NYC

New York City keeps your senses busy, the whole east coast will, really. The energy here is fast paced and self serving. It's one individual for themselves so do not expect anything else, especially in traffic... The toll booth attendant you see below was lecturing (using very New York attitude and word choice) the driver for trying to use a debit card at the toll booth. Take note that should you ever find yourself driving the Jersey Turnpike into New York, take about $150 to $200 dollars cash to cover your toll expenses and parking, especially if you plan on leaving the city.

We first drove into the upper west side through the Lincoln Tunnel. The night before we left, we went online and found a parking structure to leave the car while we toured NYC from Central Park. We alked due south until we found ourselves unable to walk anymore miles.

Grand Central Park Reservoir

Central Park: The Lake

Central Park: The Great Lawn

Central Park baseball fields

Pedi-cab driver settling a tab.

Model Preparing for a photo shoot in Central Park South.

Leaving Central Park.

Trump Tower

Let the Street vendors begin.

What's a New York photo journal without pigeons? A piece of advice- Watch your head and where you stand.

We ate lunch here. After eating, we realized that this is NOT the original Ray's Pizza.

Hi David! Love from Portland!

The walk to Time Square. New York leaves one with sensory overload.

We walked down Broadway toward Time Square.

Time Square. It smelled like a zoo, litterally. There were thousands of people. I kind of went into crowd shock (I don't do well in crowds, thankfully Carl does).

The Naked Cowboy.

The Hard Rock Cafe, NYC.

Fire House tucked in nicely amongst all of the other buildings.

We walked passed the "Eat, Pray, Love" film shoot site on our way to Grand Central Station.

The short building is Grand Central Station. The tall building just behind is the Chrysler Building.

Grand Central Station's ceiling.

A snapshot.

Board the trains here.

We watched this train pull in.

Local artist in the station.

From the outside in: The Chrysler Building

Look at the reflection.

We walked from the Chrysler Builing to the Empire State Building

Mini model

We gave death a look in the face when we got into a cab in NYC. We took the cab back to our car from the Empire State Building to Central Park West. I can't tell you how many near misses we had with pedestrians, other cabbies, and cars. The cab drivers have some sort of honk language that is similar to morse code. They used it a lot. Of note, there are signs posted EVERYWHERE warning of the $350 fine you will get for honking. Also interesting, there are no right hand turns on red.

To keep your mind off of the near miss accidents, you can focus on this interactive map and info about NYC taxi's.

Bumper protector, with all of my comments about East Coast drivers, enough said.

The Statue of Liberty. Crown tours were booked through November, 2009.

Battery Park.

World Trade Center. The actual site was surrounded by fences with blue banners. There were several pieces of construction equipment working hard. There were also security guards and police scattered throughout the crowd. Unfortunately, the security would not let me take photos of them.

Episcopalian Church. This church sits nicely between the WTC and Wall Street.

Cemetary on the church grounds.

Wall Street.

Wall Street was blocked to vehicles but open to pedestrians. There were several officers from the NYPD and they were all heavily armed. They loved having thier photos taken.

You can tell he's been practicing his pose.

The New York Stock Exchange.

Federal Hall

Merrill Lynch Bull.

Sunset from Lower Manhattan.

We left New York just after eight. We drove through Staten Island and Brooklyn. I think my blood pressure dropped thirty points leaving the city limits. That says a lot considering we jumped back on the New Jersey Turnpike.