Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
I don’t share stories like this frequently on FireCritic.com. This is one of those occasions where I am writing about my family and our firefighting fun related to a recent vacation. Trust me, there was much more fun had than the related photos and information below, I just won’t bore you all with that here. I will post more photos on my personal Facebook page.
For spring break this year, Becky and I decided to take the kids North. My sister lives in Niantic, CT and we hadn’t seen my niece Isla (Eye-La) since her birth just a few short months ago. We love Connecticut and have visited a couple of times. We decided to throw in a visit to New York City as well. My wife had been there once on business, but didn’t get to see much. My children had never been. If you have been following along with my adventures on here, you will know that I have made it to NYC numerous times in the past several years. Each visit has been different since there is so much to do.
I decided that by taking my family to NYC, I wouldn’t bore them with a bunch of FDNY firehouse visits. As much as I love visiting firehouses, my wife and children can only take a little bit of it.
We set out for CT and had a great visit with my sister Vanessa, her husband Paul, and my niece Isla. While we didn’t stop at any firehouses, we did see several (some pictures below).
NYC was very similar, but we DID stop by one firehouse. My Brother firefighter Billy Scearce (Captain in Danville, VA) is great friends with some of the guys at Marine 1 in NYC. For 10 years, a group of FDNY Brothers have made the trek down to Martinsville, VA for the NASCAR races. Each year, Billy takes care of them.
Once we settled in our hotel (we stayed in Hoboken, NJ), Billy called and said he could hook us up with a visit to Marine 1. I figured it wouldn’t hurt for the family to see at least one firehouse…The next day, we stopped in at Marine 1 just across the Hudson River from where we were staying. The guys at Marine 1 were great. Nothing short of what I expected in making my family feel at home at their firehouse. We were shown the firehouse and got a tour of the 343 boat. The truth is that the visit exceeded our expectations and was much more than I am able to put into words here on the blog. Thanks to Lt. King
Marine 1 “The Busiest Fireboat in the World”
Tim Bloomfield and I in Hoboken, NJ.
The picture on the right is of Tim Bloomfield and I. He saw me and my family walking down the street in Hoboken and new I was in the area because of posting on the Fire Critic Facebook page. It was great to meet you Brother, thanks for taking the time out of your lunch to say hi!
We took the children to Ground Zero, Times Square, Chinatown, Central Park, and many places in between. We decided to walk most places so they could see the sites instead of remembering NYC as a bunch of great places connected by the subway. They did great. In order to keep it interesting, on the long walks we made occasional stops at stores and sites to break up the length of the walks. For instance, we walked all the way from Marine 1 in the Meat Packing District to Ground Zero via Chinatown. That was a little bit of a hike, but the children really enjoyed themselves.
One of the main stops on our trip was to be Ground Zero. I wanted my children to experience the Memorial at Ground Zero and learn more about what happened in and around the area on September 11th and afterwards. I hope that they are able to continue to learn about the sacrifices made that day…and into the future.
This year, I am climbing for Brian G. Ahearn at the FDIC 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb. I found his name at the Memorial.
Below are more pictures from our trip in no particular order.
