Our Canadian Road Trip: New York City

It was time to leave Canada. We arrived at the American border in New Brunswick and went to cross into Maine where we were greeted by a pleasant and polite border patrol officer. She asked us to pop the trunk to have a quick glance and she sent us on our way with a smile. We were expecting a worse experience than we had coming into Canada, but it was the other way around from our anticipation.

We passed by a lone gas station on I-95. Seeing as we had a half a tank of gas, we elected to wait until we had 1/4 left. We drove through the peaceful interstate admiring the red, orange, and yellow leaves of the autumn trees. Much of the area was scarcely populated.

We went a long way and nearly ran out before we found a gas station we could fill up at. We decided it was time to replace two of our tires as the nearly 4000 mile trek had worn these older tires nearly bald. The last thing we needed was to end up stranded after a sharp rock punctured them.

We pulled into a Walmart and got them replaced, and it's a good thing too. By the evening, there was torrential rain that made it very difficult to navigate through. We stayed in Maine for one night then continued our journey to New York.

New York City is a place many tourists hope to visit at least once in their lifetime. It's a melting pot of many cultures that immigrated through there before spreading out to the rest of the country. There's a little bit of everything that can be found in NYC.

With that being said, many people who write articles on this huge metropolis tend to skim over the more frustrating aspects of the city so people are typically left with a vision of this wonderful, diverse city that never sleeps and never stops offering you something to do. In my opinion, the city is very stressful. We are from Louisville, KY where the traffic can be chaotic and full of aggressive drivers. New York City on the other hand, it's worse. While driving through downtown Manhattan in the middle of the day, we were consistently cut off and blocked off by delivery trucks that scooted in front of us and stopped. Any slight misstep and a driver behind you was likely to lay into their horn at you. Everyone had somewhere to be and they had to be there quickly. It was evident the traffic alone contributed to immense stress and aggression of everyone in their commute.

We decided to stay in Jersey City to rest and drive into NYC after. We parked at a garage for the day and we spent the rest of it on foot. Given the traffic conditions, it's no wonder so many people elect to walk instead.

We checked out Central Park. While this may go without saying, the park is huge and beautiful. It really is a great place to get away from the city and just enjoy the calmer parts of it.

After that, we explored Time Square a little. We were getting hungry so we took a subway to Brooklyn then grabbed an Uber to an Indonesian restaurant called Selamat Pagi Brooklyn.

The following day, we drove to take a ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We arrived at Ellis Island first. We explored the Immigration Museum on there.

Group of Jewish war orphans from eastern Europe arriving in the United States, 1921

We then caught the ferry and headed to Liberty Island. We were only allowed access to the Pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, but it was a thrill nonetheless.