jdotmi | What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Finally getting arounnd to writing this out. Still tired. Still haven't gotten a decent 'night' of sleep yet, but working on it.

We left the apartment Sunday evening around 7 or 7:30. Thinking it was closer to 7:30, but I don't remember at this point. We drove for a bit, stopped and ate some dinner at a McDonalds and filled the gas tank on

satyr_mi's car. Typical price here for the cheap gas is about $1.75 to $1.85. No big deal, but annoying since it was about $.30 cheaper less than 6 weeks ago.

We continue driving and finally get out of Michigan around 8:30 or so. Driving along, we stop at one of the service centers on the Ohio Turnpike and kick ourselves for getting gas earlier since it's about $.40 cheaper at the place we stopped. Oh well. We continued on our merry way with me driving through pretty much all of Ohio after that. There was this fun point while getting on the turnpike (which I was not driving for) where they were doing massive construction. we were down on the ground level, but they were building bridges above us. Very surreal in the middle of the night with no natural light and these giant, incomplete concrete columns on all sides. You could look up and see a couple portions of bridge started but not completed. It was very post-apocalyptic.

Driving for a while got us off the turnpike and into Pennsylvania, the most boring collection of hills in existence. Now, it wouldn't have been so bad if there had been sunlight. Then I could have at least seen where the road wasa going. By this point, we were getting close to...

Monday morning in the mountains. Well, ok, not quite mountains yet, but getting there. Keith took over driving duties at some point, and we switched back and forth a couple times before dawn. It was sorta creepy being the only car on the highway with a bunch of truckers zipping past while going downhill and then chugging backwards when going uphill. Got real tired of stupid truckers who don't bother to make sure they aren't sideswiping the car they just passed.

Eventually, we realized we were almost to New Jersey and it was only 5 or so in the morning. :-p At that point, we opted to take a quick break at a rest area and nap. Well, correction. Keith napped. I had just taken 2 no-doze and a can of mountain dew. I just relaxed some and tried to not vibrate at a high pitch. :-p

We finally continued on our way and I got the pleasure (not) of starting the drive through New Jersey. We hit the beginnings of the rush hour traffic trying to head into NYC, and after a short while I had had quite enough so we got off the highway, found something to eat, chilled out for a bit, and then let Keith drive the rest of the way. We had figured we needed the stop so as to not get into NYC too early, since we were going straight to the cemetary that Keith's family is in and we didn't want to sit outside waiting for it to open. We shouldn't have waited. :-p Traffic once we continued was just a crazy, until we hit the George Washington Bridge, where it went totally nucking futs. It's a good thing I kept trying to doze off, or I would have probably throttled Keith. I now understand why he drives the way he does. I still don't like it, but I understand it. :-p

So, after much fun trying to drive in that shit, we made it to the cemetary. It's a very beautiful place. Some of the rich folk's "tombs" were incredibly tacky (think Mausoleum styles, only sized for 1), but all in all it was very tasteful. Saw where his Mom is, where his Dad is, where he'll be, where his sister will be, and lots of other things. Then we left and headed to Long Island.

I'm repressing much of that drive. :-p A three lane highway that narrow should be illegal. :-p

We got to Long Island and checked out the area he grew up in. A lot had changed since the last time he was out there, but it was cool. Went to a Borders in the area and used my employee discount. =^_^= Poor supervisor who rang me up didn't know how to do it. Hehe. We then left and did some other shopping. Somewhere in there we stopped at a party store and he bought Devil Dogs, which we don't have in Michigan. I ate one after we got home from the trip. They're ok. They look different at least.

After the shopping bits, we tried eating at a McDonalds... Oh my god it sucked. The store itself was nasty and the food was over salted. Keith couldn't even finish his chicken sandwich, it was that bad. After that, we went to the beach. That was fun. Got my feet wet in the ocean, managed to avoid getting sunburned, which was a small miracle seeing as how I had no sunscreen. When we were done there, we began the trip to Connecticut.

It didn't take long to actually reach the state. What took long was getting to Norwich. We stopped at the first service center in Connecticut because Keith was trying to not have a mild panic attack with traffic. That was a mistake. We almost didn't start back up. :-p We were both hitting the major exhaustion wall (it was 5:30 by this point, so we had effectively been up for 29 hours). We wound up getting our 5th wind (or so) and continued. I think I was driving at that point so he could veg out. The drive was mostly uneventful, until we made it to Norwich.

And proceeded to get lost.

Mapquest was not our friend.

We didn't get too far off track, thankfully, and figured out where we were by the maps we had printed fairly quickly. Probabaly delayed our arrival by 20 minutes tops. We got to the house we would be stayaing at around 5:30 or 6. We had said we'd arrive between 6 and 8.

Nobody was home. :-p

Much wackiness ensued.

We went and found a payphone in a laundromat two blocks from the house and called my sister's cell phone. No answer. Left a message. Went back to the house and sat, rested, and listened to music. Around 7:30 we went back and called my sister again. This time s he answered. She had just gotten done golfing (wasn't expecting us yet as she hadn't gotten the email with our planned arrival time) and would be there in 20 minutes. Katie wound up beating her there and let us in the house. She cooked Keith some hot dogs (he hadn't had a decent meal in over 24 hours). Grilled them to be precise! He was in heaven. :-p Michelle showed up, we chatted for a bit, and then Keith and I opted to pass out.

To be continued.