The morning dawned very gray and the forecast was for rain, so we decided that this would be the day to head to a museum.
Headed into the American Museum of Natural History. The subway entrance for the line we required is located about 100 metres from Ben & Anne's apartment - excellent. There is also a subway station right at the museum on the same line, so straight out of the train and into the museum - perfect.
Many different areas to visit, we started at the exhibition of Space & Earth which has areas on planets, theory of the universe (big bang theory) as well as discoveries throughout history correcting misconceptions (sun circled the earth), then moved onto a number of other exhibits, Hall of African Mammals, Birds of the World, Hall of North American Birds, Different American Indian tribes, as well as exhibitions of Dinosaurs which includes many fossilised exhibits of long extinct animals from this era.
Although we spent several hours there, we didn't cover the museum completely, and I think that this would take a few days to do it justice.
I took a few shots of old T-Rex, but the three jerks near the front of the beast decided that everywhere and anywhere was a good spot to sit down and stretch their legs - bloody inconsiderate
As it turned out the rain stayed away, not that made any difference to an excellent visit
Friday
So no rain Thursday, and as the forecast for Friday looked to be the same as Thursday weather wise, so Thursday evening we booked tickets to go out to Liberty Island (yes the Statue of Liberty) & Ellis Island. Win & I successfully negotiated the subway on our own, and got to the ferry departure point well ahead of the 10AM departure.
The day looked a bit gray with some fog, but at this stage it still looked as if it might lift, but right on cue, as we disembarked at Liberty Island we started to get light misty rain, not good. It gradually got a little heavier but not enough to put us off, but we didn't stay as long as we otherwise would have had it been sunny, however we had a good look around and listened to an audio tape which gave a good overview and history of the gift of the statue from the French. I tookk many shots most of which are dull and mist or fog "dulled".
The last time that we were at Liberty Island was back in 1987, and the queues have certainly increased as has the security. The tickets (on-line booking only) to get to the podium and up to the crown were not available, in fact tickets for the crown "are limited to 240 people per day. As of July 2011, all available tickets to the Crown have been reserved." so we had to be content with the outside surrounding areas which was fine
This shot was taken on approach, at this point light fog, but no rain
Just before we boarded to head to Ellis Island, the rain really started to bucket down, if the boat wasn't headed to Ellis and was headed back to Lower Manhattan, we may just given Ellis Island a miss.
I am very pleased that we did go to Ellis Island as this gives an excellent of the immigration into the US between January 1892 and November 1954, with over 12 million being processed here.
Although we did not venture outside at all as the rain had increased, the inside tour with audio was very well done, so we had a thorough history and overview of how new immigrants were processed, which sometimes was not very passionate or caring about family members.
The arrivals hall where all immigrants received were processed. Only migrants in steerage were brought here, if you could afford 1st or 2nd class you were processed on the ship
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