Charlie Bottita's Adventures: History Tour Day 11 and 12

Thursday Day 11. Since we made it to NJ early, we took advantage of that and went on a boat ride to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We boarded the boat at Liberty Park in NJ. The boat stopped at Ellis Island first. I have many relatives who passed through there. Both of my Grandmothers, some aunts and uncles and so on. They made the journey from Italy. It was an amazing feeling standing in the building where my family first landed in America. I looked up my grandmother Maronna's ship registry online and found that she was detained. I didn't know what that meant. When touring the processing facility we had audio tour devices and it explained that someone is detained for many reasons. Health issue, no one there to pick them up yet, mental and other reasons. Being detained means you could have been staying on Ellis island for days or weeks. The tour takes you through many rooms and one was the Detainment room. I have to believe my Grandmother had been in that room. It was way cool being there and having the feelings of closeness to my family once again. Mary has relatives that passed through Ellis Island too. We haven't looked them up in the online registry yet.

After Ellis Island, we took a drive to my home town. Denville, NJ. I was born in Summit, but lived in Denville until moving to Florida. We arrived and the first place we stopped was the home we lived in. The house looks the same, except a couple changes. Two stairways were removed from the outside, but that is it. The backyard still has the wall my dad built in the 1960's. He must have done a good job building it because it is still standing. I had been back to visit the neighborhood in the past, but this was more special because I was able to share it with my kids. I took Mary here some time back. Being a little kid at the time I lived there, the hills all looked much larger. Now I see them and they are tiny. The next stop was Indian Lake, which is right around the corner where I lived. I really enjoyed that lake. I took swimming lessons at the lake and we swam and fished there frequently. I even caught my first fish ( a Pickerel). I still have the picture of the fish at home. I took Mary and the kids to the dock where I caught that fish. I must have been 6yrs old or so then. I remember it like it was yesterday. I also drove by the parking lot my dad taught me how to ride a bike. There is a building over part of it, but the memory is still there for me. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I never moved away from Denville. It is a cool little town out in the country.

After the visit to my hometown, we stopped by my Aunt Connie and Uncle Ron's for dinner. It was so nice catching up with them. We could have talked all night.

Day 12 Friday. We have been on such a rush lately, we took a bit of time to take it easy in the morning. Had breakfast and planned our day. We went to New York City and walked around quite a bit. Mary registered 20,000+ steps on her fitbit. We split our visit to NYC into two sections. This day, we went to midtown. Saturday we will probably do lower Manhattan. We started at Times Square. It has changed a little since the last time I was there. There are bleachers and tables setup where one of the roads used to go through. This is nice because there is less traffic. Well, I use less, lightly. It was quite busy with taxis, buses and every manageable mode of transportation. The weather was perfect for a walk in the city. A couple times we got hot, but nothing like DC. We moved on to Radio City Music Hall. I have never been in there. One day, I will get inside. We moved along to Rockefeller Center. We saw the building where the Jimmy Fallen Show is taped. Then where the Christmas tree is setup during the winter. We the Today Show Studio through the windows. The show was over much earlier in the day, so we didn't see any of it. We headed to St Patrick's Cathedral. It was built in 1878 and it has a long history. We walked in and there was scaffolding everywhere. That seems to be the theme for our trip. As were were looking around inside, we realized there was a mass going on. We joined the mass right at communion. It was amazing to be at mass in such a historic place. After mass was over, we headed over to Carnegie Deli for lunch. Well, it was closed for renovations. So we ate at a deli nearby and its name was Fluffys Deli. It was a typical eatery in the area. We walked to Central Park and walked around for a bit. we stopped at Strawberry Fields. The memorial that Yoko Ono had made for John Lennon. We went across the street to the Dakota where John Lennon was shot. Guess what. the building was all wrapped in Scaffolding. We headed to the Tavern On the Green. Stopped for a beverage. Then off to Trump Tower. But first, we stopped at FAO Schwarz. The toy Store where the Big Piano is that Tom Hanks played in the movie Big. I hear the store is closing soon, so it was nice to get in and see it before it goes away. We were able to play on the Big Piano. That was pretty cool. I took video and will share that when I put all my clips into a finished video. We did have a picture of us taken as a memento. We made it to Trump Tower and walked around inside. It is beautiful inside. Lots of Gold trim and marble. The kids wanted to try a NY Pizza, so I took them to Ray's on 7th Ave. They weren''t impressed. They like my pizza better :) After that we went to Holey Cream ice cream shop on 9th ave. They make donut icecream sandwiches. So the kids had one and split it. It looked really good. I just had a scoop of icecream. May was full from the pizza. We headed back to the hotel and Michael and I went swimming to end our day. Saturday we may do lower Manhattan and see the 911 Memorial, Seaport, Battery Park and other places.