Keep It Simple: NYC 2008

August 28 - September 2, 2008

Everyone year Kevin and I try to visit New York at least one time. Labor Day weekend is our favorite since it cooincides with the US Open tennis championships. This year Christine and Michael Mesko came with us and we planned so many unique activities that we had no time to go watch tennis! We did watch some on television (how sad is that).

I posted an album with tons of NYC pictures but here are the four main highlights of our trip:

The Weather - Central Park

We had unbelievable weather. Blue skies (a bit humid) every day. Cental Park has never looked so perfect. Kevin and I jogged through the park to warm up for the Human Race and kept stopping to take photos.

We also discovered the Boat House where we ate a take-out lunch and a few statues that we'd never seen in the park before. We ran out of time to just sit on the Great Lawn and read a book - next time.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

Yes. It's hard to believe that we've never actually "done" the Statue of Liberty. The crowds of tourists have always stopped us but this time we decided to brave the tourist trap. We booked the first boat out at 8am (that's 5am PST!) to hopefully be one of the first up the statue.

Much to our disappointment, since 9/11 climbing to the top is no longer an option. We still had to climb 160 steps to the top of the base which still gave us a great view of New York and New Jersey. There is also a wonderful museum of how the Statue of Liberty was built. All by hand, wooden molds, hand pounding of thin sheets of copper.

I have to talk a bit about security. The security to get to the statue was the most advanced I've ever witnessed. After going through two bag checks, we went through two different types of body screening. This is a quick photo I took of Michael going through this GE machine that blows puffs of air on you, then sucks it in, tests the particles and then determines if you make it through to the metal detector. Someone apparently is very interested in destroying Lady Liberty. It's too bad really, all of this added security just makes the wait VERY long.

After leaving Lady Liberty we headed to Ellis Island where we put on headphones and took an hour walking tour of the facility. It was great to see how efficiently a government agency use to run and how well the government took care of the people who were ill.

Interesting facts about Ellis Island

Only 2% were denied entry.
The first immigrant was named Annie Moore she was from Ireland.
At it's peak, Ellis Island processed 500,000 immigrants a year. Imagine that - no computers, everything written by hand.
Immigrants needed to show they had $25 to enter the country.
The island originally was one building and a hospital. Over the years it was expanded to include two other sections with a huge hospital ward, school and housing.

Kayaking on the Hudson River

Yup. We kayaked in open water between New York and New Jersey. It was pretty cool. The water is a bit rough when the big boats go by.

The Nike+ Human Race 10K, August 31, 2008

Kevin had heard about this race and we all decided months ago to do it. Imagine runners from 26 cities, 5 continents all running on the same day. Pretty awesome!

New York's race was run on Randall's Island and had 25,000 runners - all wearing red. The sight alone was inspiring.

This was my first 10K and my goal was to run the whole thing. The race started at 6:30pm and it was hot and humid (two conditions that kill my running speed). I had to stop twice to walk to lower my heart rate during the first 5K but after that I was good to go. Even at the end I had such a good rhythm going I could have done another few miles. All that biking and running really paid off!