Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 14 years and 11 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

The system upgrade was going well so the team decided to take today (Sunday) off and resume work on Monday (Memorial Day). That was a nice surprise because I got to spend the day with my wife and daughter in Manhattan.

Since the ladies had already visited a lot of places in the city while I was working on Saturday (American Girl Place, Central Park, Times Square, etc). we walked down Lexington Avenue to Grand Central Station and took the subway down to Battery Park. After purchasing our tickets and waiting in an extremely long line, we boarded the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.  I remember climbing those twisty steps to the top of Lady Liberty’s crown with my dad when I was about my daughter’s age, but my hopes of sharing that same moment with my her were unrealized because the monument is currently not open to visitors (except for the pedestal). We still had a great time walking around Liberty Island, taking in the views of Manhattan across the harbor, and of course the statue herself.

After a light lunch, we boarded the ferry again and headed over to Ellis Island, to which none of us had ever been. It’s a really amazing museum and has some great exhibits about our country’s immigration history. We spent some time in the American Family Immigration History Center researching our respective families, trying to see if we could find any records there. They have scans of passenger manifests, ship images, etc. It’s incredible. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find any definite family links, but it was a spur of the moment thing and had we been better prepared with data we might have had better success.

By then it was getting on late-afternoon so we took the subway back to Grand Central and then walked back to the hotel to rest up before heading out for dinner. All-in-all, it was a perfect little family vacation day in the big city. My wife and daughter head back to Florida early tomorrow morning and I still have five days to go here in New York.