Off to New York

Our trip to New York is fast approaching. We will fly  from Denver Airport on 4 June.

On Friday 31 May we drive up I-25 from Colorado Springs to Denver. It is a nice drive. As we leave the city we can see Pike's Peak clearly in the sun; the snow is gradually melting.
We have a bit of a win with fuel today. We fill up at Rudy's in Colorado Springs - $3.69 a gallon. Only 2 miles up the road we see it for $3.89!

It is good to be back on the road. We only have about 75 miles to drive but the forecast is for strong winds in the afternoon so we want to be well and truly in place by then. There is a high fire danger too.

Twenty miles out of Denver we are into 4 lanes of traffic, then 6 lanes!! A bit of a shock to the system!! It has been several weeks since we were driving in a big city. We can see the skyline of Denver in the distance with the Rocky Mountains as background.

I told him to be careful!

We will stay in Denver for a few more days when we return from New York. For the moment we set up at the South Park RV Park in Englewood, a suburb of Denver. Time for some housekeeping jobs!!

Denver is located exactly 5,280 feet - one mile -above sea level at the
base of the Rocky Mountains, a fact that is used extensively in  all kinds of advertising and the promotion of tourism.

Monday 3 June finds us on our way to the airport. We have a few things to do on the way. We have a difficult drive around the suburbs looking for a Wells Fargo bank and then trying to get in and out of their car park! Doesn't bode well??

By 12.30 we are definitely on our way to the airport. Only thirty one miles but it has its moments.
Lots of traffic - they can't all be going to the airport!! Then I turn us off  to the airport long term parking an exit too early - oh dear!  Not quite what Trevor said!!





Denver International Airport is the 5th busiest airport in North America and the 10th busiest in the world.

The peaked Teflon-coated fibreglass roof of the airport - seen in the photo here - resembles the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains and evokes the early history of Colorado when  Native American teepees were located on the Great Plains.

It is a great sight. We are also delighted to see the sign for Pike's Peak Shuttle Parking, a long term parking area which accommodates oversized vehicles; at a cost of only $8 a day!

We set up easily. We can 'push out' - we will sleep in the RV. It is hot - 100F - so we run the generator and
the air conditioner. Then we pack the suitcase!!
I hadn't thought of aircraft noise but it is not too bad.


It must be the excitement of sleeping at the airport for we don't sleep very well. We get up at 3.30am (we had showers last night) and are waiting for the shuttle to the terminal at 4.00am. It runs every 10 minutes even at that time in the morning. Our flight doesn't leave until 6.55am but we have been advised to get to the airport  a couple of hours early. We are amazed how streamlined the whole process is, even enjoyable! We are through security by 5am and thinking about breakfast. Plenty of time. Our flight leaves right on time too.

We get to New York in 2 hops - first a 2 and a half hour flight to Houston, then 3 and a half hours to La Guardia, NY.  With the 2 hour time difference we arrive at La Guardia at 4.30pm.

We have booked a share transfer shuttle to our hotel from the airport - in hindsight a mistake!! First we wait at the airport for other shuttle passengers, then drive all around Manhattan - or so it seems - in peak hour traffic dropping everyone else off. We are second to last to be dropped off!! We finally arrive at the Roger Hotel on Madison and E 31st at about 7.30pm!!

Our friends Kerry and Jo are waiting for us. It is so good to see them again! They arrived in New York 2 days ago and have checked out the pubs and restaurants around the hotel - a drink and a meal and we are 'good to go!'  The Crooked Knife pub and restaurant on E 30th St will become our 'headquarters' over the next few days!

Kerry and Trevor have been invited to be volunteer boat crew for some of the swimmers from Perth entered in the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim on Saturday 8 June. It is a 28.5 mile swim around Manhattan Island, the longest annual swim race in the world.

The Flatiron Building

We meet some of the Perth swimmers, their families and supporters the next day when we all attend a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. The NY Yankees play Cleveland. It is a fun day! The game itself was close with the Yankees winning. There was a large crowd - it was a Wednesday - pretty exciting to be at Yankee Stadium. Getting there and back and meeting up with the Perth lot worked well even in such a large crowd. We caught a cab uptown to the stadium in South Bronx and travelled the subway back downtown after the game. People are very helpful with directions and information especially when we are all looking lost!!

It is so neat to be spending time with friends from Perth. We travelled to San Francisco with Kerry and Jo in 2011 when Kerry and Trevor swam from Alcatraz to Fishermans Wharf and the next day competed in a leg of a biathlon, swimming from Alcatraz to the Golden Gate Bridge.
We had a great time together then and I know this is also going to be a lot of fun!!


It is also great to be back in New York. We visited New York in late September and mid October last year. Now we are here in spring/summer.
The weather on our first 2 days is beautiful.

We walk across Brooklyn Bridge (with everyone else in the world!) Looking up the East River we think of  the swimmers on Saturday and what they have in front of them. We can see the current swirling the water in a fast stream. There is also a lot of rubbish at the river banks.
Kerry and Jo train in the same pool in Perth with a number of the swimmers. Trevor and I had not met any of the swimmers before but already we feel involved with their challenge.

Our walk across the Brooklyn Bridge is magical! In Brooklyn we continue to wander around the riverfront. We then catch a ferry to lower Manhattan.

Kerry takes a helicopter ride around Manhattan Island - a promise he made to himself some years ago











The Brooklyn waterfront is very pretty. We can see bridge workers on the support wires of the bridge working high up above the bridge. They look like tiny birds!



We have great views to uptown Manhattan and even better views of lower Manhattan.

After the helicopter ride - which Kerry enthuses about!! - we  take the Staten Island ferry - I think the rest of the world comes with us!
On the way to the ferry we find a beer and a hotdog in some back streets near Wall Street.

And then we are back on lower Manhattan. What a great day!

Trinity Church cnr Wall St and Broadway