May 10, 2023
Day -3: Tourists in NYC (2/2)
Across the Brooklyn Bridge and the train to DC
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We were woken up by housekeeping this morning. We must have slept through our alarm and missed the check-out time. The staff at reception were dealing with a pissed off Australian couple who arrived without letting the hotel know they'd be there at 7am and the day after check-in. The guy was a bit frazzled but allowed us to stay for the rest of the day for a pretty reasonable rate.
We dumped our bike boxes around the side of the hotel with the staff's permission and built up our bikes for riding.
We had meant to go into Manhattan for ferry rides and seeing some downtown sights but instead we had to go straight to REI to pick up bear spray, stove fuel, and other camping supplies.
We biked out through Brooklyn, across the beautiful Brooklyn bridge. In my planning from NZ I thought this bridge cycleway would be too much for loaded touring bikes but the inclines were gentle, the bike traffic very low, and the lanes wide enough for us. Rolling down the other side into Manhattan sent chills through my body. I was grinning from ear to ear at the view and the feeling of speeding towards downtown Manhattan like this. I wish I'd stopped to mount the GoPro we've borrowed, and told Natalie the same as we began our bridge climb. Secretly she filmed a bit of a video on her phone of the start and shared it with me later.
We stopped on the other side in Thomas-Paine Park to grab a bite to eat and chill for a bit. We kept biking up some nice bike lanes that weren't on Google Maps to REI in Soho. I bought too much stuff and spent too long talking to Dennis, the security guard. He's from the Bronx and was telling me lots about the current affairs in NY and was the first person I've really talked to about my trip in the US.
We had to say our goodbyes because Natalie came back after her own shopping and told me we had only an hour before our train to DC departed.
We were planning to have a break in Washington Square Park for a while and see what was going on but we really had to rush.
We biked into Penn station and got our panniers mostly stuffed back into our duffels just as the train started boarding. It wasn't easy getting the bikes and bags across the train hall to the lift down to the platform but we boarded the train just 30 seconds before it departed. The bike storage on the train was pretty hard to work out, it has instructions, but also says to ask staff to assist you. No staff were nearby so we did it ourselves with a bit of a kerfuffle.
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The train ride was nice, much more comfortable than the plane. We were fairly sweaty so sorry to the other passengers but thank you to whoever invented wet wipes.
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We had a bite to eat on the train, the food is fairly decent and I was happily surprised.
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I'm writing this from the train as we approach Baltimore. Our hotel is a 5 min bike ride from the station and we'll have an early night. Matt, the director of my work, warned me that DC is pretty much dead at night so we probably will be staying in tonight.
Tomorrow we're out to see space shuttles and lunar modules and whatever else the Smithsonian will show us.
If you have any suggestions of something other than a museum to see in DC please let me know in the comments below!
Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 10 km (6 miles)
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