The Crusher

Wow its been quite an eventful few days, we left Boston and headed to Newport Rhode Island to find the Castle Hill Lighthouse, it was a lighthouse I saw on an Atlas map book a few years ago and always wanted to find it.  Not knowing the Newport was home to some of the wealthiest people of the 19th/early 20th century and is full of old Mansions you can tour (for $24 bucks a mansion)  We found the mother of them all - The Breakers - Luckily the parking attendant let us park in the Bus zone, However, we decided not to pay the fee and walked the cliff walk around the house and around the town.  It was gorgeous, then drove around Ocean Ave to the lighthouse.  I scrambled across awesome cliffs to the lighthouse and spent the rest of the afternoon taking it all in.

We camped in an small RV park in New Haven Connecticut and then headed for New York City, well camping at Liberty Harbour in Jersey City...This is where the fun begins.  I knew there were a bunch of restrictions, in tunnels and on some of the roads, but our GPS was leading us the quickest way.  I knew we couldn't go that way, directly through Manhattan and into the Holland Tunnel so I planned for the secondary route over the George Washington Bridge instead.  We were still miles from NYC, so no problem right....Wrong.  We took the exit for the Hutchinson Parkway.  The police dispatcher referred to it fondly as the Hutch!!  Haha we took the exit and quickly saw a sign flashing at us to pull over as we were an over height vehicle.  The next sign said to call 911, so we did.  They quickly directed us to the county police who told us we weren't allowed on the parkway and they would dispatch an officer.  We knew we were safely under the 12'6" height of the underpass, but didn't want to take any chances, so we waited for the police to arrive.  He was very nice and smiled, that we were from BC.  He directed us to go ahead and take the immediate next exit and to stay on Interstate roads, not Parkways...no RVs allowed!!!  Oops. 

We got back on the road and were headed onto I87 which would take us to the George Washington Bridge.  We got into the Bronx easily, but quickly hit traffic.  Cars were zooming by, butting in at the last possible moment and driving erratically.  Hey its New York right, next up we had to get in the BIG line of mostly trucks inching forward toward the bridge.  We inched forwards slowly, watching the big ramp of trucks up ahead winding its way up to the Upper deck (Big vehicles Only allowed on the upper deck)  Soon we were finally off the highway and onto the exit.  The trucks were now cutting in to get in the right lane, trying to let one or two in, next three or four..stay close to the bumper in front.  As we wound our way up the ramp, with trucks all around us it was like driving into the Crusher!!!   Trucks coming from all directions closing in on us, wow we were finally on the bridge and all of a sudden traffic died and we were moving again onto the Jersey Turnpike, through the wastelands of Jersey and we made it to our parking lot/campsite.  $50 poorer thanks to the tolls!

Next up the NYC Waterways ferry across to Manhattan.  The next boat didn't leave for an hour, so I dragged Sharon to Liberty State Park, just around the corner from us.  The park had Manhattan as the backdrop.  This is another bucket list photo I always wanted!  We got back and took the boat just as sun was setting (thinking why did we leave our spot), but we got on the boat and the colours were exploding.  There was even a rainbow over Manhattan ( I missed getting a photo of it, bummer) but we got to go sit outside at the back of the boat, and we realized this boat actually headed to Pier 11/Wall St.  We got a sunset tour of Manhattan, and those little ferries are like rockets on water, as we left Jersey they floored it and we were flying across the Hudson, looking up in Awe at the skyline and pink colors reflecting off of the WTC, we zoomed all the way around lower manhattan.  What a great ride!!

We walked 2 mins to the TKTS office at South Seaport and scored tickets to School of Rock.  We rocked out and then had to take the late night PATH train back to Jersey.  We stayed another day and explored NY, we got reservations at an amazing Veggie restaurant that Sharon wanted to try called Dirt Candy.  It was mind blowing, amazing meal and we met the Head Chef, she was Canadian, had won the Iron Chef and was heading to Vancouver the next day for some kind of event.  We had a really great time in New York.

Then decided to head off to find the Great Smokey Mtns in West Virginia.  After spending most of our money on tolls we finally got through Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and into West Virginia to start our next adventure.  Of course a small disaster struck, 20 miles from our destination.  Stopping at Costco for gas, I didn't notice a long curb at the turn-in and we clipped the small by deadly curb...Flat Tire on the airstream...Crap!!!  I pulled out all my tools that I bought in preparation for this disaster and got to work, backed up the Airstream onto my wood platform, pulling off the tire and spare on...of coarse it needed air, so pumped it up with my mini-air compressor and we were back underway in about 30 mins.  Now do I replace all tires with new 15inch wheels or see if I can find the same tire...Pray for safe travels as we do not have an easy way to get a new tire.  I will probably have to order to a store in our next big city, which is 2-300 miles away!