I'm writing this in 2004. As I recall, this was a 3 night trip with most of the sightseeing taking place in Northern New Jersey, although we did some touristy stuff in Pennsylvania and even made an unscheduled "stop" in New York City. Highlights were seeing the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty, staying at Aunt Pat's and of course getting to be at a hotel. And Dad finally got to visit the Edison Lab sites he had been meaning to visit for so many years.
Day
1:
Over
the bridge and a few miles into New Jersey we stop at Aunt Pat's for the night.
Dinner and a nice visit with Pat, Uncle John, and Cousin Kevin. Kevin even lets
us try the latest Nintendo games. We are set up in the basement .. I have a
distinct memory of being very proud to take Tom downstairs a little early for
bed, since I had to spend 20 minutes or so on bedtime reading ... and I even
remember the book; it was "bedtime stories for six year olds" or
something like that. Here is Aunt Pat, posing with the now ever-present Simba,
or as Kevin would say "Zimmmmba":
Day 2:
After the round of golf we head to Liberty Island. and the Statue of Liberty. We grab the boat from the Jersey side; and be assured that when traveling with a six year old the boat ride is as big a deal as the statue itself. Although the lines are too long to go up inside the statue (2 hour wait!), we have a lot of fun with our own liberty hat, as you can see in the photos below. Looking back I really can't remember if it was my idea or Tom's idea for him to hold his camera up like a torch. We have fun with our cameras .. one set of shots below show us taking each other's pictures on the boat at the same time ... on the count of 1, 2, 3, click!!!! (You can even see from my photo that Tom has part of his finger over his lens .. and from his photo you can see the blur from his finger). The next set shows each of us a few seconds later in the same seats. Finally, you can see Tom's photo of the New York skyline (with the two beautiful towers that we'll never see again) - this one was taken dockside in New York; we got on the wrong boat off of Liberty Island and had to sit on the boat through the cycle of Manhattan and Ellis Islands before getting back to Liberty Island and finding the Jersey boat. But to tell you the truth, it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed our free cruise around New York harbor.
Day
3:
I do remember that on Day 3 we visited the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange, New Jersey. We took a tour of the laboratories, listened to some original Edison phonograph recordings, and just poked around.
I believe we stayed in the same hotel on the nights of both day 2 and 3. Its fun to eat in the room and watch TV.
Day
4:
