Date: 2006-07-15
From: County Road 20 (Pawling, NY)

To: County Road 20 (Pawling, NY)
Miles today: 0.0

After cooking a little breakfast Donkey and I decided to be tourist for the day and head over to Manhattan. We started at the south end of the island in Battery Park and worked our way north. Battery Park is the area where the ferry leaves for Liberty Island over to the Statue of Liberty. The park had tons of venders and street artists performing so we watched for a while before heading north. Our next stop was at the site of the World Trade Centers. Even though it has been nearly 5 years since the event the site is still just a hole in the ground and the skyline has really changed since I was here last. While standing next to the site all I could do was replay the events of that day and all the days to follow. It also proved what a great country we have because of everyone that did something to help. After all it affected everyone here in the states as well as a lot of others around the world and millions did something help. When we left the site we ended up going to Union Square and hanging out in the park with all the crazy people. It was time for something to eat so we grabbed some snacks and did some people watching for a while there in Union Park. After about 30 min of sitting we saw 4 or 5 people go through the same garbage can and 2 old guys that were talking up a storm with nobody listening. You might call it sick entertainment but you can learn a lot about people by just sitting back and watching for a while. After the visit to the park we hit two local camping outfitters looking for some supplies. While walking up the street we were stopped by a guy inquiring if we were thru hikers. It is really weird to be in a city this large and get picked out of a crowd as hikers. It turned out he worked at one of the outfitters and sees a lot of the thru hikers that come into the city. From here we went up to Central Park to meet up with Molly. She is and old friend of Donkey's and they wanted to catch up for a bit while we were in town. When we first met up they sat on the steps of the Museum of Art and talked for a bit and I went to check out some kids break dancing in the streets. It reminded me of the old movie 'break-in' that came out in the 80's. When the performance was over the three of us went down to FAO Schwarz. This is where Tom Hanks played the huge keyboard in the movie 'Big'. Two of the employees put on a demo for us and played several songs. The rest of the store is also great but has some really expensive toys. Some of them include; the keyboard from Big ($250,000), life-size Lego statues ($27,000), a Hummer go-cart ($40,000), and a Ferrari go-cart with detachable face radio for ($50,000). The place was great but I just didn't find anything that I couldn't live without. Since it was getting dark Donkey and I headed to Times Square and Molly left to go meet some more friends. In the square we did the normal window shopping but also checked out some more street entertainment. One of which was a guy painting pictures of the city with spray paint in a very cool and unusual way. When we got back to Nathan's we climbed out on the fire escape ladder and sat for a while eating some more of the left over ice-cream from yesterday. It is a really cool place because the view is of Manhattan's skyline. Not only was the view great but it also had finally cooled off some and gave us a great place to relax six stories over the crowd below.