This Day In History: February 1, 2007

Four years ago today, I took a road trip by myself. Destination: NEW YORK. I had three reasons for this:

1. To spend time with my fellow cat loving cohort, Kandas.
2. To watch the Detroit Red Wings own the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. (Loves me some Brendan Shanahan, no lie.)
3. Why not?

So around 2:00am, I hopped in my car and trekked through southeastern Michigan, hopping on I-80 across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, into New York City to Long Island. Aaaaaaand I may or may not have taken pictures through the course of my travels.

Pennsylvania has some beautiful scenery. It’d probably be even more beautiful if I wasn’t driving and had a way to concentrate on it better. Also, there is no lighting at night. Had I been aware of this prior to my trip, I may have decided to drive during the day. Darkness and huge mountains is effing terrifying.

Oh hey, look! It’s New Jersey! (I didn’t smell anything different.)

I got so excited when I finally started seeing signs. It meant I was getting close/going the right direction.

I called Kandas at this point, yelling “I CAN SEE THE WASHINGTON BRIDGE!” and jumping in my seat while she repeated, “Get off the phone. Get off the phone. Get off the phone. You will get ticketed. Get off the phone.”

Once I got through the toll booth, I was greeted with this view:

Aaaaaaaaaaaand rush hour traffic.

But I made it to Kandas’ place. I got there, took my stuff out of my car and… then we went to the cemetery.

It’s a big cemetery with steep inclines so it was nice to stretch my legs after driving 800 miles. We visited Harry Chapin’s grave. (Kandas took this picture and a lot of others now that I had someone to do it while I was driving.)

So okay, one obscure travel site accomplished. Where could we go now? A cold, Thursday night in Long Island… Yeah, that’s right: we headed to Amityville.

Now, about this picture Kandas took. I was standing in front of the infamous “Amityville Horror House,” mugging for the camera with my thumb up like I do. It wasn’t until later that night that I discovered that people really were murdered there. I thought it was a myth! I hadn’t seen the movies or read the books. I just knew people thought it was haunted. So… I’m an asshole. (I’m fine with that.)

Weird fun fact though: the movie posters make it look like a giant, secluded farm house in the middle of nowhere. But as you can (kinda) see, it’s just a regular house on a normal residential street. It’s so innocuous you’d drive right past it without noticing.

We made a stop at Walgreens after and I made her take a picture with me holding a giant stuffed Valentine’s Day “Love Lobster.” The look on her face clearly shows she was already wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into by having me stay with her for a week.

We drove around some more and did a lot of stuff. Most notably, Kandas pointed out to me a house Billy Joel used to live in before he sold it to Dee Snyder. (She took this picture and the next one.)

I turned around just to have Kandas take a picture of this sign. I’m immature and laughed like a 12 year old.

About 20 hours after I left Detroit, we got back to Kandas’ place. Her brother, Brent, was home on leave from the army, so the three of us had a fun night filled with goofing around and taking silly pictures.

As a gift for welcoming me into her home, I bought Kandas this weird stuffed dog that hooks up to MP3 players. It has speakers in its ears and lights up to music. It’s pretty ridiculous but we had a good time with it.

And there you have it. An abridged version of my first day in New York. Not exactly the typical trip most tourists plan, but I saw some great stuff and got to hang out with one of my favorite people in the world. A good time was had by all.