12 March, 2011

Hello Everyone from a bright, sunny Asbury Park, NJ where TWC is forecasting a high this afternoon of upper 50s, low 60s with a swift southwesterly flow. Yesterday was a fun day spent in New York City where we got the train from Middletown, NJ to Penn Station in Midtown, NYC.

Our first full day was spent walking around the Jersey Shore Outlet Mall and this helped get the legs stretched and broke us in gently after a full day of travelling on the Wednesday. Of course, we've enjoyed some great food as you'd expect and this has expanded the waistline more than it is already become.

On myself and Karen's second day (Friday) we burnt off all the food we had eaten over the first night and day by walking from Penn Station/ Madison Square Gardens, Midtown, just south of Times Square all the way down to Ground Zero, in lower Manhattan where we walked around under bright sunny skies, where it actually felt pretty warm in the sunshine as it was beaming off your head. 

Having shared a 16 inch pizza in lower Manhatten, we made our way to Ground Zero where we experienced the World Trade Centre tour, ran in association with the Project of the September 11th Families' Assocatiation http://www.tributewtc.org/index.php  It was a very emotional experience ran by people sharing their stories about their own personal tragedies on that day.  The museum was an eye opening experience with some unbelievable exhibits.  I would highly recommend visiting and supporting this, if you are in New York.  It is located on the south side of the Ground Zero site, beside Ladder 10 Engine 10 firehouse.

As for the weather, high pressure has finally moved in from the west after a stormy system brought heavy rain and windy conditions during our first 48 hours of the trip. 

Though many areas of the American Northeast and New Jersey in particular have been on high alert from spring flooding and this has been exasberated by the recent 1-3 inch rains, here in Tinton Falls/Asbury Park, just south of Sandy Hook in the NE part of the state, it's not been too bad thankfully. While travelling into Manhattan on the train, there was a lot of standing water and swollen creeks and rivers. I'm guessing further west and especially the higher terrain of the northwest corner of Jersey where there was more snowcover and rainfall, there has been more in the way of flooding. Indeed, also as Karen and I decended into Newark Airport on Wednesday evening, there was many bodies of water covered in ice, therefore any rain and snowmelt cannot perculate into the frozen ground, thus helping pooling and standing of water.

Hopefully, the sunnier, drier weather of yesterday, today and over the next several days will help dry things out more. Temperatures are also mild and pleasant, so at least it's not going to be way abve normal temperaturewise and thus speed up the flooding situation. Mild air will keep the spring melt more under control.

Thanks for reading.
-Mark