Hiking and Other Saturday Adventures

For sometime I've been nagging Noodles to take me hiking in New York. It took a while for the weather to be nice enough, but this Saturday it was finally there. Grab the gang (Noodles, Potato and me) and I was off on my first hiking adventure in the US.

We met bright and early (ok, 11am) on Saturday morning at the bus terminal and caught the bus up to Alpine, New Jersery. The plan from there was to hike down along the river, back across the George Washington Bridge and subway home.

Stepping off the bus was pretty cool - felt like we were being stranded in the middle of nowhere - if we ignored the highway that we were walking along to get to the trail, of course.

We hit the trail and it was amazing. So green! And fresh air! I love Manhattan but oxygen is pretty great too - guess I haven't realized how much I've missed the stuff.... Outdoors in Manhattan is like indoors anywhere else.

So we hiked along the path happily, with lots of calls of "are we there yet" and Bear Gryllis references. Most important topic of conversation? - "Noodles, do you think we will see a bear?"

We found some very cool ruins as we walked deeper into the woods. We weren't out of celluar service (I mean, we aren't crazy....) so we googled and found out what we were looking at. The garage of a house that was destroyed in "The" war in 1912. Umm.. what war?

It was very magical, reminding me of everything I ever wanted from the world as a kid. This is what I imagined Enid Blyton's Enchanted woods to look like. If only I could find the Magic Faraway Tree!!

As we ventured further along the path we found the shore track so they we were able to walk along the river. We stumbled across a waterfall. It was breathtaking, especially since we were the first people in the history of time to discover it (ignoring the pre-existing hikers.)

We continued, meeting a family of geese...

And even deer...

It was beautiful, it was amazing... "Yuck, a bug just flew in my mouth!"

The total hike was 9 miles which is around 15 kilometers. When we reached the end of the shore line path we walked up three million stairs (can't say the random man at the bottom of the steps didn't warn us..) and back up and over the George Washington Bridge.


Relax kids, we're back in Manhattan.

No energy for showering or dolling up for a Saturday night on the town, it was straight onto the Subway towards Potato's house. So difficult to stay awake.... Even standing... 

We stopped by Bill's Burgers and ordered an extreme volume of burgers, shakes and cupcakes. Ah, this is for three people? Don't judge us, we're making up for lost calories!

We brought the burgers back to Potato's place and ate what was the best meal ever. Then we lied on the couch (to be honest, we made Potato sit on the awkward chair) and watched sitcoms, romantic comedies and Sesame Street. Living the life in NYC... oh yeah.

By eleven o clock Noodles and I mustered up the energy to leave and dragged our sorry selves out of there. It was without a doubt the perfect day, followed by the perfect perfect Saturday Night. Now I am exhausted. Hopefully I can move my muscles tomorrow....