Trailering Trip to NYC

This past weekend, we took in an unconventional camping trip–New York City! Several events attracted us–and we’ve been wanting to make a trip up there for some time. Going camping was the unexpected part–it made the trip much more enjoyable, convenient and economical. So we packed early, set everything up and hit the road shortly after work Thursday and managed to get to our campsite in Jersey City shortly after 11 (even in spite of rush hour traffic on the WashingtonBeltway).

Friday, I joined a shopping crawl tour that a favorite sewing blog (Shop the Garment District) organized of lesser known fabric stores in midtown Manhattan. Weather wasn’t exactly favorable: rain poured and drenched us, but I had such a wonderful and inspiring time meeting other sewers and exploring the back rooms of the Garment district, nevertheless! I ended up buying a couple of pieces of gorgeous silks, cotton and wool–enough for three work outfits. Meanwhile, Rick struck out on his own (with an umbrella) and walked all over Greenwich Village and Soho. He enjoyed shopping around and we finally met up at the restaurant where my tour group finally landed at the end of the tour.

On Saturday, we took in a bit of unabashed geekery: World Makers Faire. Getting there–located at the Science Museum at the old 1964 World’s Fair Ground next to Shea Stadium–was an adventure. We drove to Queens–and took more than a couple of wrong turns, but finally found the parking area, where we landed next to a go-cart race team from the Baltimore Hackerspace. Amazingly, they’d only started building their race car the previous Monday and headed up with their creation early in the morning.

Overall, Makers Faire was inspirational, mind-blowing, but at times, somewhat overwhelming. It was a science and arts fair on steroids–complete with every consceivable range of exhibits, technical tales, speeches, tech evangelism and demonstrations. We took in a number of presentations, discovered fascinating new tech projects, loved the family friendly burlesque showing of the Life-Sized Mousetrap and mostly appreciated the opportunity to socialize with other creatively inspired technical folk. Community really made the day–talk was magic at those encounters!

There was even no difficulty running into trailer geeks–we met Kim Holleman, who has transformed an old Coachman trailer into a mobile garden. Her trailer leaks–by design, to water the plants!

We finally met up with our friends from Baltimore as they raced their creation (they are #42 in the photo). Sadly, their cart did not win the race, but it had the best horn and I think the pit crew had a memorable, fun time.

Tired, we headed home to the trailer afterwards, our imaginations fueled to generate performance art, build a quadcopter drone and automate our aquariums. Soon, we hope!

After hours, we explored downtown Jersey City, encountered a bit of its booming arts community at a community festival and in visits to the Warehouse Cafe. Jersey City has become a surprisingly funky little place, losing its old desperate old junkie world grittiness–without becoming completely gentrified. Saturday night we ended up at casual Cuban restaurant (Hardgrove Cafe) where I enjoyed an herb infused dish of rice and beans–and raw-cane sweetened mojitos. Nom.

Finally, on Sunday, we took the long (under 1 mile) trip to Liberty State Park and booked a tour to Ellis Island. Neither of us had ever visited Ellis Island before–and after our half day trip, we left feeling we’d only started to explore the compelling exhibits about American immigration. Ellis Island covers not just the stories that occurred there, but also covers the whole history of immigration to the United States. The highlight of the trip was a behind-the-scenes guided tour of the ferry house building with a volunteer ranger, Vinny (a true renaissance man who leads tours whenever he isn’t taking care of his family, teaching college courses or acting a principal for a public school for kids with learning disabilities). He shared more personal accounts of the site, which gave us a deeper impression of the humanitarian mission of the hospital–and the poignancy of the fear many immigrants encountered when they arrived for immigration processing.

Since we plan to go back, there were a couple of points that we’ll bear in mind for our next trip. First, towing the trailer to the park and leaving it parked hitched up ended up being a great deal. $10 got us trailer parking, which ended up being a lot cheaper and more convenient than leaving the trailer in the RV park (which would have cost $40 for delayed departure). The other thing that we found it’s probably best to consider ferry schedules, since traveling to the island (and the mandatory stop at Liberty Island on the way back) are constraints. Finally, we’ll be sure to make time for security–standards there are stringent, complete with a full-scale airport-like security scan (along with similar lines).

Ramona Creel (of Living in a Tin Can Blog) had told me some time ago about Liberty Harbor RV park in nearby Jersey City, NJ–selling it well (except for that the management inexplicable cut off their water during their winter stay). I read up on the park and found tepid reviews: great location, tight spaces, unpleasant staff. We decided to try it anyhow and managed to secure one of the last sites (as it turned out, we arrived in the middle of a Good Sam’s Club rally).

The campground far exceeded its lackluster review and Ramona’s recommendation shined. Camping turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant experience. True, the site is a parking lot and our space was tiny–but what a location! Situated in a marina parking lot, we woke each morning to the sounds of waves and ropes on sailboat–and a view of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and lower Manhattan. The park does cost more ($75/night) than many much more remote parks, but given the location, we felt it was still a good value. Indeed, even when considering gas and tolls, I worked out that we still saved considerable over staying at a hotel. By staying in our own trailer, we had vastly more comfort. The park has a 24-7 guard service, making our late check-in a breeze and leaving us feeling quite secure in an urban environment. The staff we encountered (Mohammed and Jose) were friendly and helpful in pointing us through the city. Weekdays, there’s a water taxi service right from the site to lower Manhattan–otherwise, it’s a short walk to the PATH subway. We loved it–we can’t wait to go back!