Well, despite all the problems we faced we have finally reached our goal of New York City. We were quite proud of ourselves. However once again we were soon humbled.
We were traveling through New Jersey and began to see signs pointing to the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan Island. We knew that Manhattan Island was the approximate center of New York City, (after all, we hadn't just fallen off the turnip wagon), and this was our destination. So into the tunnel we went.
Every twenty-five yards or so there was a police office stationed on a platform at the side of the tunnel. Each of the policemen were waving frantically for us to speed up. Good grief, we were going as fast as the car would go and we were still holding up traffic. We shot out of the end of the tunnel and were immediately faced with a major problem. Straight ahead were eight or ten streets leading off in different directions and it was not possible for us to stop and consider which street to follow. We just picked a street and away we went with the flow. We had no idea where we were or where we going. The street led onto a bridge and we followed like sheep. After we crossed the bridge and we were finally able to park, we checked our map and determined we had just crossed over the East River on the Brooklyn Bridge and were now in Brooklyn, NY. We had completely bypassed NYC.. We considered changing our signs on the car to read, "Return to NYC or Bust."
After a short drive, we found we were in Brooklyn, NY, on Flat Bush Avenue on Saturday night.We were in a different world. Even though Brooklyn had traffic lights and sidewalks they didn't use either. Flat Bush Ave. was completely crowded (but not with cars; just with illegal pedestrians). The local residents seemed to think that it was a sin to walk on a sidewalk. If they wanted to cross the street, they didn't wait for the traffic light to change or even search for a cross walk They just stepped out into traffic and dared a car to hit them.
Since there were far more pedestrians than cars, the traffic movement was extremely slow. In most cases, you could move faster by walking than by riding in a car. In some cases a group of people had accumulated into a discussion group and automobile traffic came to a complete stop.
If you can visualize this scene, you can understand why we were the stars of "Saturday Night Live." It seemed that hundreds of pedestrians passed us and most had an unkind comment. Many reminded us that we had lost the hood on our car. Many wanted to know where we had parked our horses. Most wanted to know where Utah was. Most of the comments were not printable in a "Christian-Like Blog" such as this. One kind soul explained to us that Brooklyn was a Borough of NYC and since we were technically in NYC why didn't we park that contraption and join their party. To be perfectly honest, we were a wee bit frightened and as quickly as possible we exited Flat Bush Ave. with no desire to ever return.
As quickly as possible we crossed back over the Brooklyn Bridge to NYC and started to look for a place to spend the night. After going up and down several streets we sighted a hotel. We knew it was a hotel because they had a large red sign that continuously flashed on and off. It wasn't the grand hotel that people usually think about when discussing a hotels in NYC. It certainly wasn't in a very appealing section of NYC. But it did have a flashing red HOTEL sign and we were exhausted. At the registration desk the clerk didn't seem put-off by our appearance. He said that the nightly rent was $10.00 ea. We almost walked out because we had become accustomed to paying $1.00 a night. But we were all exhausted and checked in.
We should have been a wee bit suspicious when we read a sign on the check-in desk which read, "NO REFUNDS".
Now let me describe the room. It was located on the second floor. It had one light that hung from the ceiling by an electric cord. The was no lamp shade, just a light bulb. When we had inquired about a bathroom.the clerk had said, "Oh yes". It's just a few steps down the hall. We found that the bathroom was really thirty-five steps down the hall. There were no shades or blinds on the windows and the red flashing sign was located right outside our room.. There were two double beds and the source of the bedding was suspect. We had inquired where to park our car. The clerk answered, "It will be perfectly safe parked on the street just outside So we went through our routine of transferring sleeping bags from the top of the car to inside the car and locking the doors. I think we all prayed that the car would be there in the morning.
We all slept soundly all night. There was just one problem when we awoke For some reason each of us complained of a red flashing light in our brains. We tried all kind of actions to erase that light. But it was almost an hour before it went away.
Surprise, surprise, The car was still safe where we had parked it. I suspect that some thief may have stopped for a moment but upon examining it closely, knew that it was a complete catastrophe. We discovered that we had stayed in a "hotel(?)" located near Washington Square in NYC. We then went to the top of the Empire State Building. We gazed at the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. We ate lunch in a "Grab-a-teria" and we went to Coney Island Amusement Park and spent a few hours there. Three teen-age girls tried to pick us up there. They saw us pushing our car to start it and said they would help us push if we would give them a ride. We had heard of the Wiles of big city women, and replied, "no thanks, but thanks for offering." We'd had enough of NYC. It was time to go home. Little did me know that we still had some future foolishness in us that would be on display.
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