16 September - New York CIty

Today we moved from Chatham into Manhattan. We had breakfast in a typical diner in Madison and then embarked on the drive into Manhattan via Outlet stores in Jersey Garden near Newark Airport. We managed the 18 lane freeway past Newark, negotiating the I98 and I75. After some power shopping we headed to Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel. Unfortunately I was in the wrong lane and ended up in West 40th Street rather than West 36th, and then had to get onto 7th Avenue to head down to 35th Street where our hotel was. After dropping everyone off, and getting stuff up to our room, I then ventured out again into the madness of Manhattan traffic to get to 31st street to drop our car off at Avis. To go about 300m took about 40 minutes as I negotiated around Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. Nerves shot was happy to walk back to the hotel! We headed for an Afternoon at the Museum rather than Night - at the American Museum of Natural History and then caught up with our friend Kenton Webb and his kids, headed to dinner on the Upper West Side for $10 fajitas and a margarita! Lynne joined us for dinner coming straight from work at the Federal Reserve of NY down in the financial district. We then headed back to their apartment for a tea before jumping on the subway at 86th street back to 34th.