Starboard as we are leaving. The Minderalla was anchored just past G Washington bridge when we came in.

It’s 25 miles from Liberty Landing just to get through the Verrazano Narrows bridge and out to the Atlantic, then another 80 miles to Atlantic City. That’s more than we usually travel in a day, so we started out a little before 7. The seas outside were no worse than what the ferries churned up in the harbor. After the first 15 minutes we don’t notice the motion except when using the binoculars.

Starboard in New Jersey. The Adventure of the Seas must be saving money. Nearly an hour bus ride for the NYC excursions.

We docked at Farley State marina a little after 5. It’s named for whatever congressman got the money for it. We’ve been there before and decided to skip the buffet and other Golden Nugget casino restaurants and eat on the boat. Next (Saturday) morning we did the much shorter trip to Cape May and got in around noon.

Thirty miles down the coast everyone’s fishing. Ethan, Aaron and I did this in Chesapeake Bay.

Most of both trips we traveled close to the beach to enjoy the view. The depth is nearly always adequate 1500 feet out and Nav mode kept us on a line at that distance and warned us when to take over to round an inlet or other shallow area. We passed 2 or 3 amusement piers and so many people on so many beaches along the New Jersey coast that Sue decided we should have a New Jersey beach experience before leaving the area.

Your tax dollars at work. The sand washes away every year. Nothing a few hundred million can’t fix for now.

While the depth was never a problem, we did manage to hit a low floating oil drum or something about 30 miles before Atlantic city. It was not so visible although I should have been able to see it had I been more attentive to the forward instead of side view. When I hear anything hit the hull I check if water is coming in to the forward bilge, where it would show up almost immediately. I saw nothing at all.

I think we passed three of these, not including Atlantic City.

From the dock at Farley I could to see the object was metal since it dug a small 2 x 3” gouge in (not through) the hull just above the waterline.

Atlantic City. We’ve been out and about here. A surprisingly limited city. Would not want to live here.

We use our dinghy much less than we thought we would. Should have bought a cheaper one. Wonder how much this one is used. Hope he’s good at landing it. Not much room and a ski might just hook over that railing.

While things like this can be anywhere it’s much more likely to find them close to shore, which is why we normally travel a mile or two out. On the other hand if we did hit something that could sink the boat it would be better to be a thousand feet out rather than miles, but we’ll go back to staying further out anyway.

The big fishing tournament just ended. 900K grand prize (with a 450K government deduction). Star Gazer is last on the left.

So here we are at Canyon Club marina in Cape May at the southern tip of New Jersey. The boat doesn’t need immediate attention, but they have the facilities and availability to fix it here as well as a few other cosmetic hull issues built up over the last four years. It will be nice to explore around here. Sue does intend to get to the beach a few times

We walked by the World Trade Center memorial pools several times, including our first day here.

We have been in New York City for nearly two weeks. We spent the first week here going to some new and some familiar places. We were planning to leave on Saturday the 18^th, but the weather and waves on the Atlantic was predicted 4 feet or more from then until was to quiet down tomorrow on Friday the 24th to 2 feet or less. That prediction has held solid, so we’ll leave tomorrow for Atlantic City.

NY Historical Society has the largest Tiffany lamp collection in the world. It was put together by an orthodontist as a hobby. Many shades are based on a flower.

New York Historical Society had the best museum restaurant this time. We got a deal because it was restaurant week.

This may be the longest we’ve been stuck, but if we have to be stuck, NYC is the place for it. We did not run out of things to do, especially since Sue wanted to go back (and back) to the Met. We’ve been there for four of our 12 days here.

All the scaffolding is off the Woolworth building. It was the tallest building in the world for 17 years. Many (including me) say it is the most beautiful skyscraper.

The Woolworth tour does not get beyond the lobby and its balconies, but what a lobby. We learned a lot about Mr. Woolworth and his times.

This ferry makes Liberty Landing a great place to dock our boat. Here it’s coming into the Manhattan side.

We’re at Liberty Landing Marina again on C dock about 100 feet from the dock where the ferry leaves for the World Trade Center every half hour, so we’ve crossed the Hudson every day to Manhattan. Sue did stay home to putter around our first Friday, so I got to Brooklyn early to start walking across the Williamsburg bridge a little before 8. I meandered through chinatown which was not much to see, not organized like San Francisco. I finally ended up in Harlem around 6 PM after stopping off several times along the way and walking through Central Park.

Walking across the Williamsburg bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

Early in lower Manhattan. Police at the far end of this line said the wait is for the new $300 Michael Jordan shoes.

Stopped here on my walk. The public library’s main reading room has reopened. It’s been 17 years since I saw it. It’s bigger than Boston’s.

We also hit new places for us, some of which are in the pictures. Maybe we’re turning into lazy boaters. We’ve been stopping for a lot of side trips lately, and will continue to take a much slower than usual trip back down the Atlantic coast to Florida.

Sue at the courtyard of the Frick Museum. A smaller museum in a rich person’s house. We both really liked this one.

We finally made it to Grant’s tomb. We forget how famous he was at the time. More even than Lincoln.

We also saw Riverside Church for the first time.

On Rondout Creek toward the Hudson we go under the smallest road suspension bridge I’ve seen. It does need work. Locals don’t know if state will repair, replace or just remove it. Hope they can keep it.

This wasn’t here when we came in 2 weeks ago. We assume it’s just visiting the local maritime museum just behind it.

We got back to the boat just before five on Thursday after a crossing a lot of Rhode Island and going through Connecticut the long way. We turned aside to go through a few neighborhoods in both Providence and Hartford and see some of their finer old homes as well as the capitol of each city (we did not go inside). It was all “non highway”, whatever that means in Google Maps. We always had paved roads, but sometimes just barely.

Not much river traffic today, but enough so can’t just set long straight line courses on the autopilot.

When younger my vision of these two states was constricted size and wall to wall people. They had certainly had a lot more time to get that way than our western states but did not seem that way at all when we were in them. Their largest cities are not that big and there was a lot of remote countryside along our route.

West Point and Haverstraw still ahead. This is one of the Hudson passes we defended between 1776 and 1812.

Mostly rain and clouds the second day, but at least this golf course on the east bank was getting some sun.

Anyway, after a down day on Friday we were underway Saturday morning. Rain was predicted, but we started off dry at 7:30. It did rain a good amount on the way, but not enough to drive us downstairs. It usually takes both rain and cold to do that, and it was plenty warm. We must have had a following breeze because I wanted the fan on me most of the way.

We’ve been watching the new Tappan Zee bridge go up over the years. Now the old one is coming down.

Just a little sun on this west bank cliff. I’ve heard that the lower Hudson is considered a fjord.

The rain stopped as we arrived at Haverstraw Marina just 40 miles north of our next marina across from lower Manhattan. We pumped out, fueled up and crossed over to our tie up in the basin. I paid our dockage when we got fuel, because it is a quarter mile along the docks to land and the marina office. Not the most convenient place, and I was dissatisfied with some maintenance they did last year. There are enough decent marinas along the Hudson, but only just. Haverstraw is the only good fit for our boat between Kingston and NYC.

Our first decent view of the NYC skyline is under the George Washington bridge. Our last bridge until the Verrazano Narrows on the way out.

The sun does not seriously come out until we are a few miles to our destination in Jersey City. That’s Verrazano Narrows bridge in the distance.

Our Sunday 40 mile trip got us to Liberty Landing Marina just after noon. We’re on C dock about 100 feet from where the ferry leaves every half hour for a 10 minute ride to the NYC World Trade Center. We still had time to visit the 9/11 memorials (Sue had not seen these before), Old St. Pauls and have dinner at Shake Shack in Lower Manhattan before returning for our first night here.

Sue walking up to the entry of Marble House. It looks a bit like the White House.

We had all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to see some of the houses of Newport. We saw less than half of them.  The weather here has been on the hot side, so we picked the air conditioned houses to see in the afternoon. Boston was a bit hectic and crowded. Even our Holiday Inn Express there was unusually crowded at breakfast time. The staff said it’s always that way. Things were more laid back at our HIE (and way cheaper, after that music festival was over) in Newport.

Once again, the dining room is the most magnificent. It’s picture in Wikipedia is really red, but it’s more like this.

Income, property and inheritance taxes stopped people from keeping or building more of the great houses. Breakers, Marble House, Biltmore, as well as many other homes were built by the grandchildren of the person who originally made the fortune. Today’s inheritance tax still applies to more than 5 million, and building homes like these would be in the 100 million area. Only the original fortune maker could do it, and they’re often too busy making the money.

Marble House stairway in the entry hall.

I forget exactly what this room was. Think its the drawing room.

The lady of the house’s bedroom in Marble House.

Nearly all the museum houses are owned by non profits. Biltmore is still owned by the family. They do that by using the house privately only one day per year for a family get together. The other days its expenses are business deductions.

Chepstow was built in 1860 but reflects it’s later 1900’s owners furnishings and additions.

People argue over how blatant or excessive the Newport mansions were. I think Sue had it right when she said the builders were like Isabella Stewart Gardiner in Boston. Their original intentions were different, but they all used the houses for their own residences before passing them on for future generations. Besides, I thought it was cool to have four faucets for the tub. They didn’t forget the hot and cold running salt water.

We took an “avoid highways” route back and went through downtown Providence RI and Hartford CT. More like a cow trail sometimes, but always paved.

Newport still is a resort town, with many people using the beach. There’s a real touristy downtown with restaurants and resorts on the water. We didn’t see much of that part this time, but maybe we’ll come and stay in one of the resorts in the future. We see a lot of places we want to return to, and Newport is one of them.

Opening time at the gate. Breakers can get more crowded later. Only Breakers is pictured in this post.

We sure enjoy seeing it. This week we see the palaces of the US, the mansions built in the “gilded age” by the .001% in Newport RI. The weather here made it just the place for the rich and famous, but mainly rich, to spend their summers. Some of their “cottages” now belong to local historical societies and are open for tours.

Four stories and a basement. Third & fourth floors for servants. Fourth has the small windows under the eaves.

Can’t get much of the great hall into one picture.

We saw Rosecliff and the Elms yesterday, and Breakers and Kingscote today (Tuesday). Tomorrow is Marble Hall, Chepstow, and if time permits Hunter House. Marble Hall tomorrow promises to be spectacular and Biltmore, which we saw a few years back, was impressive, but we’re not sure either can compete with Breakers for over the top ornateness. It is more like a palace than any European palace we have visited.

The dining room. I think this is the grandest single room we have ever seen in any building.

We planned to come here a week earlier, but the visitor center advised us to wait until after a folk music festival the weekend of the 28^thfollowed by a jazz festival the weekend of the 4^th. When planning I did wonder how exclusive Newport was with all the lower priced hotels being over $400. After the 5^ththey were under half that. Since we were ready to leave on our road trip on the 29^thwe first diverted to Boston and had a great time there.

The music room.

The library. Still huge, but as cozy as it gets on the 1st floor.

I noticed that we could come here from NYC in 2 to 3 days by boat in protected waters between Connecticut and Long Island, but we decided to drive. Star Gazer stays at Rondout Marini in Kingston NY. Sue is starting to miss the boat so Thursday 9th we’ll return to Kingston via a non interstate route.

The kitchen is through the door right of center and down a hall. This is the only two story pantry we’ve ever seen.

One of the lions in the Boston Public Library stairwell. Some of the murals the “four great expressions of the human mind” (it takes 8 of them) in the background. Remember, you can click on any picture to magnify.

Our first day in Boston started in Trinity Church, where we learned a lot about stained glass window art in early America and saw windows from five different artists working just after the civil war.  One was John La Farge who was a major influence on Tiffany.

Sue in Trinity Church.

Next was the public library with its famous reading room and murals. We saw the ones illustrating the four great expressions of the human mind, as interpreted in a classical Greek setting, in the main stair hall. The ones about religion in the Sargent gallery caused a bit of a stir back in the day. Finally was the quest for the grail in the Abbey room. I did snap pictures of these, but you can see them better on the internet. My favorite room was the quest for the grail which is also here. We both really enjoyed the church and library.

Public library stairhall to the second floor, viewed just after coming in from the street.

The great reading room up on the second floor. Can you see Sue midway back, clear to the left?

I looked around in the Old South Church while Sue looked in some of the nearby shops, then we both walked to the Boston Gardens and Commons and spent some time there before calling hopping an Uber back to the hotel.

Abbey room, named after the painter of the murals. The Sir Galahad kneels before the golden tree in the one viewed straight on.

Our second day was spent in the huge Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), which was open 10 to 10 on Wednesday. There was certainly plenty to see, and our ticket was good for a second day. Our third day was at the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum. Isabella was a collector and set out to make her own museum in a house she designed like a Venice palace. Sue really liked it, while her collection did not do much for me. The fourth day was back to the MFA, again open from 10 to 10, where we used up most of that time. I think we’ve seen most of what we were interested in there, but will be ready for another visit by the time we get around to Boston again.

Could it have been like this? Moses, to left, calling down the plague of hail and fire on Pharaoh, to the right. I fear the buildings were really not that grand. The storm, on the other hand…

The MFA had a number of pictures about myths, old stories and events from history. Many of these things I’ve known about most of my life and imagined how they might appear. It’s really interesting to see how someone else from another place and time and often with a better imagination saw them.

In a more lighthearted vein, two paintings illustrated the dangers of travel. The other had a family in a cart crossing a raging stream on a high, collapsing bridge.

The last day in Boston, Saturday, was for house museums and old Boston history. We woke up to rain and a prediction of more all day. By the time we got out of the Uber car at the Otis house, our first one, it was really coming down. We got out at what we thought was the entrance, but it turned out to be over along the side near the back. We got a lot more rain than we bargained for. The Otis tour was just OK, and a call to the next house told us that visitors wait outside until the tour starts, so we called off further house tours.

The largest of four restaurants in the MFA. Tree to right made all from glass.

We gave up, asked where the big bad mall, the one with an Apple store (and enclosed of course), was located and off we went. Sue shopped about a little, and I saw a handy new electronic device for my car. Checking on the internet it is still not as easy to install and use as a toaster, but when that day comes I’ll get one. Sue found a place to get her nails done, so at least we accomplished something.