Wally and Pete flew in late Wednesday night (late). That didn’t stop us from getting up with the Sun, on Thursday to pack in a full day. We started out (after seeing Piper) in lower Manhattan. Here is a shot of My dad and brother Pete, at Alexander Hamilton’s grave (at Trinity Church). How funny is it, that I have walked down that street in the back ground of the photo, countless times, and never even realized that Hamilton’s grave was right there. So nuts. We checked out all of the churches monuments and batteries in lower Manhattan, on Thursday. Then, Friday morning, we walked across the GW, into NJ, so that we could check out Fort Lee.

We had a crazy-good time, all in all. We wanted to try to make it over to Prospect Park, and see a couple of other Sites in Brooklyn, before they had to leave, but the weather kind of crapped out. It was ok, though, because we had plenty of fun filling the rainy hours just hanging out and goofing off.

Here are the other volumes (and I mean volumes) of photos from the historical sites.

I read the book “1776″ earlier this year. So did my dad and my brothers. It was all part of a plan hatched by my dad. The idea was that we all read the book together, then have a pow-wow, here in NYC to visit the local sites that we all read about in the book.

Unfortunately, one of my brothers was not able to make it out for the trip. But tomorrow night, my dad, and my brother Peter, are coming to town to visit Piper, and to visit historical sites from the revolutionary war. It is crazy how many pivotal battles, meetings, strategic moves, etc., happened right here in Manhattan.

Living on the island, I feel like, a lot of the time, we sort of take these things for granted. For example, my whole life, I have wanted to go up into the Statue of Liberty. They re-opened the crown this year on the 4th of July, for the first time since 2001. I still haven’t been. The same is true with a myriad of historical sites and monuments, some that I walk by almost every day. So this will be a very cool opportunity for me to finally stop and take advantage of some of the historical richness that exists here.

Of course I will be toting the camera. Expect a full report of our adventures, complete with photos. So, if you bore easily with history, independence, and/or revolutions, it may be wise to skip over this page for the next few days.

I thought it was fitting that I finish the book “1776″ on Presidents day. I guess it would have been more fitting, had I finished it on Independence Day, but whatev. Presidents day is cool enough. I also hadn’t realized before reading this book, that I was born on the 200th anniversay of the battle of Pell’s Point. I would never have guessed that the book would be such a page turner. Most of the second part of the book takes place steps from where I live, as well as from where I work. So, as nerdy as I am, I couldn’t help but to try to imagine what it must have been like during the winter of 1776. Especially when I was running through Fort Tryon park last week. I tried to imagine what the battle at Ft. Washington must have been like.  I wondered if there were the remains of any fallen Patriots, Hessians or British buried somewhere in the park.  I suppose that my locale was part of the reason that my dad recommended (and sent a copy of ) the book to me. So, thanks again, dad.

I appreciated “1776″ so much, in fact, that I started McCullough’s “John Adams” on the train this morning. I’m sure that it will prove to be equally entertaining.