DAY 81 : September 26/22 Monday. Jersey City (Liberty Harbour RV Park) -- bike to Liberty Park, Madison Square Garden

 Fairly lazy Monday after such a busy day in the city. Being on such a long, drawn out trip means that we have to pick and choose where we want to spend our energy. With the sun shining after the crazy thunder/lightening storm last night, we hung out at the rig and then decided to have a family bike ride to Liberty State Park. Jonathan rode his bike and did a recon mission to check out a safe bike route for us all to ride over. 

Beautiful ride over (we noted how high the water level was as we rode over the little bridge to the park)... Ollie on the back of Jonathan's bike and I rode Ollie's. We got part way there when Jonathan realized we forgot the binoculars. Doh. He took the bike back to the rig, since there was a large military ship in the harbour that had a few helicopters on it and he wanted to check that out with the binoculars. I walked and kids biked on to the waterfront where we saw a striking 9/11 memorial, and a reclining Liberty statue art installation, and beautiful view of the NYC skyline.

We hung out there and suddenly saw Jonathan ride by on his bike at mock speed trying to catch up to us where he thought we'd be further along. Kids hopped on their bikes to try and catch him and I got my phone out to text him. He called me from the playground, having not found us, then came back to get us. We rode along the boardwalk and got a pretty good view of the Statue of Liberty from the Jersey side. This helped us with our decision to not take the Liberty Cruise today... it was a tight squeeze into today's schedule anyhow, and again... picking and choosing where to spend time and energy with the game tonight in mind. While we were biking we also came across the NJ department of corrections vans with a team of men in orange jumpsuits gathering driftwood and lumber that had washed up onto the rocks below the boardwalk. 

 

Meems tried her hand at balancing on the back of Jonathan's bike as we rode back through the park and over to the playground for a play. She did great!

We had seen these ship slings at the Harbour and were quite intrigued as to how they worked. On our ride back to the RV we got see one in action! 

Back to the rig to watch some Mark Rober videos and hang out. It was around 2:30pm that we got moving again, knowing that we'd have a fairly late evening with the Rangers vs Islanders game tonight. Packed a light bag and headed off up Marin to the PATH metro station with a cursory stop at the Krispie Kreme for sugary sustenance. 

Once in NYC, we were headed to find the Ghost Busters Firehall, and then catch the TopView tour bus to take us to the Empire State Building stop which would provide us with a place to find some dinner before the game at the nearby MSG. We ducked into the CVS for some nail polish for Amelia and Daddy's future spa day. Ollie chose blue and Meems chose red. 

We found the Ghost Busters fire hall and checked it out. It's also the hall that firefighter Andrew ran from to help at the Twin Towers on 9/11. We had seen many people participating in the special memorial run yesterday in his honour. 

Jumped on the nearest TopView bus and rode it to the Empire State Building, looking for some easy pizza dinner options to have before the game. As we circled MSG, we could see a fair number of people in Rangers jerseys circulating and entering the building. This got Jonathan questioning why they were entering more than an hour before the game time, and we hustled to find a place to eat close by. 

Grabbed some pizza at a little restaurant close by, and then we were on our way into Madison Square Garden! Exciting. Jonathan was just about jumping out of his skin he was so stressed about getting inside and not missing anything. Security going in was quick and super friendly. They have very strict policies on behaviour and conduct inside the stadium, which made for a fun and friendly experience. Our seats were up in the nosebleeds, but everyone in our area were super nice. Fun heckling, but no obnoxious behaviour which was awesome. I gotta say, the Rangers fans know how to enjoy a game. Despite the "reflections" on the past wins showing the dismal 1994 win against our beloved Vancouver Canucks, it was pretty easy to join the Rangers bandwagon for a night, it was such fun energy. I asked Amelia who she thought would score the first goal and she said, "Rangers"... so I promised to give her a quarter for each goal they scored. She earned $1.00! It was crazy in the crowd every time the Rangers scored - fun chant that got repeated and Meeems and I got on board with every goal. Super fun. We stayed for two periods (Rangers 4-1 vs Islanders) and decided to leave to beat any rush from the stadium to the PATH, plus we had two tired kids (Ollie was especially wilty during the game).