Jersey City, New Jersey

It was another day of driving in four states, and for the majority of the day, fairly uneventful. When we hit New York City, though...OMG! doesn't even begin to describe it.

But let's back up to the beginning when we left Rhode Island. We enjoyed our time in Rhode Island. It was our first visit, and we came away with a very positive view of it. It's a small state, with lots of historic towns, tidy, and very pretty. And being a small state, one doesn't have to drive very far in any direction before one has left it for one of its neighbors or else the Atlantic Ocean. I think it was less than a half hour before we drove into the neighboring state of Connecticut.

We drove most of the day along the southern coast of Connecticut. It might have been a scenic drive except for the trees lining both sides of the freeway, er, turnpike. Things got a lot hairier once we crossed into New York, because crossing into New York meant that we were practically already in New York City.

Originally, our route took us on I-95, pretty much the entire distance. It was nearly 3:00 p.m. by this time, and our navigation unit helpfully tried to reroute us to avoid the worst traffic. That turned out to be a big mistake. We spent the next hour-plus trying to avoid low clearance tunnels, and not very successfully. Folks were driving by us, honking furiously, and indicating we should exit immediately. And since folks in New York City honk their horns seemingly as a requisite part of driving, we were jumpy and nervous, wondering if every horn we heard was directed specifically at us.

And what a tangled mess of bridges, overpasses, tunnels, roads, cars, and trucks. And very aggressive and rude driving. Geez. It's everything we hate about cities.

It was also dirty. This is apparently an orange cone graveyard. I've heard that they all make a final trek to the same place and their bones can be seen scattered everywhere.

After our second near-miss at driving on a road to no return, we pulled off on the shoulder of the turnpike and considered our options. We searched for apps or websites that might give us the lay of the low-lying tunnel. Then, I remembered the Allstays Camp and RV app already on my phone. It has listings of all kinds, and the ability to filter one's search desire. I've used it to find RV dump stations, and for locating campgrounds. Although it is not a "routing" app in the way Google Maps will route and give directions, it does have GPS and the ability to show us where we are and the roads around us. I could turn on a filter showing where any low-clearance tunnels were. At least with that, we knew where NOT to drive.

This is an image of the screen I was watching. The orange dot near the middle of the screen is our rig. The navigation unit was trying to route us onto that adjacent road, and there, each of the dots along the way is a tunnel too low for us to pass under without taking off the roof of the RV.

By sheer luck, we managed to get back to our original route, and we knew we were on the right track if we stayed behind the trucks. Here, we were on the ramp leading to the top deck of the George Washington Bridge. Yes! The very same bridge that made Chris Christie famous with the Fort Lee lane closure scandal!

When we rounded that curve in the image above, we found ourselves on this road. Mike had remarked that he only wanted to be driving on roads with blue sky above, and this definitely was not that. Does this look like the top deck of anything to you?

We drove along under this, ducking our heads, and keeping our eyes on the trucks when suddenly, we saw the light! Yahoo! We were on the bridge!

And, whoa! It's a pretty darned fancy bridge too.

And look over there! It's the New York skyline!

When we got across the bridge...yahoo! We were in New Jersey! It was beginning to look as if we might survive the day with the roof of the RV intact!

This indicator of the Lincoln Tunnel was also very reassuring. The bridge and the tunnel were landmarks letting us know we were nearing our final destination.

But first, they nicked us for another $5.60, and we didn't even go through the tunnel!

But, hey...we started seeing stuff that got us very excited. By "us," I mean me. Isn't that the Chrysler building there on the left?

And look at that! It's the new World Trade Center!

Seeing this sign made me want to jump out of the truck and kiss the ground...except it was very dirty, and so I resisted the impulse.

We were on the final stretch of road, but the Holland Tunnel loomed large ahead of us. We already knew we couldn't pass under it, and our road was supposed to go off to the right. We worried we had missed it, and the tunnel was right there!

And finally, at the "last exit before toll" where the maximum height was 12' 6" (and us at 13'), we came to our turn.

Just another mile or so down the road, and we were at the Liberty Harbor RV Park. It's nothing fancy, but it's home for the next four nights. This is our neighbor...that structure in the foreground is the slide of our RV.

On the other side of us...this interesting contraption. It's a Jeep trailer with a tent structure that opens out over the top of it.

We knew this park had pretty much no amenities. It's an asphalt parking lot with the RVs packed so close together we can literally reach out the window and touch our neighbor. But, hey...it has water and electric and a dump station nearby, and it's walking distance to at least three forms of public transportation. We walked over to a ferry that will take us to Pier 11 and the Financial District. There's the ferry now.

Looking in the other direction, some little tiny boats.

Beyond the ferry...the Manhattan Skyline. Whoa. It's the financial district. Wall Street. Cool.

We chuckled at this building. It kind of looks like they built it from legos, but didn't get them stacked together right.

But this made the whole day's driving debacle worthwhile. I looked off in the distance, and there she was, Lady Liberty! This thrilled me to no end.

We'll get a better look at her today, but just getting this glimpse of her back was a dream come true.

As we walked back to the RV, I took this picture so you could get a look at the park. That's our RV I've indicated with the red arrow.

Pretty well packed in like sardines, but access to public transportation makes it worthwhile. We have no interest in doing any more driving in New York City. Fortunately, when we're ready to leave, we'll be heading in the other direction.

So today, we have a tentative plan to walk to the Staten Island Ferry. We're told it's a great way to see the Statue of Liberty. From there, it's a very short walk to the 9/11 Memorial, and we'll probably do that next. From there...we'll have to see how we feel. Ellis Island is about a half hour's walk from our RV park, and so we'll do that at some point...maybe today.