Contrary to yesterday, we were up and about bright and early this morning, managing to leave at 8:30 - just in time for the morning rush. We had a busy day ahead of us now, with 3 capitols and 5 different cities to visit.
You know the saying “everything is bigger in Texas”? Yeah, well everything is much smaller on the east coast, and so despite having a lot to do today we weren’t actually driving that far, especially with our end destination being New York City which we were taking the train into. Because of this, we got gas early in DC to avoid having to detour to do it later with the aim of getting to New York City with time to explore a bit.
Our first stop of the day was Annapolis, the capital of Maryland where we parked a little ways down the road by a cafe and walked about a minute to the capitol building. They were undergoing some minor construction, mostly on the gardens, but thankfully nothing on the front so we were able to get a nice clear photo. Despite being sort of time constrained, we made the effort to go in and explore the building, which while on the smaller end was very nice and had some cool history to it.
After getting our photos and our little exploration we walked back to the car. I had a quick call with family at home while Jackson got us coffees and scones from the cafe we parked by. After saying goodbye to family, we drank our coffees and ate the almond scones Jackson got (which by the way is one of the greatest pastries I’ve ever had) and got back on the road.
Next up was Dover, the capital of Delaware. Delaware is interesting for a multitude of reasons, one of which being its nickname as “the first state”, something they display on all their license plates. Now, Delaware wasn’t actually the “first” state, as there is no one “first” state. Delaware was one of the thirteen colonies that was a part of the American Revolution against Great Britain, and ratified the U.S constitution at pretty much the same time as the other 12. The other reason it’s interesting is due to having extremely low taxes on many things, like no sales tax, no VAT, and low if not no property taxes (depending on the kind of property tax). This naturally attracts a lot of business, and is why a lot of U.S companies are “based” in Delaware.
In Dover we hunted around a little bit for parking and eventually found some a block or so away from the capitol building. It’s interesting that a town so small (36,000 people, so not tiny but not huge) has pay parking in their downtown, though that’s not really a bad thing. The capitol building was one of the smaller ones I’ve seen, and was unfortunately closed which limited our time in the city as there wasn’t else to do at that time. Nevertheless we were able to get our photos and get on our way toward Philadelphia.
I didn’t personally have much reason to stop in Philadelphia, despite its somewhat frequent appearance in pop-culture (which I should probably know more about) and likely many other interesting things. Jackson though had a mission: get a Philly cheese steak. Now these I had heard of, and while not exactly my thing, I did know of the hype around them.
Dalessandro’s Steaks was our target, on the North West side of the city. The restaurant was right next to quite a nice little park and we were able to find parking in the small streets behind the restaurant. Unfortunately, as we walked up we noticed a very long line along with a sign saying cash only. Not to worry though, there’s an ATM at the gas station across the road (along with a rival cheesesteak shop) which we used to grab some cash (since for some reason we didn’t have any with us at the time) and head back over to join the line. I wasn’t getting anything, so I sat down while Jackson placed his order, very quickly received his order, and snarfed down the cheesesteak in time for us to get back on the road to New Jersey.
We soon arrived in Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, which is home to one of the nicest exteriors of a capitol building yet, despite being slightly blocked by construction (which also meant we couldn’t go inside). The building is adorned with a small gold dome on top of some pillars which add some height to it despite not being the tallest building on its own. With Trenton complete, that had us cross over the 70% threshold of completed states. Not quite three quarters, but enough to realize this trip is coming to an end sooner than I had realized.
Our next stop was less glamorous: Walmart. With the temperature soaring, we needed to grab Jackson a reusable water bottle along with getting some duct tape to re-attach some wires for the CarPlay unit and dashcam which had started to come down as their weaker electrical tape (I know, it’s not designed for holding stuff like already-insulated wires to cars) started to peel off.
After some maintenance it was off to “Metropark”, a train station hosting regular trains to New York City via NJ Transit, along with a convenient $12 a day parking garage next door where we could leave the car during our few days in the city. On the way we did need to do one more stop for gas, where we got a little surprise after forgetting that it’s illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey, and so we had to have an attendant do it for us. Oregon and New Jersey are the last two states to require this, with Oregon getting rid the requirement only recently.
After the usual American experience of handing your credit card over to a stranger, we left and made our way to the Metropark station. We were able to snag a great spot right by the entrance of the quite full garage, saving us the hassle of having to hunt for a spot. We picked up our tickets at the ticket counter, setting us back only $25 for the both of us and walked up the stairs to the platform.
20 minutes of light train-spotting later our New Jersey Transit train arrived and we jumped on. Initially we weren’t able to find a “booth” of our own, and so ended up sitting across from someone which is always a little uncomfortable, but after a little bit the people across the aisle from us left and we were able to snag their booth. You could tell we were in New Jersey as the NJ/NY announcer style came across in full force when the guard announced “passengerrrrrrs, there’s only one restroom… all the way at the back. Stop walking up front.” obviously annoyed.
A brief 40 minutes later we were arriving at Penn Station where we took the opportunity to look for the whispering gallery. Unfortunately, we were struggling to find it. I knew the way to get there from the front of the station though, so we headed outside so I could orient myself first. This is where anyone who knows New York City will be yelling at me, and it’s also where I remembered the whispering gallery is at Grand Central… not Penn Station.
We headed back inside and hopped on the subway south to my friends Mike and Pam’s apartment, where we said hello, introduced Jackson, and hung around talking for a bit. We were eager to explore the city though, and so we were quickly back out and heading further south to the World Trade Center. We took a look at the Oracle mall, then as it was now dark we walked over to the 9/11 memorial which was unfortunately closed (despite being open on Google Maps) though we could still see much of it from the street.
From there we found a nice Indian restaurant only a stones throw from the memorial, which was surprisingly cheap for how central it was, and how good it was. It was nice to sit and have a nice meal and just chat for a bit, in between the hectic-ness of a trip like this.
After dinner we headed to Grand Central to actually see (or, hear) the whispering gallery before continuing our walk by making our way to Times Square. Times Square was as busy as ever with just as many people completely unaware of their surroundings as I remember. We saw the normal sights, like people dressed as probably copyright infringing characters, photographers everywhere, and even a group of girls making TikTok videos of their choreographed dance in the middle of the crowd. There was also a spinning ring light going around a platform in circles with no one on it, kind of weird.
Once we’d had enough of the crowd we took a short walk to the Empire State Building, looked up at it, went “yep, that’s the Empire State Building”, and headed back to Mike and Pam’s place, where we promptly fell asleep on the couches in the living room.
