We had another weekend come up when the guys were both off on a Saturday. We decided to just go somewhere, but where? I was looking at the geocaching map and Ocean City, NJ was going to destination for the next morning. Then I started moving up the coast and landed on Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY. I checked to see how far away it was-roughly 138 miles. We could do that! I texted Sean and he said sure. Then I had to find a place to stay. There aren’t any hotels around the beach area-lots of high rise apartment seem to be it. I finally found a La Quinta about 10 miles away with the dreaded double beds. I made a vow not to stay in a place with such small beds. I guess I really wanted to go!

So we got up and packed and out by 10:45 am (that’s a little late, but that’s what we did). We got there close to 3 as we were stuck on the bridge for a while. Yes, we haven’t learned about driving into a city like NYC. We also stopped at a rest stop for lunch and then again for a break.

This is our first glimpse of the resort area:

And on the other side was Manhattan

You can see the new Liberty Place on the right there (tallest building)

We weren’t sure where to park, but found a lot in the minor league baseball park for the Mets. The tolls this far were about $23 and then we had to fork out another $15 for parking. We would have to repeat the toll part the next day. Ka-ching!

We parked near the now defunct parachute ride:

Top

Bottom

This is their iconic smiling face.

Okay, I do admit I wanted a New York geocache. When you find one in a new state, you get a souvenir on your Geocaching page. So we started to look for the only active one there. It was in an area of a garden walk and a ramp. I went over to the corner of the area at the top of the ramp and saw a string right away. I looked down and it was indeed the cache! It was made from two soda bottle lids screwed together. Sean and I proudly stamped and signed the log, but it had come loose from the string. I tried to get the string back around the cache and down it went into the vast underneath mess of the boardwalk where you couldn’t get to it. I was so upset! Bummer.

We looked at the people on the beach:

See that tall white structure on the right? It was swaying and they closed some of Coney Island a few days after we were there! Wow, can’t believe that!

We decided to go into the aquarium right off the boardwalk there. It too, had suffered damage and wasn’t all opened again.

They were growing coral here too!

Pretty Cardinal Tetra fish!

We were entertained by three sea lions and their trainer. I felt a bit sorry for them, but hey, they are said to be social creatures and if in the wild, may not be around anymore. They get good eats too!

They were playing frisbee here!

So we got our Nathan’s hot dog fix after this. A long wait and gobbled down in minutes! Just like the contest they have there around the same time of the year!

Sean got to dip his toes in the Atlantic via a New York beach as seen above.

We then went to our hotel and out to eat. Will discuss June 30th soon.