Epic East Coast - Day 35

We started off the day walking through the extremely busy streets of New York and ended the day with an idyllic rural drive through the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, where we were the only car on the road at times.  Quite the contrast.

Speaking of walking in New York, I figured I should mention something I discovered yesterday on our long walk south.  Manhattan is laid out in a grid with streets going east/west and avenues north/south (-ish.  Manhattan is angled).  The streets are really close together and the avenues are really far apart.  When walking north/south, the lights are timed such that a normal walking speed will get you to the next street right as the light turns red, forcing you to stop, wait 30 seconds and then walk the next short block to another red light.  You can tell the native New Yorkers from the tourists, as they will start crossing as soon as the other light turns yellow (dodging traffic) or run across as the light turns red, as that allows them to walk two (or more) blocks without stopping.  That's also why New York seems to be full of people standing on street corners.

Anyway, today was one of those days where everything seemed to go right.  We left our apartment and took the 40 minute walk to Penn Station, where we knew the location of the elevators, as well as where to go to wait for the train.  On the way to the Amtrak area, we passed a very long line of passengers and I was curious what train they were waiting for, as in our previous trip, that was where they had lined up everyone headed to Canada, but there were no trains to Canada on the board.  It turns out that line was for our train, a local that ran through the main cities in New York.  Once the track number went up on the board, I was dismayed to realize that that line was for our train and we were going to be way at the end of it, but as we walked towards the line, an Amtrak attendant took one look at our luggage and told us to take the elevator, which conveniently goes down to the correct track.  By doing so we managed to skip the line and get onto the car with people going to Syracuse and Rochester when there were still six seats together.

It was then a medium length train ride of five hours to Syracuse, though we ended up being just over an hour late due to freight traffic just outside the city.  Once we arrived, I left our luggage, Sandra and the boys at the train station while I took a cab to the airport to pick up our rental.  I was concerned about this rental, as it was for a mid-sized SUV, since we were unable to find a single minivan in this area, and the mid-sized SUV we had in Charlotte was way too small to fit all of us and our luggage.  However, we were given a full-sized SUV (a Ford Expedition), which feels like driving a tank.  It doesn't have enough room for the luggage in the back, but it has enough cabin room that I was able to put the luggage in the cabin around the kids without them feeling squished.  This rental also came with a correctly sized and harnessed car seat!

We stopped for some supplies at a Wal*Mart, ate at a nearby Wendy's and then took our nice drive through the rural area of the Finger Lakes.  It was a nice quiet drive, with some very nice scenery.  Our suite in Penn Yan is very nice and we arrived in time to get everyone in bed and watch the Rider game on ESPN 2.