Statue of Liberty

On this trip we really lucked out with Tour Guides! Our tour guide for the Statue of Liberty name was Linda and she loved her job! Maybe not as much as Jeff but it was super close! She wanted to tell us all sorts of facts and numbered us off in groups so that she could keep track of us! We were group 2! 

This is the first torch that the port authority decided to used they wanted it to light up but they decided that it wasn't really worth it so they put the original one from the french. 

There are so many people in such a little space! 

New Jersey from the statue! 

New York skyline with Ellis Island from the statue!

If you could look up her skirt this is where you could do it!

I took 5 pictures of the Statue of Liberty tour! Dave took 103! I think that it is easy to say that He liked it a little bit! 

Remember how of the Boston Harbor Dave took a bunch of pictures of the city skyline, meet the New York skyline! 

This boat didn't stop so we got to stay together on the top!

The One World Trade Build is the tallest build! 

Ellis Island

A close up!

James and I!

Jame, I, and Tia! I love her thoughtful look!

Dave took a ton of us coming into to the island!

I love this one because there aren't people on it yet because we were the first boat that day!

The finally the last one.

Linda and a model of Lady Liberty's face!

I just love that they are in her nose!

New York from the pedestal.

I love the bridges!

Ellis Island!

I believe this is the New Jersey side!

Tia and I! It is so nice to have a traveling companion that is super easy going!

The boys!

Lady Liberty from the bottom!

He took so many of these pictures.

Our tour guide laid down on the ground so that she could get this angle! It was pretty funny she was so very proud that she knew how to do this.

It was just a fun monument!

My love!

On the ground looking at Ellis Island!

More of pictures of the skyline! What is funny is I really did delete a lot of the pictures off! he just took so many that I don't want to delete all of them cause they make me happy!

On our way to Ellis Island!

Ellis Island such a scary and amazing place for immigrants coming to the America.

Inside the waiting room!

It is beautiful! We didn't take a lot of pictures here but it was super cool to look at every thing! We watched a movie about emigrants and I was the only one who stayed awake you could tell we were are the end of a really long vacation!

Outside looking back at Lady Liberty! 

More pictures of the skyline! At least Tia is in it and part of James' back!

The Time Square and Empire State Building

This is actually Madison Square Garden. Our hotel was right down the street from here.  

Time Square! I really liked it, but there were so many people! It is seriously crazy! 

Just another selfie!  

The building are so big! I find it over whelming I like visiting but I really love Idaho!

The best part was the street fair! they closed down Broadway it was pretty awesome! I loved to look a everything! 

If you think that 9:00 is a good time to see the top of the Empire State Building and that it won't be that busy on a Sunday I would think again! We waited inline for what seemed like forever to get through security! Then there was more waiting in line again. Towards what we thought would be the end some worker said don't worry folks only about 15 minutes from top! After waiting about 45 minutes more we made it to the elevators. But they only took us to the 80th floor! We didn't even look around to see how it was built, we just wanted to get to the top. Well little did we know that there was a 20 minute wait to go to the 86th floor where you went outside. But you could clime the 6 flights to the top if you wanted too! So we did! We climbed to the top and it was so beautiful!  

I think this picture just looks cool!

This one isn't as blury!

There is something to be said about the city at night! You can't see the stars but there is a lot of light!

Proof I was there! 

My love!

So pretty!  I loved it so much but Dave really loved it! He would just look out forever! 

The Girls take New York

After so many baseball games in a row I was ever so gratefull to ditch the boys to go to some plays!

So Tia and I knew that we were going to plays but we took a while to decided. We both were really good with whatever! So I finally decided to go to Wicked! I have always wanted to see it so I was pretty excited to see it in New York! Tia really didn't know what she was in for! 

A picture of Tia in front of the clock! 

And one of me! 

We had super good seats! We paid a pretty penny for them but it was worth it!

So excited!

The set was so cool!

This was right in front of us! 

It was so very good! Oh Tia cried at defining gravity! I shed a few tears also! There voices were amazing oh it was so good! We ate at the hard rock and walked around time square through the shops! We even saw some girls who didn't have more than panites on! The rest of them were painted up just for your information pain isn't the same as clothes! 

The next day we went to the the 9/11 Memorial I didn't take a lot of pictures but oh it brought up so many old memories. It was such a solemn place, It was very crazy to see how much went into that day that changed the country forever! 

One of the tower holes.

The other one! 

This shows how wide they are. It is super cool and sad.

Part of the structure.

Looking down to the Museum entrance. 

It was so much to process and I could have spent hours there. I was sad to leave without seeing all of it but we had to make it back uptown to the play.

Poor Tia the play she picked was Aladdin and we were up in the balcony so we lost some of the magic but it was awesome play! Next time I will seat closer so we can get pulled in better! 

Yankee Stadium

After spending so much time at Fenway where it is small and intimidate it was a little weird to go to Yankee Stadium where there is a whole other level and thousands more seats.

Here is the outside of Yankee Stadium! It is just so huge! Everything about it is just really big!

Including the boards.

This is the video board! It is huge! But even cooler if you look at the top you can see that Chapman threw a 103 m/h fast ball! Dave didn't get a picture of the next pitch but it was 104 m/h! It was crazy! Chapman later on in the season played for the Cubs and he played a huge part in the Cubs winning the World Series.

We were right in the sun but it was good to be there but I am not going to lie! I was done with Baseball by the end of this game. The Giants struggled and I still have yet to see them win a game. I might be a bad luck charm. I was also not impressed with the Yankee Fans they were fat heads. I wasn't impressed. 

The view from the top level! There were so many people. But is also was so sad because there weren't many of the lower seats sold!

I believe that this is Buster Poesy batting because he is my favorite players.  

This show how big it is because nothing is zoomed in!

Salem

So one of the reasons we couldn't hang around Boston and look at all the Historical sites is that we had an after dark tour of Salem. This tour was a historical tour of the Salem Witch Trial!This is something that I was very excited about. I have to say that we seriously lucked out on this trip with awesome tour guides! Your Tour guide in Salem was Jeff. Because I am me the first thing I noticed about Jeff were how long his fingernails were. (I totally blame my mother for that) So I thought to myself this guy is a witch! Which he did later on in the tour did tell us that is was part of the Wicken Religion and that he was a witch! The Salem Witch Trials are sometimes hard for people to talk about it because they get it wasn't a shiny time in America's history. What I loved about Jeff is he new his stuff. I feel like at times he was practically quoting the trial transcripts to us. He prided himself on explaining that the culture of the Puritans isn't the same as the culture that we had now. He tried to explain why things happened and how the people really did believe in what they were doing but it moved into hysteria and moved along economic grounds. (when I taught this there was a really cool map that I showed the students of who accused and who was accused and where they lived.)  So we walked around Salem and he took us to certain spots and explained how the trails played out. He said that there was only one actual building that was still standing during that time that is significant to the trials because after they happened the people were ashamed and they burned a lot of the buildings. So a lot of my pictures are just random things.

These graves stones were in the front of one of the first Catholic Churches that were built in Salem. One of the accused gave the Catholic Church the land because he knew that it would make the Puritans mad.

Here is where Jeff told the story of Giles Cory, who I had heard about but Dave, James, and Tia had not. Giles was crushed to death because when he was accused he didn't say anything. See if we denied that he was a witch (there were no warlocks and they are bad people in the Wicken religion) than the would loose all of his land to the city. But if he said that he was he would have to name other people who were witches. So the keep putting weight on him till he would confess but he never did. Now many people say that his last words were a curse upon his accusers and the town of Salem, But Jeff informed us that he died way before a curse could have been uttered. Jeff also said that it didn't keep his mother from using that to scare him into behaving as a child. This story is important because from here on out anytime something goes bad at James and Dave blame it on Giles but they always mess up his last name and it really bothers me.

One of the last places we went was the cemetery! Now Jeff seriously loves the cemetery, He makes it his life goal to preserve it and make sure that it stays safe. No no is supposed to go in it after dark because that is when things get broken and stolen. So when we left the cemetery Jeff was telling about the people that were accused and in mid sentence he yells "get out of the Cemetery you have to come back in the morning." It was so great to see his passion.  

The stones are so old you can bearly see any of the actual writing.

In this cemetery is tree that has been struck by lighten 4 times that Jeff can find record of. He said that it is hit about ever 22 years. The crazy part is that the last time it was struck by lightening they found a gravestone that had kind of been molded into the tree and they found out that it was an of a man who died by a lightning strike and the age of... 22! Jeff said that this summer of 2017 is when it should be stuck again. It is stories like this that made Jeff so awesome!  

Another picture of the cemetery.  

This tree is the oldest thing is Salem. This tree was alive during the Salem Witch Trial.

So what did the tree hugger in me have to do hug it of course.

Tia and I touching the oldest living thing in Salem! 

This is the actual headstone of the judge that presided over the trials. So many people kept knocking it down that they had to encase it in stone and class. He was the ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthrone the writer of the Scarlet Letter.