Road Trip Pics and Blog

Tools    





Maybe this will help


WARNING - Do not play this song out loud in a public place- hide in the closet and listen to it on earphones
( not p c but sure is funny)





Alright so we are having a great time on vacation and although there have been times when things did not go as planned or the schedule got messed up or whatever, it has been - all in all a great vacation thus far.

But,
In-laws are rough at least mine are. Not all mind you and not always, but yesterday kinda of annoyed the hell out of me. Since it happened during vacation I am going to go ahead and add it here to help keep things in perspective and remind me to be grateful of all the good days we are having.

So the short version of what happened:

We are staying at my wife's grandparents house on Long Island (yes same grandparents that owned the vacation home in Virginia, they have more houses than I do pairs of underwear) This house is being redone/remodeled whatever you want to call it. Mind you this has been the case for 15 years from what I am told. Anyway there is no running water due to a leak and a main drain line issue. Still appreciate being able to stay here beats the $2000+ hotel bill we would have had for the whole time we are here. My problem is with some of Dev's cousins and others but mostly them. One is a 21 year old enabled brat that always bothered me but it is cool I have some family members I am not proud of myself believe me. To set the scenario up - I needed to run to the store to get some minor things so I left to do so. While I was gone Three things happened: 1. My wife's ex was dropping off our son (his biological son) after spending time with him. 2. My sister in-law arrived, she was spending the night with all of us to hang out and play cards. 3. The 21 year old brat (name withheld to protect the guilty)also arrived to drop off one of his many cars in the driveway because he does not like keeping them at his house because all of the are illegal (not registered properly) and he likes to switch tags or whatever. Mind you that he already has 3 or 4 cars here and the grandfather has a boat and other vehicles here, which is of course is his right. Then I show back up with no place to park. There is a party going on next door and the street has filled up, at least in the immediate area. I pull up with stuff to unload and ask if someone is moving soon or if the person (brat) can move at least long enough for me to unload my stuff. He looks at me like I am crazy. Keep in mind he is also parked like an Ahole, sideways in the driveway blocking where I could at least park on the grass which I had permission to do so if needed. He says where do I want him to move too. I said anywhere long enough for me to unload my stuff. I can park further down the road when I am done and move later. He turns his back on me and continues to talk to my wife's ex about god knows what, blowing me off. So I park behind him partly hanging in the road, but I don't care at that point and start unloading. His remedy (instead of waiting 3 mins)- he goes into the back yard and gets one of his other cars he has there, leaves the gate open and leaves in a huff talking about getting a baseball or something. He knows our dogs are back there and they get out and we have to run after them. Thank god they listen to us and come back right away as it is a busy street. Nothing else happened (yet) and I am not going to instigate anything because I just want to have a good vacation and also not put my wife in a weird position. My sister in-law told me plenty about how he thinks he is gods gift to everything and doesn't even know when he is being rude. I mean we re living here for three weeks and he can have some courtesy to his cousin if not to me.

Oh well, wanted to vent a little and I am not even sure if what I wrote is coherent. I am totally over it now and will see him again in a week or so at a family BBQ/poker night thing. It only really got me angry later when I found out my wife initially told him not to park there because I was coming back, so he even knew that. I wont even go into today and hanging out at my mother in-laws house and how uncomfortable that was, but I was very civil and cool headed .
__________________
“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Sorry to hear about the problems with your relatives. I know how you feel. Hubby's parents live on a round court at the end of a dead end street, and they have problems with their neighbors parking in front of their house all the time. There's plenty of room for them to park, but the street is curved because of the court, so they park at a weird angle and block my in-laws driveway so they can't pull out of their driveway without hitting the neighbors car unless they drive on their lawn. They've asked the neighbors to park closer to their own house, but they just keep blocking my in-laws driveway.

Unfortunately some people only care about themselves, and they don't care how the things they do affect other people. You just have to learn to let it go, or you'll spend the whole time fighting with them.

On a different note, where on Long Island are you staying? Hubby and I got drenched in the downpour yesterday, and just missed getting drenched again today. The weather here recently has been crazy. It's too hot most of the day, and then the skies open late in the afternoon. Fortunately there's a 7-11 on just about every corner around here for cold drinks, and they've been running a great promotion in their app to get 5000 points towards free food and drinks.
__________________
.
If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I am trying to swing some Hamilton tickets while we are here too, I am hoping to surprise Damian, he really loves the songs from the play and sings them all the time.

BTW, were you able to get Hamilton tickets? I haven't seen it, but it's supposed to be great.



We are in Medford, rained pretty heavy here as well, but not for long. Been pretty hot and most of the residences we visit dont have AC, or they do and dont use it.

No tickets yet, none I can afford anyway.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
Sounds like a great trip 7, attraction-wise Biltmore is truly one of the wonders of the U.S. , it is a standard trip for 6th graders here. I went to D.C. the summer of the Seoul Olympics and it is one of my fondest memories. I would love to go back for the Smithsonian run alone.



Well im am in the thick of in law visiting time. Help.
My late in-laws were the very best. They lived 3,000 miles away & couldn’t speak a word of English. Perfect.
__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
We are in Medford, rained pretty heavy here as well, but not for long. Been pretty hot and most of the residences we visit dont have AC, or they do and dont use it.
If you like animals, you're not far from the Long Island Game Farm Wildlife Park and Children's Zoo. I haven't been there in many years, but I used to love going there when I was younger.


No tickets yet, none I can afford anyway.
Unfortunately that's why I don't go to many Broadway shows either. I recently read that Hugh Jackman is appearing at the Nassau Coliseum in October, but the ticket prices are so high that I decided not to go. Some of the nosebleed seats are reasonably priced at around $40 - $50, but if you want any lower level seats, tickets start at around $400 each, and go over $1000 each.



A pretty laid back day today. Went and saw the TWA flight 800 memorial site. It has to be maddening for those families even after so long.

We got some tickets for the new Spiderman movie and are going to see it tommorow. I always like visiting theaters I have never been to.






Heading out in the morning for the part of our vacation sans 10 year old demon/kid .

We will be gone for 7 days and returning in time to see his presentation after attending You Tube Camp

He is very excited, probably more than we are at having some adult time.

Our Northern travels will take us to:
Mystic, CN
West Quoddy, ME
The White House Inn, VT it is supposed to be haunted, would love to see a ghost. Maybe...

(oh and my wife's maiden name is Brown, if you read the story in the link you will see why that matters lol).

then back to Long Island.

should be a lot of fun, will definitely get some pics.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Our Northern travels will take us to:

The White House Inn, VT it is supposed to be haunted, would love to see a ghost. Maybe...

(oh and my wife's maiden name is Brown, if you read the story in the link you will see why that matters lol).

then back to Long Island.

If you like haunted places, then you might want to check out Mount Misery Road in Huntington before you leave Long Island. I've always avoided it, but I know people who drove there, and they had such bad experiences that they swore they would never go back there again.

There was even a movie made about it, but I've never seen it, (and I read that it's terrible, so you might want to skip the movie). BTW, the road is NOT in Amityville. It's in Huntington. I assume they called it "Amityville" to get the "Amityville Horror" fans to watch it.

Here's the trailer for the movie:




That is pretty creepy. I love haunted places and think I may get the wife to take me to Hunington when we get back from Niagara. Thanks for the info.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
That is pretty creepy. I love haunted places and think I may get the wife to take me to Hunington when we get back from Niagara. Thanks for the info.

If you decide to drive on Mount Misery Road, let us know if anything strange happens. I've heard a lot of very weird stuff that happened to my friends on that road.



about to get on Throgs Neck bridge ...I cant stop laughing at the bridge name.
Named for the Throggs (two gees) Neck section of the Bronx, which was named for the 1st settler there - a British man named John Throckmorton.



Behind a bunch so just going to post random pics .


Marker near the end of an old stone pier, used to be correct border marker for Canada and US in Lubec Maine out on the water. The new boundry is further out, about 200 yards or so and is a bouy in the water.


My feet in the US and Canada (old Canada I guess)



Our dog Domino in the motel watching DuckTales,she is upset that we do not get Animal Planet here.



Sign you see here when you arrive on boat.


The lighthouse behind us is on the Canadian side.



Storm coming in from the North



Low tide. The difference here between tide lines can be as much as 25 feet deep.



View from hotel room.



In Mystic, CT




Dev and I both ate conch for the first time ever today. She had fritters and I had fried, the flavor was really good but the texture was too weird for me, kinda like clam but too chewy. I was told it was prepared properly and that it was supposed to be this way. I believe them because there were so many people eating it and the place was rated the best for conch in the area. Well I can cross that off my list, but I a cool with passing on it next time.
My daughter went to Venice, FL last January with her boyfriend to see his mother. While she was there, she tried many seafood dishes that we don't get in the Midwest. She tried Conch soup and said it was really good. There were other things as well but I really don't remember them much.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Definitely , maybe I will try to get some video too.

If you want an easy way to take videos of your roadtrip, you can get a dash cam for your car. We recently bought a BlackWeb Dash Cam from Walmart for about $20. It came with an 8 GB memory card, but we bought a 32 GB card for it for a few dollars more.

And it has the added bonus of being a great addition to your car too. Less than a week after we bought the dash cam, the car in front of us was in a minor traffic accident, and we got the whole accident on video. The driver next to him went straight from a Right Turn Only lane, and caused the accident. (We emailed the video to guy in front of us for his insurance company.)