
GATEWAY NATIONAL RECREATION AREA
New York City by RV. Ha! Sounds crazy,
right? Well, the campground at Floyd Bennett Field was literally
just a half hour drive from Manhattan. Before these RV sites had
opened up this year, you either had to park much farther away, or
pay NYC prices at the RV park across the river. On the
site of NYC's first municipal airport, much aviation history has
been made here...and
now WE were making history here too, by being a part of the first
wave of RVers camping overnight at the waterfront. And even though
camping at Floyd Bennet Field was nothing more than a designated
place to park your rig on an old cement airport with no hookups,
it ended up being perfect for our budgets and surprisingly awesome.

I didn't pull my trailer here. Harley and I joined Jason, Kirby,
and Suzy in their 35' motorhome, newly dubbed the Silver Caterpillar.
We had both been killing time in Pennsylvania and since NYC was temptingly
close, we decided to tackle it as a team effort. With his Harley-Davidson
in tow, we figured we'd spend a few days there and use his bike to
get around. We ended up staying two weeks, thanks to the glorious
boondocking capabilities of the Silver Caterpillar.

This was not only a great chance to really see NYC,
but to also see what it was like to travel in a motorhome and
see how I would enjoy the benefits and luxuries of teamwork.
Up until now I had been traveling solo, doing everything myself. Now
someone else was doing the driving and I could fix myself
a cocktail while he drove!
...but I didn't totally abandon Jason. I navigated and helped keep
the dogs calm...and I think I did a pretty good job of helping Jason
negotiate the heart of Brooklyn on a busy Sunday afternoon, when cars
were triple parked for Sunday services and people were moving about
everywhere. We followed the
directions that recreation.gov suggested, since motorhomes are not
allowed on any NY parkway. We made
it with only one slight mishap - somebody every-so-slightly rear-ended
Jason's bike. It's was just the slightest tap...but it put a little
buckle in the rear fender. Oh, and it's important to note that there
are some low-clearance bridges on the route they suggest you take -
as low as 12', so some motorhomes or fifth wheels probably want to
find a different route.


Boondocking at Floyd Bennett Field felt like living in a post-apocalyptic
urban wasteland...and
we came to love it as our spacious waterfront Brooklyn home. Overgrown
with trees and weeds, the old airport feels isolated and remote. There
is space to move and no crowds to compete with. It's got a ton of recreational
resources (indoor ice rinks, basketball, football, soccer etc...),
nature trails and the largest, most beautiful community garden in the
nation. And you can see the horizon from here.
For many nights, we were the only RV camped
on the edge of the lot and we took full advantage of the super-mega-awesome
spotlight on Jason's rig to illuminate any suspicious activity, which
frequently occurred. In the evening, nobody is supposed to be there
except registered campers. But nearly every evening somebody was up
to something out there in the middle of the night at the edge of the
water. On a number of occasions we called the cops. They've got
a headquarters on the property so they always came quickly and I think
the park service might have even appreciated our interest in the late-night
goings-on of the park, since they haven't had a history of people staying
overnight in this lot. Since we were secure within The Silver Caterpillar's
protective forcefields, this actually made for interesting evening
activity. However, if we came home late at night on the bike, I always
asked Jason to do a perimeter check of the parking lot and around the
rig with the bike's headlight before stopping and putting things away.


The beach. Um... yeah, I didn't come back to it.

Community gardens
CONEY ISLAND AND BRIGHTON BEACH
Since we were camping at the southern edge of Brooklyn, Coney Island was practically
in our backyard. We made that our first destination and parked on the Brighton
Beach end to walk the boardwalk. It's easy to know when you are in Brighton
Beach - all the storefronts have signs in Russian, there is an unusually large
percentage of people wearing track suits, and the Russian language
floats around you as you stroll. As you get loser to Coney
Island, the Cyclone roller coaster looms large and frightful, while the Wunder
Wheel gently becksons all ages. A word of warning - the Cyclone
is a very rough roller coaster, and if you love roller coasters, by all means
go!! But be prepared to get jerked around HARD. The Wunder Wheel is the best
ferris wheel ever - you must go twice - once on the moving cars for the most
fun, and once on the stationary cars on the outside, for the best view. THEN
go get a hot dog and some fries. Nathan's famous hot dogs got its start here,
and there's something really good about eating a messy chili cheese dog on
a seaside boardwalk bench with seagulls hovering about, strategizing their
perfect dive bomb.


MY VERY FAVORITE CITY EVER
If I ever complained before about not having enough time in NYC,
I can tell you after 16 days in it - I STILL haven't had enough time
in that city. I just love it. You could experience a 'round-the-world
journey in a day and never leave the city. There's
a general climate of acceptance, resourcefulness and creativity here
and you have the sense that everybody's got an interesting story
to tell and is most likely chasing
a dream. So much life and vitality!
We packed a lot in and explored a
lot of neighborhoods, my favorite of which was around Cobble Hill and
Caroll Gardens in north Brooklyn. DUMBO ain't so bad either...but they
gotta do something about that name. We packed our freezers with food
from Brooklyn's Trader Joe's (when the line wasn't wrapped around the
store twice) and I discovered my favorite sushi restaurant ever: Hibino
Japanese. Besides out-of-this-world sushi, they make their very own
tofu daily and if you think you don't like tofu, try theirs. I also
now know that when I can find it, I would very much like to have my
very own bottle (or two or three) of this sake: BORN Tokusen Junmai
Daiginjo. After an amazing Japanese dinner, it was a short walk to
The Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain, where you can sit at the
counter and have an authentic chocolate egg cream made properly by
a proper soda jerk with Fox's U-bet chocolate syrup. And then it was
back on the motorcycle to negotiate the city and the Belt Parkway back
to our home.


EAT and DRINK
We explored nearly every neighborhood and had some great luck in finding
good places to eat and drink. Here's the short list:
* HIBINO JAPANESE * Cobble Hill, Brooklyn: BEST SUSHI, TOFU and SAKE
ever.
* DON PEPPE'S * Queens: Excellent Italian - linguine with white clam
sauce - delicioso. Very close to the airport.
KATZ'S DELI, Lower East Side: A mountain of excellent pastrami
on rye and matzo ball soup.
TWO DOOR TAVERN, Williamsburg
SAGGIO, Washington Heights on W. 181st
THAI ROCK, Rockaway Beach- Pad Thai,
Shrimp dumplings, lychee martini, fried banana. Waterfront deck, under
the bridge.
ANGEL'S SHARE, Lower East
Side- secret bar serving craft cocktails. Tough to find, because it's
a secret...and there lies the attraction.
WHITE HORSE TAVERN, Greenwich Village: Dylan Thomas frequently visited
here and is said to have had his last beer here, before inviting
death to his door. "And Death Shall Have No
Dominion."
TOURISTY STUFF
At the northern tip of the island, The Cloisters sits
on a green hillside in a hushed medieval castle. It houses art from
the middle ages with the highlight being the very unusual Unicorn Tapestries.
These celebrated tapestries depict the hunt and capture of the unicorn.
Woven in Brussels around the year 1500, there's an aura of magic
and mystery woven into them.
Near Washington Heights, it was also a glorious to day to walk
across the George Washington Bridge on the 178th
St. side.

We got half-price tickets to see Mamma Mia! at the
Winter Garden Theater and took the Staten Island
Ferry from Staten Island to to the southern tip of Manhattan.
The ferry is FREE both ways...but if you need to park a vehicle, or
even a motorcycle, on the Staten Island side, it's $8 for that.


We stopped at the Wooster Street Social
Club - a tattoo place
that is also the home of a TV show, NY Ink. I didn't
know anything about this place or the show, but Jason told me about
it and later we watched an episode. The best part about this show is
the opening
sequence, where they play Ace Frehley's New York Groove.
Of course, we did a lot of walking and didn't miss crossing the Manhattan
Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge. And like every
good NYC tourist, we went to the top of Empire
State Building, and wandered through Times Square.
It happened to be an excellent evening to be in Times Square, as the
Metropolitan Opera was broadcasting it's opening night. Our evening
soundtrack was opera and the square was filled with red carpet
patrons. Eventually, we wandered around
Rockefeller Plaza and saw the windows where gawkers
plant themselves in the wee hours of the morning to show up in the
background of the Today Show.



Grand Central Station

From the Empire State Building

Katz's Deli

Under the Manhattan Bridge

Soho

Washington Square Park
And of course, the High
Line. What a fantastic space.
Above the fray of the Meatpacking District below, the High Line is
a garden of calm. What was once an old railroad track that used to
bring food into the city is now a peaceful alternative to the sidewalks
below.

SMITH POINT COUNTY PARK - Long Island
When we were ready to depart from our post-apocalyptic paradise in Brooklyn,
we decided NOT to take the route we came in on, but instead went further
east into Long Island so as to situate ourselves closer to the interstate.
We stayed three nights at Smith Point County Park on the Fire Island
National Seashore to decompress seaside, and aside from the crazies
that were our neighbors, it was a good place to breathe before the
ride back to Penn Wood.

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