R&R Part Two: New York

Since deploying to Kuwait in late February of this year, I had been in correspondence with a friend of mine in Long Island, New York about making a trip to New York during my R&R Leave. With my dates set; I purchased an airline ticket through Southwest Airlines on April 30th.

Began my leave on August 16th and after a week at home I drove to Nashville, TN on the 21st for an early morning flight. The flight had a stop in Chicago, IL and landed in the rain at LaGuarida Airport in Queens, NY. My friend was there to pick me up and he drove to the village of Sea Cliff, NY to visit his home and lunch in a small restaurant and then spent the rest of the afternoon at Sagamore Hill, the home of former US President Teddy Roosevelt. Learned that even though President Roosevelt was a progressive politician, he did not embrace new technology at home disliking electricity, automobile and the telephone. I was intrigued with President Roosevelt's collection of animals from his African Safari's. While at Sagamore Hill we did walk down to the water's edge and see Oyster Bay. Afterwards we returned to Sea Cliff.

We got up late the next day which was on purpose to avoid the morning commute to Brooklyn, NY. We arrived and spent some time finding a place to park. This was not my first visit to one of the largest cities in the world and didn't take long for me to appreciate the country life of West Tennessee. After parking, I marked the car's position on GPS which would aid us some that evening. We walked along the Brooklyn Promenade and took pictures of the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge in the light rain. We walked across the nearly two miles across the Brooklyn Bridge and took some time to view the awesome sights from the bridge. After getting soaked by the rain, we walked to Chinatown where I saw Columbus Park which was once the location of Five Points which was the setting of the movie Gangs of New York. While in Chinatown we stopped to get of the rain and have lunch at a Vietnamese Restaurant, where I enjoyed Chinese type food with a French flavor.

After lunch we walked to the World Trade Center site and saw the construction of the Freedom Tower and wanted to visit the site of the 9/11 attack. We continued walking and hiked towards the Hudson River and into Greenwich Village. In the village, we boarded a subway and traveled to 72nd street and walked to The Dakota. Took pictures and saw the location where John Lennon was shot. We walked across the street to visit Central Park, find a geocache and see the memorial for the Ex-Beatle. We once again boarded a subway and made our way toward the Empire State Building. During the visit to the 86th floor observation deck, I felt we were one of the few Americans on the floor and my friend might have been the only New Yorker. After the Empire State Building we once again boarded a subway and traveled to Brooklyn. We arrived back at Sea Cliff and dined at an Italian Restaurant.

The last day we visited local sights around Sea Cliff then back to Queens for my flight home via Dulles Airport in Baltimore/Washington D.C.