a lot of touching going on...
...and judging from those shiny nuts; a lot of inappropriate touching, too.
Sure eough, no sooner had I taken this picture than a father had his two young kids go up and each kid held a ball in their hands and the dad took a picture. Nice, a family portrait worthy of the mantle back home.
Oh yeah; here's that cube from last night! (I'd been pretty lit up the night before and wouldn't have been able to find this thing again on my own, but it happened to be on our way to the museum.)
The museum is located right at Ground Zero, which afforded me another opportunity to take a picture of the new World Trade Center.
And with that; it was into the museum. As with the Observatory,
museum tickets granted you a specified entry time. The info said to allow about two hours to see
what's in the museum, so that's what we'd gauged. We needed to get our bikes out @ 1 or else
possibly be charged a second day's fee, so we were tied to a 2 hour deadline
because that's what we'd planned for.
Unfortunately, the info was (in our opinions) misleading. We spent the two hours inside and could have
easily spent another two hours. There
were so many things I had to skip over because we'd run out of time. Afterward, as we were talking about what we'd
looked at (because we'd all split up, inside), we all found there were all
kinds of exhibits, displays, etc. which we hadn't seen.
The museum is located
underground, in much of what was the footprint of one of the towers. They've excavated down to the bedrock where
the steel beams were anchored.
They've cut the beams off just above the cement footing, but then in one section; went even deeper so you can see how the beams were affixed.
The periphery of the footprint is lined with
displays of the engineering required to build the buildings (giant slurry wall,
still standing), as well as artifacts from the attacks. Some of them were amazing, some of them were
quite sorrowful.
Here, alongside the stairs going down into the museum were remnants from one of the towers.
Here's a picture from below, looking up. I was able to fit them all into the shot but due to lack of perspective, they look small in this shot. Believe me; they are not.
We were talking about the sheer force/weight that had to be exerted on these things to bend and twist them so much. As it turns out, they were located right where the plane hit the North Tower...
The section of the slurry wall that is still original...
The last column..
I'm sorry that some of these pics are blurry and/or upside down. There were tons of people there and everyone was patiently waiting for each person to take their pics and then move out of the way, so I was kind of hurried.
Here; the Survivors' Stairs...
This is a section of the radio antenna from on top of the North Tower...
When I came around a corner and saw this, it almost stopped me in my tracks.
Fire truck from Ladder Company 3.
Due to the lighting, these look like different exhibits, but they're the same. One side has a dark background, the other side is facing a lit up backdrop.
Within the center of the
museum is where the bulk of things are to be found. They stipulate that no photography is allowed
inside so we weren't able to take any pictures of things inside, but it was
amazing, in a respectful way. Timelines
of that day, voice messages left from those that perished (played over
speakers), mini film-type displays playing audio from survivors, relaying the
events of the day, pictures, newscasts, on and on and on. And even a small area walled off from the
rest, which cautioned that images within might be disturbing. Here, they showed picture after picture of
those who had fallen; all of them in various stages of tumbling, and I again
found myself wondering what would go through one's mind in such a terrible
instance.
There was so much more to
see, to go back and revisit, to think about, to appreciate, to mourn...but the
time had come and we needed to leave.
Texts went out to locate each other and we gathered once again out on
the plaza, took in the reflecting pools again, and then made our way to the
parking garage. We retrieved our bikes
without issue...
...even navigating the steep slope back to the streets above...
...returned to the hotel to collect our bags, and were then on the
road headed home again.
The crew wanted to make
more stops on the way back than we had on the way down, so the trip took a
while.
The first stop, of many...
Another stop...
At one of the stops, we actully did a sit-down lunch, which is a bit of a novelty for me. But, it gave me a chance to enjoy this fine specimen, and let me tell ya; it was delicious!
We pulled out of NYC around 2 and
I didn't roll into my driveway until 8:30.
Ordinarily, doubling a trip's travel time isn't something I've very
crazy about, but this time I didn't mind.
We'd tried to find ways around traffic backups (according to GPS) and
had stumbled onto some very scenic roadways.
We hit a couple of gas stops where instead of just gassing-and-going, we
stood around and chatted for a bit, and we stopped in Danbury (for that full
sit-down meal where we got to reminisce about the trip some more). It was definitely something I'm not used to
but it wasn't bad at all.
If the success of a trip
is gauged by the level of enjoyment and the desire to return, then this trip
was definitely a huge hit. I can't wait
to go back and immerse myself again. In
the museum, not in the city. The city
can kiss my ass. It's still a shithole -
we were staying in the Wall Street section!
You'd think it would be classy but no; there was trash all over the
streets, scaffolding on all the buildings, lots of potholes and lousy drivers
(any city where cars have "bumper protectors" attached to their rear
bumpers is not a city that is motorcycle friendly). So yes, I want to get back, but when I do go
again, I'm going to talk to Mike about Jersey City.
And speaking of which, Mike sent us this pic once he'd returned to the other side of the river. It's a great shot, and seemed fitting to wrap the day up with.
There you have it. The run to NYC and Ground Zero. It was amazing.
Ride Hard, Never Forget
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