Recalling A Long Ago Trip To New York

Back in 2012, right before the University of Denver outsourced the DU Bookstore to Follett Higher Education Group, throwing everyone's employment into question, I decided to fly to the East Coast and check out Boston, New York, and Washington D.C. I liked Boston a lot, but was not too crazy about New York. Perhaps it was because I grew up in Chicago, and Chicagoans have a natural prejudice against New York. But I found the city congested, dirty, in many parts plain ugly, and nothing as beautiful as Chicago's lakefront. I remember I bought some sort of ticket package while I was there, and on my last day, I took a cruise around the city. The weather was not so great, but it would be my only chance to see the city from the water. It started out okay, with just a little bit of drizzle and some fog, and I took the photograph on the left of the Staten Island Ferry. I had taken this ferry the day before and enjoyed it, but unfortunately, at the end of the trip, you wound up on Staten Island (who would have thought it?), and I had to immediately take the next ferry back to Manhattan.

As I recall, on that trip we saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York Harbor, and cruised up the East River under the Brooklyn Bridge. The views of the Manhattan skyline were very impressive (on a boat you are far away from all the garbage you see when you are close up), but as the tour boat headed back to it's dock along the Hudson, the rain and fog got steadily worse, which was when I snapped the photograph on the right. When the boat docked, I quickly headed to a nearby bus stop and took the next bus to Penn Station to catch the Amtrak train to Washington D.C. New York might be dirty, but they do have a great transportation system. You can get out of town fast, which is important. I then headed to Washington D.C., where soon after I arrived they had a major snowstorm, which I trudged through to see the sights. But that's a different story entirely. Ah yes, all those happy memories, and I have them all on film.