Road Trip: Days 7, 8, and 9

Day 7

Start: Secaucus, NJ
End: Secaucus, NJ
Miles: 0 driving
States: NJ, NY

When I made the comment about hoping that some wild and only in NY shit would happen, I didn't expect a train to derail and take out a station less than 12 hours later. I suppose that's why they say be careful what you wish for.

With our initial plan of taking the train to Manhattan derailed, we decided to take the bus as it was only $7 round trip. From the bus depot it was an Uber ride (my first) down to the 1 World Trade Center building and 9/11 Museum.

We didn't end up going to the top of the tower as it was an hour wait but the museum was quite interesting and had a ton of things to take in.

The museum was housed in the lower levels of one of the original towers (or both, I don't know) and as you can see above, parts of the original foundation still remain. We probably spent 2 hours in the museum and that could have easily been 10 had we decided to read and look at every exhibit.

On the list of those killed.

From there it was another Uber ride (my 2nd) back to Times Square where we would spend the next few hours tooling around before hitting up a play. Times Square is basically one big advertisement with tons of people trying to sell you useless trash like mix-tapes of which, I bought 3. There were people dressed up as Iron Man, the Statue of Liberty, and chicks making their mothers proud by getting body painted. Definitely a place to just hang out and people watch.

 
After we killed a couple of hours, it was off to Broadway to see The Color Purple. 30 seconds into the play my mom was tearing up as this was an item on her bucket list. The play ran about 2 hours with a break in the middle which was just about my limit as I was too tall for the seating. I would have chosen The Lion King or The Book or Mormon but overall, it was alright. I will say that every cast member could sing better than 90% of the garbage on the radio these days though. After a standing ovation, it was back to the bus and back to New Jersey.

The stage.

Day 8

Start: Secaucus, NJ
End: Somewhere near Cleveland, OH
Miles: 476
States: NJ, PA, OH

The only thing left other than driving was to stop at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. If you can picture the COMPLETE opposite of downtown Manhattan, that is what lies in the Allegheny Mountains just north of Shanksville, PA.

The crash site.

One can see why Flight 93 is the "forgotten" piece of 9/11 even though the memorial is countless times more personal as you are able to put a name to a face of all 40 people that were on board. Compared to the thousands that were at or around the 9/11 Museum, I would have guessed that maybe 50 people were there between the visitors center and memorial.

At one exhibit inside the memorial you were even able to pick up a phone and listen to actual phone calls made from passengers to loved ones during the flight. There was not a chance in hell that I was going to pick one of those phones up as reading the quotes were sad enough.

The Wall of Names

Following the memorial, it was a couple of more hours driving the set up the last leg of the trip home in the morning.

Day 9

Start: Somewhere in OH
Finish: Madison, WI
Miles: Too many
States: The shitty, toll scamming states of OH, IN, IL, and also WI

I could describe my hate of tolls to you here but I would rather just end this on a positive note. I hope you enjoyed it, thanks for reading, and until next time, PEACE!

Road Trip: Days 5 and 6

Start: Old Orchard Beach, ME
Finish: Warwick, RI
Miles: 210
States: ME, NH, MA, RI

The best way to wake up in the morning is by taking a dip in the Atlantic Ocean and I did just that on Tuesday. The rain added to the cold but I toughed it out for you readers.

After breakfast, it was a quick, 20 minute drive north to Portland where we would attempt to see some whales.

Our boat.

The first 45 minutes went great until my stomach decided it was going to act like a punk and basically make the next 3+ hours absolutely miserable. I didn't throw up but I spend most of the time with my eyes closed waiting to get off the ocean. She and I are no longer friends.

We did end up seeing 2 whales so the trip wasn't a complete waste, it just wasn't very enjoyable and it appeared that a lot of other people felt the same way. One couple did get engaged while we were out there and I was soooo happy for them..............

A piece of the Berlin Wall just chilling in Maine.

After that experience, I just wanted to get to the hotel so I could chill in the hot tub and relax. Boy were we in for a surprise as the hotel basically lacked everything essential for being a hotel. There was no hot tub, mini-fridge, alarm clock, breakfast, or even complimentary shampoo. The pool was closed, the towels had stains on them, and the bathtub faucet moved as though Michael J. Fox had been working on it. We basically spent $80 for a room with door.

Start: Warwick, RI
Finish: Secaucus, NJ
Miles: 201
States: RI, CT, NY, NJ

Only in the northeast can you go back to back days of barely driving 200 miles and end up going through 4 states. Today was more of a setup day to get into position to hit up Manhattan in the morning so not much happened.

The jects in the Bronx. 

We made it to New Jersey around 1 pm and had some time to kill before checking in so we headed to downtown Newark to check out the Prudential Center.

If you didn't know, that would be the home of the 3-time Stanley Cup Champion New Jersey Devils. They just happen to be my favorite hockey team so we had to check it out. It would have been possible to take a tour had the arena not been in the process of being converted for an Amy Schumer show. We were still able to check out the gift shop though.

And get a picture in front of this thing. It wasn't the Martin Brodeur statue I was hoping for but it's still kinda cool I guess.

One final note. MetLife stadium is visible from our hotel room and I'm almost 100% sure I can see Eli out there practicing his pick 6's. Must be why he's so good at them.

Tomorrow: The World Trade Center, The Color Purple and hopefully some wild, only in NY shit.

Road Trip: Day 4

Start: Montpelier, VT
Finish: Old Orchard Beach, ME
Miles: 234
States: VT, NH, ME

Being a state capital you would think Montpelier would have something to do but that was not the case and it was good to get on the road in the morning. 111 miles was the first leg of the day and the goal was the top of Mount Washington.

Heading to the peak in the middle.

When we arrived, New Hotness took one look at that mountain and said "not again" but she held her own and made it up the 8 mile, 4,600 ft climb. The road was a TIGHT 2 lanes all of the way up and anytime we passed somebody, I thought we were going to swap paint.

White line to white line is TWO lanes.

The views from the top were pretty incredible as we were lucky enough to be able to see 100 miles in every direction. The temp was around 40 degrees and the winds were calm for being the windiest place in North America. 231 mph winds were recorded here in 1934 and I was hoping to at least hit 100 while we were up there.

Inside the observation area was a museum and lots of information on the history of Mount Washington. One thing I found particularly interesting was a list of every person that had died on the mountain since the 19th century. I'm proud to say that out of the 157 people that have died up there, not one was from WI. Kept that streak ALIVE!

Apparently it was windy recently.

The drive down was once again all coasting with lots of brake pumping. They have brake stops at various places and we hit up 3 of them as my brakes started to smell like a dumpster fire.

Some Frenchy took our pic for us. Merci!

The original ending destination was Portland, ME where we would be whale watching in the morning but we landed a sweet deal at a motel in Old Orchard Beach, right on the beach.

See, right on the beach.

Tomorrow: Swimming in the ocean, whale watching, and Bahston.

Road Trip: Day 3

Start: Watertown, NY
Finish: Montpelier, VT
Miles; 268
States: NY, VT

We managed to make it out of Watertown by 8:30 or so with the main destination being Olympic Village in Lake Placid, NY. The route to Lake Placid was 120 miles and included 100% back roads which were like driving a roller coaster through the forest.

For $35 each we bought what were called Olympic Sites Passports and they gave us access to pretty much everything in the area. The first stop at Lake Placid was the Olympic Ski Jump Complex and that was insane to say the least.

The 90 meter jump from the 120 meter jump

There were 2 ski jumps with the taller of the 2 being 120 meters and guess what, you could take the elevator up to the observation deck! Skiing down the ramp wouldn't be too bad but that big ass jump at the end had me thinking about cracking my skull in half. Nobody was training while we were there but it was still cool to go up top.

The 2nd stop of the day was the 1980 Olympic Museum and the rink where the Americans knocked off Mother Russia.

Still skating circles around people.

As you can see, I had my skates on deck ready to go but we were told the rink was closed for the day! Of all days a whole group of Jesus freaks had taken over the rink for some holy ghost convention. There was even a giant bowl of magical holy water there to bless (or repel evil) people when they entered.

Ugh.

As you probably have already guessed, Jesus wasn't going to stop me from stepping foot in the arena. I may have been the only person in there wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt but I made a couple of laps around taking in the history. I even walked on the ice (or plastic covering) and spent a minute sitting in a seat pretending the game was going on in front of me. A cool experience for a lifelong hockey fan even though some super cult church had taken the place over.

A goal from the game and Jim Craig's pads

Stop #3 was the Cloudsplitter gondola ride up the ski resort on Whiteface Mountain. Nothing too exciting happened here other than my mom freaking out every time the gondola rumbled over a tower.

The biggest vertical drop east of the Rocky Mts.

The ski resort doesn't quite make it to the top of the mountain but we would eventually get there after New Hotness STRUGGLED up the 5 mile, 2,300 foot climb. For the final 270 feet you could either take the elevator inside the mountain or hike up the path made from the rock taken out of the mountain for the elevator. I'll let you guess who did what.

The coast down the mountain did work for the gas mileage but I imagine my brake pads probably disintegrated in the process. The last 120 miles to Montpelier were pretty similar to the first 120 except for taking a ferry across Lake Champlain into Vermont. They also gave me a 50 cent piece as change when I paid for the ferry. Who does that?

I should really turn this black and white and put it on Facebook.

 Tomorrow: The windiest place in North America.

Road Trip: Days 1 and 2

A while back while sitting at working doing nothing, I realized I had an abundance of vacation time to use so I decided that a road trip was in store. Going by myself would have been fun and all but I chose to ask my moms instead and she said yes. The only question remaining was destination. I asked her SW or NE and her response was along the lines of "Arizona is too damn hot, I won't make it." NE it was. For the 7 readers out there, this is our adventure.

Day 1:

Start: Madison, WI
Finish: (HOLY they once beat Michigan) Toledo, OH
Miles: 397
States: WI, IL, IN, OH

New Hotness has been putting in work!

I'm guessing this is going to be the least exciting day of the trip as the only things we did were drive and pay toll after goddamn toll. Illinois/Chicago were as terrible/boring as one would predict except for the time I had to cut a FIB off to make an exit. What goes around comes around. Other than that, it was an awful time.

This is for states with toll booths!

After Illinois came Indiana. It was more of the same pay this toll, pay that toll BS but we made it through. I have been told that Indiana Dunes State Park is pretty cool so that might be an option on the way back. The only other memorable thing about Indiana was that it seemed like every sign on the highway had been hit by Katrina.

Went 6 miles on empty, little nerve-racking. 

Ohio was next on the list and as it was dark the whole time I couldn't tell you much about it. The Wright Brothers and a couple of Presidents are from there if you didn't know.

Day 2:

Start: Toledo, OH
Finish: Watertown, NY
Miles: 546
States: OH, PA, NY

Day 2 started with a bang when my mom discovered she could buy a magnet for every state we were going to visit at one gas station! Next came Cleveland. I called Lebron on the way to see if he wanted to kick it but he was away on business so we just rolled on through but not before checking out Lake Erie. This was the first real excitement of the trip and I can now check it off the list of Great Lakes.

Lake Erie

Spending a little over an hour in Pennsylvania doesn't sound that exciting but we did see our first hill since leaving WI!

On came New York, more tolls, and more driving. Buffalo looked super depressing and that was even before they get 20 feet of snow dumped on them. Go Bills........

The highlight of the trip so far was Niagara Falls and I would definitely recommend the Maid of the Mist boat tour if you visit. For $18, you can't go wrong. The whole time we were right up in the falls, I was rooting for somebody to go overboard just to see if they would get sucked under Titanic style. The only thing that could have topped that would have been somebody going over the falls in a whiskey barrel. Oh yea, I saw Canada for the first time and I would guess that the boat entered Canadian waters at some point so I have now been there too!

American Falls and Niagara Falls

A couple of hours later we ended the day in Watertown, NY. I do have to say that upstate NY is whole lot like WI minus the farms and fields. It's nice and relaxing.

Upcoming: Lake Placid, Lake Champlain and more (tolls)!

PS: I know this was hastily and poorly written but what do I care, nobody will read it anyways.

Chelsea "Big Head" Walker 2005-Too Soon

Chelsea "Big Head" Walker, age 11, passed away Monday in Rice Lake, WI. She is survived by all 5 members of the Walker household and by sister Peyton "Pey Pey" Walker.

Born Francesca in the city of Woodbury, MN, Chelsea spent the first year of her life trying to figure out that atrocious Minnesota stench and why she had not been adopted. That all changed one summer day in 2006 when the Walker family showed up to take her home to the great, dog loving state of Wisconsin.

Once home, Chelsea quickly adjusted to her new life as the empty hole in her heart was filled with joy and unconditional love. She enjoyed taking long, lazy naps, serving as a footrest for Pey Pey, and chewing grass anytime she was outside.

Not to be outdone by her famous big brother Bailey, Chelsea started training to become a world champion eater and still holds the Guinness record for eating a bowl of dog food in 3.4 seconds. The fame she received would have corrupted most dogs but she stayed firm to the morals taught to her by the Walker family and lived a clean life.

Like all dogs though, the end came but not before she fought to turn a 3 month diagnosis into another year of life. The bright smile that illuminated any room she entered may be gone but she will live on through anyone who witnessed it.

Visitation will be from 5-8p on Friday at Appleyard's Home for Funerals. Burial service at the Walker Pet Cemetery will commence at 10a on Saturday with reflection and refreshments shortly after.

The Walker family asks that any donations be made to the Eric Walker Needs $$ For A Ski Trip In 2 Weeks Foundation.