New York City has held a prominent position near the top of my to-do list from the earliest days of planning this trip. Typically, in order to keep my plans as flexible as possible, I try not to flesh out the bones of my itinerary until a week or two in advance - that gives me time to A) watch the weather and B) incorporate recommendations from friends, family and folks I meet along the way. With New York, however, everything was infinitely more complicated. Almost from the beginning, I ran into a whole host of complicated logistical issues that took longer than expected to work out - critical among them: What would I do with my dog and my truck for three days while I was gallivanting around Manhattan?
Those were the questions I found myself still trying to work out as I sat at a friend's kitchen counter in Baltimore, early one January afternoon with my friend Kyle. The kitchen's owner, a mutual friend, was at work and would be for the next several hours. In the meantime, Kyle and I lounged around his mostly furniture-less house, debating whether or not we wanted to brave the cold for a beer run (we were leaning heavily toward "no," which speaks volumes about just what kind of cold we're talking about here). Trying to make the most of the downtime, I tinkered with my travel plans.
Kyle was visiting from Memphis; when he found out I would be driving up the East Coast, he decided to intercept me and hang for a few days. Like me, he's currently in-between jobs and figured this might be his only chance to get out of town for a while. Though Baltimore might seem like a questionable destination for a vacation (and trust me, it is), he and I have a few mutual friends in the area, so it made sense.
With my time in the Charm City coming to an end, I sat there in the kitchen, hunched over my laptop with phone to my ear, trying to figure out the last few details of New York, including an unexpected and welcome twist - instead of wandering the city alone, I would have some company. Kyle had mentioned it as a joke at first - the possibility of tagging along with me - but I think my favorable reaction to the idea got him seriously thinking, "Well, why not? If now now, then when?" But naturally, in typical Kyle fashion, he dithered to and fro from atop the fence for a while, talking himself out of the idea and then right back into it again, ad nauseam. What he needed was some good ol' fashioned peer-pressure. Now, I'm not one to coerce anyone into doing something they aren't comfortable with but, come on, we could all benefit from a little nudge out the door once in a while, right?
So after just the right combination of pokes, prods and YOLOs, I pushed him right off the fence and into the passenger seat of the truck, bound ultimately for Providence, Rhode Island (flights back to Memphis were cheaper up there). For the next seven days, I'd be plus one road buddy.
Bro trip was a GO.
With two days to kill between Baltimore and New York, Kyle and I kicked around a few different routes before ultimately settling on one that would take us through Eastern central Pennsylvania - specifically, to the abandoned coal mining town Centralia and the Yuengling Brewery in nearby Pottsville (you can read my posts about each town here and here, respectively).
We cruised along through the rolling countryside, chatting about some of our more serious life decisions and then giving each other the appropriate amount of shit about said decisions (two single dudes stuck in a car together - what else would you expect?).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, my travel blog was a popular and easy punching bag. Because he continues to insist (at least somewhat facetiously) that the written word is dead and "video blogs are where it's at," I decided to humor him one afternoon as we headed toward New Jersey. Below is the first (and sadly, the only) episode of "The Bro Trip with Colin and Kyle."
(Pro tip: It's better with the subtitles turned on)
Despite my generous offers to let him be the big spoon, Kyle opted against spending his nights in the back of the truck with me and instead, voted in favor of the opulence of the Motel 6 franchise. Why someone would turn down the cozy comforts of sub-freezing temperatures and straight-from-the-source dog farts, I'll never know. To each his own, I suppose.
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
(Source: The author's own)
Early the next morning, after we'd deposited Gabby with a poor, unsuspecting pet sitter in Bound Brook, New Jersey and left my crusty land yacht parked at her house, Kyle and I trudged through the snow for a few blocks to the train platform and picked up the local Raritan Valley east train bound for Penn Station and, beyond, Manhattan.
Navigating through New York City is a breeze, especially the subways. The routes are plentiful and the stations are fairly intuitive. The trick, though, is finding it. The Raritan Valley line from New Jersey dumps you into Penn Station but figuring out how to transfer proved trickier than we'd thought. Penn Station has eleven platforms, twenty-one tracks and connections between a half-dozen different modes of transportation - Amtrak, Greyhound, the LIRR, the MTA, rideshares and, of course, the subway. Add to that the fact that Penn Station is also the busiest passenger transportation hub in the western hemisphere and you can imagine our frustration as we shoved our way through the weekday morning rush of commuters (all of whom shoved right back), trying to find a map that would point us toward the subway. After much collective head scratching, we found our ride - The Redline North, A Train to 103rd Street. Boom, easy.
Our destination was the Upper West Side of Manhattan, specifically the HI New York City Hostel on Amsterdam Street - a majestic, red brick Victorian building that would be our home base for the next three days. Now I'm no stranger to hostels, having stayed in several here in the states and one or two abroad, but the quality of this place blew me away. Contemporary decor, an in-house bodega and amenities to rival even the swankiest hotel - all just three blocks from Central Park! The catch, though (if you're one of those folks who would consider it such), is that we'd be sharing a room with ten other people. I've had mixed luck with shared dorms in the past but for thirty-five dollars a night in Manhattan? You can't beat it. We checked in, dropped our bags at the front desk and stepped back out into the biting cold. We'd made it. Time to explore.
Having absolutely zero reservations about embracing the role of obnoxious sightseer, Kyle and I went full tourist during our time in the city. From the tallest skyscrapers to the lowest subway tunnels, we packed our three day trip with as many cliché New York experiences as our poor blistered feet would allow.
At the Natural History Museum, we marveled at the towering skeletons of ferocious prehistoric beasts.
These were some of the most terrifying creatures the world has ever known, with the possible exception of Kyle when his blood sugar gets too low. Fortunately, that was an easy fix.
Being the worldly, sophisticated gents that we are, we couldn't possibly pass by the Metropolitan Museum of Art without a peek inside...
...where we witnessed breathtaking works of art...
...amusing works of art...
...and questionable works of art.
During our wanderings, we craned our necks in awe at some of the most famous buildings in the world.
But while we stood on the streets looking up with out mouths agape, all around us folks just went about their business. New York is a place of perpetual and hectic movement. Just about everywhere we went, Kyle and I witnessed writhing seas of people in a constant hurry to be somewhere, both inside...
...and out.
With all the constant movement, we needed a break...and what better way to relax than with a bit of television? The Opposition with Jordan Klepper maybe? Sure, let's watch that...from the audience as it's being filmed!
New York's true magic, though, happens after the sun goes down. While wandering alone through Greenwich Village one night in search of the famed Stonewall Inn, a fortune teller motioned to me from across the street and beckoned me into her shop. She took my palm in hers and gently traced my life line, fate line and health line with her wrinkled, bony finger. In a soothing and cosmically mysterious voice, she then proceeded to incorrectly guess just about every single thing about my past, present and, presumably, my future. Tell me it doesn't get more New York tourist than that (well actually, it does. Kyle later had his fortune told as well and came away with a "clarity crystal" and a newfound appreciation for the power of persuasion. "I spent $30 of my fun money on that bullshit," he grumbled as we walked back to the hostel).
New York is a weird, wild, and wholly unique place that everyone should experience at least once in their lives. It lives up to every cliché you've ever heard or seen about the city but it will still surprise you with its originality, its honesty and its complexity.
Basking in a sense of accomplishment, Kyle and I returned to New Jersey on a westbound train, collected the dog and the truck and hit the road once again, this time bound for Rhode Island. Though Kyle's trip would soon be ending, mine still had a long way to go. Having checked New York City and the majority of the dense, metropolitan East Coast off my list, I now set my sights West. I'm looking forward to a little elbow room.
CWO
(Sources: Artwork courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All other photos are the author's own.)