Day 6 - On The Road

Today was a drive day, so there wasn't too much going on today.  The plan was to drive from Bethany Beach, DE to Durham, NC, with a lunch stop on the Virginia Beach boardwalk.  The stated goal was to leave at 10:00, which to me meant 11:30, so when we left at 11:00 we were ahead of the game.  Not sure what was in the stars today, but while driving we passed the Big Pecker Bar & Grill, passed over the Assawoman Bay, passed through Onancock, VA, and someone in the rear of the car passed A LOT of gas.

About an hour or so into the drive we came upon the Chesapeake Bay.  The only way to get across the Bay is via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.  This was one of the most amazing drives we have seen.  The whole thing is 17 miles of bridge, then tunnel, then bridge, then tunnel, then bridge across what is basically the ocean.  There is no land to either side for the entire 17 miles.  There was some traffic on the expanse, which slowed us down, but it was still quite an amazing ride.

Once we left Bethany, the weather turned rainy and stayed that way the rest of the day.  Most of the time it wasn't a hard rain, but it was rain nonetheless.  The problem with that was it no longer made any sense for us to explore the Virginia Beach boardwalk.  So, for about 30 minutes Debbie tried to locate a Road Food restaurant on the way, to no avail.  Instead we ended up having lunch at the world famous (not really) Virginia Beach Buffalo Wild Wings.

After lunch we had another 3.5 hour drive to Durham, and we arrived around 7:30.  We quickly checked in and looked through some local menus I had printed out and opted for what looked like a southern BBQ place.  We did well, as this was the type of restaurant that we gorged ourselves on during our first trip two years ago.  The first thing on the menu was Smoked Pork Butt.  Had it been Fried Pork Butt I would have been all over it, because everyone knows that I like my Pork Butt fried, not smoked.  So instead I opted for the ribs, as did Brian, while Ethan went with a burger, Debbie got brisket in a potato and Amanda got....a Cobb Salad.  Yup, no burger this time, although I am not sure how much she actually ate.

Yummy

Now we're talking!

The dinner took all of about 30 minutes, since we got there at 8:00 and were back in the car right around 8:30 to head back to the hotel, where Debbie and I did some work (while also catching the Breaking Bad episode that was on tonight).  Tomorrow is college day.  We have a tour of Duke at 10:00, then we will probably head over to check out UNC.  After that it's back on the road to Richmond, VA to attend a minor league baseball game where a high school acquaintance is the batting coach.  Hopefully the weather is better tomorrow.

Days 4-5 - Life's A Beach, And Then You Drive

Back where I left off on the night of Day 3, we were about to play the Name Game with the group.  For anyone not familiar with the Name Game, the way it works is everyone takes small pieces of paper and writes down names (on our first round, as kind of a test we had everyone write five names - on five pieces of paper).  Then all of the papers are put in a bowl and mixed up.  Then the first player takes the bowl and one at a time picks out random pieces of paper and tries to give clues to the person next to him/her.  If the 2nd person guesses correctly, both players get a point.  You can't pass, so if you don't know the actual person on the paper you can give clues to the name in other ways to get the person to say the first and last name.  For example, if the name was Bob Denver, and the person giving the clues didn't know who that was (I know, that would be sad) the clue giver could say "First name is what you do when you get apples with your mouth from a tub of water, and the last name is the large city in Colorado."  The idea is to write names in the "public domain" (as Debbie put it, followed by sarcastic comments from our kids on her "fancy" use of words).  However, the definition of public domain clearly differed based on who was writing the names.  For Amanda, that meant writing down her family members.  For Debbie that meant writing down names of characters in children's books (Crysanthemum), children's TV characters (Oobi) or wacky 6-year-olds on TLC (Honey Boo Boo), all of which elicited groans from the crowd.  And for Ethan that meant trying to stump everyone with names that maybe one or two of us would get (TJ Houshmandzadeh, Sebastian Janikowski, Jawaharlal Nehru, well you get it).

As kind of expected, the game resulted in a lot of laughs, and a few disgruntled players ("Dad, you [stink]" or "I don't want him giving me clues anymore!").  But overall the first round was such a success that we played a second round with 10 names each (and also played Saturday night).  Here are some of the names that were played, in addition to the ones already mentioned:  Barack Obama (many, many times), Joe Biden, Mitt Romney (no love for Paul Ryan, maybe if Romney wins he'll get a shout-out next time), Sonic the Hedgehog, old annual favorite Jason Beeferman (with his sister Monica and father Bruce added in at least once each - sorry Sheila, no mention), Dr. Dre, LeBron James, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Donny Osmond (the cause of comments from the younger crowd of "Who's that?"), Jesus & John Smith (those two names written 5 times each in one round by Ethan who wanted to prove a point that he could write names that people would get - oy), the entire Tucker clan (thanks to Amanda), cute couple Justin Beiber & Selena Gomez, and the one that has already become legendary "the opposite of crab" which according to clue-giver Brian means Lobster.  Both nights ended well past the kids', and adults', bedtimes after midnight, but it was worth it for the laughs and memories.

Friday was a perfect beach day.  By the time everyone woke up and had breakfast, we were all out at the beach by around 11:30, where almost everyone spent some time in the water, either boogie boarding, skim-boarding or just riding waves.  Amanda gets the "brave girl" award for all of the time she spent in the water battling pretty strong waves.  And I in the lead for the "Dad of the Year" for all of the time I spent in the cold water with Amanda battling pretty strong waves.  Although, I have to say that after the initial cold shock, the water was very enjoyable.

We headed back up to the house at around 2:00 for lunch, and after eating and convincing the lazy kids to get back out the beach, headed back out where we stayed until around 7:00.  The time on the beach was filled by more swimming, a pretty lame attempt at beach volleyball and a spirited game of football that pitted the Volks vs. the Tuckers, with the dads acting as QBs (no way were going to run around).  I won't give you all of the details on the game, but suffice it to say that the guy who grew up in New England played like Tom Brady, and the lefty QB threw the ball like Tim Tebow and got ripped in the media by one of his WRs (the smaller one).  You figure out who was who. 

When we were all showered and got most of the sand out of us, we headed to dinner at old favorite Blue Fish Grill, where we had a nice dinner (helped by the fact that the kids sat at their own table).  After dinner we headed home for the 2nd installment of the Name Game and bed. 

Saturday started out a little ominously, with cloud cover and a lot of wind.  The kids were not too secretly hoping the beach day would be a wash out so we could head to a movie, but alas around noon the sun broke through and we had basically a repeat of Friday.  The only difference was that we switched up the football teams a little (I traded Ethan for Ryan), and Team Tebow won on a last second TD, which then resulted in Team Brady's younger WR unnecessarily ripping his QB.  Let's just say I know how Brady felt in the last Super Bowl.  If one of my WRs (the taller one) had held on to a perfect TD throw we would have won.  But it didn't happen, giving Team Tebow a chance for the victory, which they took advantage of.  Oh well.

Saturday night, after the standard "Where should we eat?" discussion, we headed to another old standby, Northeast Grill, for another nice meal.  Well, MOST of it was nice.  Once again the kids were at their own table, and the adults were stationed kind of in the middle of the restaurant right next to a table of 6 which included a family with 2 kids and the grandparents.  The grandfather was sitting right behind Debbie, with not a lot of room between them.  That would have been fine, until one of their kids decided to give the grandfather a back massage.  To do that the kid basically was on top of Debbie.  After a minute or so, I politely (really, it was politely) tapped the kid and asked him if he could move over a little, which he did.  That would have been the end of it, until the grandfather turned to me and said "He's just a kid, leave him alone."  At that point all I said back was "I know he's a kid, all I asked him to do was move over so he wasn't on top of my wife."  But the guy wouldn't drop it and kept making comments.  He made such a big deal of it that he clearly embarrassed his grandson to the point that the kid started crying.  Now the grandmother had to take the kid out of the restaurant to console him, and while doing so gave me such an evil eye that I had to respond by saying "C'mon!"  Now the grandfather was back at me and I wasn't backing down, to the point that the GM of the place had to come and intervene.  Eventually the grandfather turned around for good, we moved our table over a few feet and finished a nice dinner.  All the while this was going on Matt was quiet while I was going at it with the grandfather.  For anyone that knows me and my personality, and also knows Matt, you are probably saying to yourself "Say what?" 

After dinner the kids wanted to go Go-Carting, but the place of choice (Jungle Jim's) was about 20 minutes away.  We ended dinner around 9:30 and Matt tried to call the place to see if they were still open.  We believed they closed at 10:00, but took a chance and headed there anyway.  For all of you that have seen the movie "Vacation" you know what happened next.  We got there and ran to the Go-Cart entrance, only to find the place closed down.  After punching the elephant at the entrance (not really), we headed to the Boardwalk in Rehoboth for a few rides.  Amanda and Brian rode a fast twirly car ride, Amanda rode a Frog Hop type ride, all of the kids rode the bumper cars, and Ethan, Ryan and Jack rode some totally nuts upside-down ride that freaked out Debbie who was saying all along "My baby is on that ride?!?!"  After a few failed attempts to win basketballs (although Ethan did win a stuffed animal for Amanda and Amanda won a stuffed crayon on the game where everyone wins) we headed home.  It was close to midnight when we got back, and the kids actually wanted to play the Name Game again.  But we convinced them all to go to bed.

Today, Sunday, is a drive day.  We will end up in Durham, NC, where we have an official scheduled tour of Duke on Monday morning.  Since it's about 6.5 hours from Bethany Beach to Durham, we will likely stop in Virginia Beach for lunch.  Time to pack up, so I'm going to pack this up as well.  Back on the road we go.

Day 3 - More Mifi Fun

To follow up from the issue of last night, the failed mifi unit, the plan was to go to the local Verizon store first thing in the morning so we could get on the road for the drive to Bethany Beach, DE.  Luckily for us, the Verizon store was basically directly behind the hotel, so we could walk there.  Unfortunately, the store didn't open until 10, so that was going to delay the start of the travel day a bit.  However, another piece of good luck was on our side.  As we were driving down to Baltimore the other day, Debbie and I talked about finding a Whole Foods to stop at before we drove to DE so we could have some lunch food while at the beach house.  Well, it turned out that the hotel we stayed at in Baltimore was actually connected to a Whole Foods.  In fact, the parking spot where I parked the car at the hotel was about 10 yards from the entrance to Whole Foods. 

So, we loaded up the car in the parking garage and then headed into Whole Foods to stock up.  For those scoring at home, we purchased roast beef, roasted chicken, muenster cheese, goat cheese, avocados, tomatoes, crackers, hummus and, well, that may be it. We also purchased a cooler type bag and I got a bag of ice from the seafood department and we were done with the food.  The kids and I then headed to Starbucks for our gourmet breakfasts while Debbie headed to the Verizon store.  We wrapped up at Starbucks in about 10 minutes and started walking to the Verizon store.  As we were almost there, Debbie called me to say that the mifi wasn't working and that we would probably have to buy a new one.  We met her at the store, where she and I decided that we would get the nicer new one and go on the hook for another 2 year contract.  However, just at the moment Debbie was getting ready to pay, our original mifi kicked in (the Verizon guy had replaced the SIM card, but evidently it took a while for it to register).  After debating what to do, we decided to take a shot with our existing unit.  Of course, as soon as we started driving it wasn't working and we feared that we would have to waste more time at another store.  But the fates were with us, and it started working again and actually worked the rest of the way.

The drive from Baltimore should have taken 2.5 hours, but as we approached the Bay Bridge over Chesapeake Bay, we got slammed with traffic that wasn't moving.  It ended up taking just about an hour to go a whopping 2 miles, and as soon as we got over the bridge the traffic moved just fine.  Not really sure why we weren't moving for so long, other than the fact that the bridge has only 2 lanes.  Anyway, the drive for most of the way was basically local roads, and it felt like we were in Iowa, with a ton of corn fields.  Eventually we got onto Route 1 and arrived at the Tuckers' beach house at around 3:00.  We had a quick lunch, put our bathing suits on, "gooped up" and headed out to the beach.

We spent a very relaxing few hours on the beach, with all of the kids, Amanda included, spending a considerably amount of time in the water.  After a few hours, everyone headed up to the house to shower and get ready for dinner.  Primarily to satisfy Ethan's desire for crabs that went unfulfilled the other night in Baltimore, we went to a place that had crabs (and other items for the rest of us).  Ethan ordered 6 crabs, and after a key crab cracking lesson from Matt, he went to town on them and devoured all of the crab meat in the crabs, and likely some other stuff that maybe wasn't meant to be eaten.

After dinner we headed to the Boardwalk area for ice cream (and caramel popcorn for Jane) and hung out to eat the dessert.  There was a split vote on what to do next (mini-golf or head back to the house), and majority opted to head home, so home we went.  There was talk of watching a movie, but with the wide age range there was no way to come to a consensus on a movie so the group decided to play the "Name Game."  Everyone is writing down names now, as I type this, and it will either be a lot of laughs or a bomb.  I'm thinking it will be funny.  Anyway, I have to go write down 5 names, so I will sign off.

Since we will be at the beach for the next 2 days, I am not sure if I will be blogging over those days.  So, I will summarize what we will be doing - wake up, go out to beach, come in for lunch, go back to beach, come in to shower, debate where we should eat for about 45 minutes, pick a place, have dinner, have dessert, maybe play mini golf, head back to the house, rinse and repeat the next day.

If anything more happens I will post something. 

Day 2 - Money Well Spent

Day 2 found us spending the day in Baltimore.   After getting everyone ready by around 9:00, we headed out for the day, with the first stop being someplace for breakfast.  Most of the hotels we stay at serve some sort of complimentary breakfast, but not this one.  There is a Starbucks around the corner, so we started there, but the idea of a bagel or muffin really didn't appeal to the group, so I just got my venti iced coffee and asked where we could get a decent breakfast.  The guy at Starbucks recommended a place near the hotel so we headed there.  Turns out it was an excellent suggestion.  Everyone has some sort of eggs dish, and all plates were clean by the end of the meal.

The next stop was the National Aquarium, which entailed a walk of about 15-20 minutes along the waterway by the harbor.  The weather was overcast, which was perfect as it kept the heat away.  We got to the aquarium around 11 am, and ended up spending around 3 hours there.  We saw sharks and turtles and dolphins (oh, my).  There were a lot of other neat creatures, like colorful frogs and eels, and a short but fun dolphin show, which if I could figure out how to put pictures in this blog you could see them now (but they changed the way this works from last year and I don't yet know how to do it).

By the time we finished with the aquarium and the obligatory purchase of clutter, er, souvenirs at the gift shop, everyone was once again hungry.  I know, stunning.  So we went in search of a truly original Baltimore restaurant - Chipotle.  Even though we have one around the corner in Great Neck, no one complained about eating there.  They even had a kids' menu (the one at home does not) so Amanda could get a very fancy cheese quesadilla.

While we were eating I glanced through the Baltimore magazine the hotel gave me at check in to see what else we could do before we headed to the ballpark for the game, and saw that there was a pinball museum nearby, where not only could you look at old machines you could play there as well.  A little background.  Debbie LOVES to play pinball.  There were way too many hours spent at Houston Hall playing pinball in their little game room.  I blame that time away from studying for the fact that I didn't graduate anything cum laude.  Yeah, that was why.  Anyway, I don't think she has played in many years, but it is something she loves to do, so we figured we would check it out.  It was about a 10 minute walk and when we got there it turns out that the museum is only open on the weekends.  Would have been nice to mention that in the magazine, but I guess that slipped their minds.

So after hanging out in the area near the pinball museum for a little bit to recharge ourselves, we headed out towards the ballpark.  Near Camden Yards there are two museums - the Sports Legends Museum and the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum.  In reading about the two, the Sports Legends Museum seemed to be a lot about the Orioles and other Baltimore sports teams, while the Babe Ruth was mostly about Lou Gehrig.  I kid.  It was at the home where Ruth spent his childhood.  After considering the odds, I decided that we would have more luck and interest at the Ruth museum, so we headed there.

I know I have used this joke before, but when I say the museum was small, I mean it was small.  We are talking 50 cents in a cab small.  The good news was that it wasn't too expensive to go in, so we spent about 20 minutes looking at a bunch of Ruth pictures and reading some info about him.  While we were looking at one of the exhibits, we overheard a woman say "I know they make museums out of the places where presidents lived, but I can't believe they made one for some baseball player."   Really?  "Some" baseball player?  That's like saying Thomas Edison was some guy that liked to tinker with things.  Or Ben Franklin was some guy that liked to fly kites.  What world did that woman come from? 

After leaving the museum, and yes, we bought more clutter there, it was about 5:00 so we headed around the corner to Camden Yards.  We figured we would get in early, maybe see some batting practice and hang out.  Plus, the son of my high school baseball team (Ryan Flaherty) now plays for the Orioles, so if we got there early enough while the Orioles were on the field I was going to try and get his attention to come over.  But alas, two things conspired against that plan.  One, by the time we got in the Orioles were done with BP and the Red Sox were using the field so there were no Orioles out, and two, Ryan is on the DL, so I don't even know if he is with the team.  The only exciting thing was that the big screen all of sudden showed the last 2 outs of Felix Hernadez's perfect game, which was cool to watch at another ballpark, with all of the players watching along.

Once we found our seats, Brian, Ethan and I went down to the front row by the Red Sox dugout to watch BP and see if any players would come by to sign autographs.  Again, no luck.  One player, the immortal Pedro Cirriaco (no clue if that is the right spelling) stopped nearby, but not close enough to get his autograph.  So when BP was over the boys and I headed back to our seats, which were in the mezzanine level under an overhang.  The good news was that if it rained, as the forecast said it might, we were covered.  The bad news was that the overhang obscured much of the big screen in center, and it was also a little stuffy there.  By the 4th inning, Ethan, Brian and I decided to move to a section behind home plate near the press boxes where there were a lot of empty seats.  It was delightful there, with a little breeze and a full view of the stadium.  I texted Debbie that she and Amanda should join us, but as soon as they left their seats and were half way to us, we got booted.  We put our tails between our legs and headed back, but the usher had mentioned to Debbie that we might have better luck if we were past the dugouts, so we passed our official section and found seats in the lower section by third base.  No one bothered us there for the rest of the time we were there.  As for the game, the Red Sox pitcher had a no-hitter through 5 innings, so we thought we might be in for a special night.  But in the bottom of the 6th all hell broke loose and the Orioles scored 5 runs to take the lead for good.  Oh well. 

We decided to leave in the 8th inning because it was getting late and I wanted to see if we could catch a cab home and didn't want to fight the crowd for a cab.  We had walked all the way from the hotel to the stadium, but did it over a few stretches, so we didn't really have an idea how far it was back to the hotel.  That is, until we got into the cab and rode back to the hotel.  Let me say, thank freakin' god we took a cab.  There is no way we would have made it all the way back at 10 at night without a serious amount of whining and complaining by the group.  With tip the ride was $11.00, and let me tell you it could have been $1,100 and I would have been fine with it.

We got back to the room and the kids began the shower processing as Debbie and I booted up the laptops.  But the problems with the mifi yesterday reared their ugly heads so much so that we never got the mifi to work (I am connected to the hotel wifi for this blog post).  After a lengthy call with Verizon, it appears that something is wrong with the mifi, so the first stop tomorrow will be the local Verizon store.  Nice.

Once we get that out of the way, it's on to Delaware and hopefully (and likely) a few days of R&R on the beach.  Til then.

Day 1 (2012) - It Wouldn't Be A Road Trip Without Some Technical Difficulities

Back where we left off before we were so rudely interrupted by a year of school and summer camp, we set out today for another adventure. This year's trip will be a little different than the last two years, as there will be a little less running. We are spending two nights in Baltimore (where this post is emanating from), 3 nights in Bethany Beach (thanks in advance to the Tuckers for hosting us), then we will hightail it to Durham, NC (with a likely lunch break in Virginia Beach), then a night in Richmond, VA, then it's on to Washington, DC (3 nights), and we once again finish up with 2 nights in Philly (assuming no hurricane this year). Normally we don't spend more than 2 nights in any one place, so the fact that we will spend 3 nights in two places is the big change. Nonetheless, we are hoping for another fun road trip with lots of good stories to tell.

The day started off with the always enjoyable frantic effort to get out on the road before it gets oo late in the day. The target departure time was 11 am. Which in my mind meant 1 pm. I have to say that things were going quite well and we were looking decent to leaving pretty close to 11 am, then two things happened. One, the phone starting ringing non-stop with calls for More Than Paper. This seemed to occur about 3-4 seconds after Debbie forwarded the calls to her cell phone, making the calls more difficult and time consuming. Second, we spent a decent amount of time fruitlessly looking for two of Debbie's credit cards. After searching high and low, we gave up. If anyone finds them, don't try and use them. We're watching you!

We finally got on the road at around 12:30. Technically behind schedule, but emotionally ahead of schedule. Again as been the norm on our trips, we can't really start the trip without some stops in Great Neck. Today's winners of our pre-trip stops were, in order, the bank, the post office and Best Bagel (it was lunch time after all). So by the time we got back into the car and were (we thought) ready to go it was already after 1:00. After we got back into the car with our food Debbie asked if we could stop at home to get something, which was fine because I wanted to do the same to get a back up inhaler (and go to the bathroom one last time before hitting the road). Good thing we did this, because as I went to unlock the door and go in I realized two things. One, the door was not in fact locked. And two, the alarm was not in fact on. Oops. So, after gathering and going, I got back into the car and off we were, at around 1:30.

As many of you know, our car not only gets us places, but acts as a mobile office. Before we even left the house (the first time) the laptop was plugged into the printer, which was positioned in the back. We had the mifi ready to go so Debbie could work while I drive. Well, that was the plan. Last year I believe we had laptop issues, and this year it was the mifi's turn. For a good hour along the ever thrilling NJ Turnpike she was unable to get any connection on the mifi. We even pulled into a rest stop and tried the other laptop, which only worked when I used my outstanding tech skills and turned the mifi on and off. We thought this fixed it, but alas shortly we lost the connection again. So, a call to the Verizon tech support was in order. After going through the automated menus, Debbie got a nice tech on the phone who clearly had a magic wand because as soon as she said the mifi wasn't working, it worked. Wow, those Verizon guys are good.

We arrived at our hotel in Baltimore around 5:00, checked in and got settled. A little before 6:00 we went downstairs to get dinner suggestions. After very clearly asking the two nice people at the desk for recommendations of places that locals might go to or that served something Baltimore was known for (read: crabs), they finally came up with a place called Bo Brooks. This was after we had rejected the famous Baltimore dining establishments of Ruth Chris's Steak House and Houlihans.

The restaurant didn't seem too far away on the map, so at first we decided to walk. But shortly we realized that wasn't going to go well, so I hailed a cab, persuaded him to take all 5 of us and away we went. By the way, the only reason we didn't take our own car was because the hotel person said parking was a nightmare at the restaurant. Well, when the cab dropped us off a the restaurant's parking lot (with a bazillion open spots and a sign that said Free Parking) we were a little annoyed. For all of you familiar with Portland, Bo Brooks is basically Baltimore's version of DiMillo's, except they serve crabs instead of lobsters. We asked for a table for 5 and they asked if we had reservations (nope). They said the only tables available were outside, so outside we went - past another bazillion open tables. Anyway, it was kind of nice outside, so it worked out.

After taking quite some time to decide on dinner, and with our waiter's recommendations on what to have and what not to have (he actually talked Ethan out of having crabs - bad sign for a crab place), we ordered and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. The family that came in after us were so bothered by the wait that they actually left before their meals came (and the dad left a perfectly good beer too). To make the ambiance even nicer, the large family on our other side (a family that Dylan would have liked, for those who know what that means), ordered about 60 crabs, and complained about every one of them. By the end of the meal, after eating ALL of the crabs, they told the manager that maybe 12 of the crabs were good. Unreal. As for our meal, it was OK. Ethan had crab cakes that looked good, and Brian had a combo platter that also looked good. Debbie wasn't too hungry so she had soup and a few shrimps, while I had average sea bass. Drum roll for Amanda's dinner - yup, you guess it, cheeseburger. After we finished eating and paid for our overpriced meal, we hopped back into another cab and went back to the room to get some work done and sleep.

Tomorrow's plan is to go to the Aquarium in the morning, and then head to the Camden Yards area to hit the sports museum and Babe Ruth museum in the afternoon. At night we will be making our debut at Camden Yards for the Orioles-Red Sox game. That is, if the Red Sox decide to play for their manager tomorrow night. That's it for now.

Day 11 (2011) - Home Sweet Hurricane

First, some pictures from yesterday at the Little League World Series:

We officially decided to end our trip a few days early and head home from Williamsport today.  While many people on Long Island are evacuating their homes, we decided to "vacuate" instead.  We slept a little later than normal, everyone was quite tired, and by the time we got on the road it was about 11:00 or so.  We figured it would be a good idea to stock up on hurricane supplies in central PA, versus trying to do it once we got home, so the first stop was an Ace Hardware store about 20 minutes from the hotel.  This storm better be worth it, because we walked out of there over $300 lighter in the wallet (or heavier on the credit card as it may be).  At the Ace store we bought many varieties of flashlights, batteries of various sizes, duct tape, hurricane tape (no idea what for, but it sounded like a good idea), some plastic tarps (which likely won't get used), bungee cords to tie down the grill and a socket wrench (not really, but I feel like I should have to make the purchase seem manlier).

Next stop was a supermarket to get jugs of water.  However, as I was walking down the water aisle, I saw a guy loading up his cart with big jugs of water, and when I got to the end of the aisle where all of the water should have been, I saw that it was now empty.  So, I hopped back in the car and we used the GPS to located a Wal-Mart in the area.  The Wal-Mart had plenty of water, and thanks to a nice phone call we had received from Ed Mangano (county executive here on Long Island), I also picked up some bleach.  Why, I have no idea.  But if Ed wants me to get it, I get it.  I think I bought a few more things at this Wal-Mart (first aid kit, batteries maybe, but as you will read, the different shopping stops kind of blur together now).
By the time I was done at this Wal-Mart it was after 1:00, and I had not eaten or had my iced coffee yet, so I once again used the GPS to find a Starbucks.  Turns out the Starbucks was on a local college campus, and was a very nice Starbucks with a fancy lounge area.  The flip side was that this might have been the worst iced coffee I had ever had.  The coffee was see-through and might have just been coffee flavored water.

Always on the lookout for a good place to eat, Debbie located a diner in the Food Book that was about 40 minutes down the road on I-80 in the direction we were headed.  So, we re-programmed the GPS (love that little thing) and headed for the diner.  We got to the diner at about 2:30, and noticed a sign that said that the diner's hours were 6 am - 3 pm.  Good thing we got there when we did, because some people tried to be seated at around 2:55 and were turned away. 

This place was as low key as you could find, with old fashioned booths and little to no decorations inside.  It was so "down-home" that it sold condoms in the bathroom.  You know, just in case the place put you in the mood.  But I wonder, if you are buying condoms in a diner, why would you want the one that costs only $0.50, when the other 2 cost $1.00?  I'm thinking if you are going to get busy in a diner you would want to "pay up" for the more expensive brand.  But that's just me.

Anyway, the diner was known for its hamburgers, so Debbie, Amanda and I ordered them, while the boys ordered chicken parm meals.  To give us a little flavor of what we would be missing, we also ordered cheese fries.  Good thing we were all hungry, because the burgers were about the size of a full cow.  And the fries did give Debbie and me a little feeling of nostalgia, and heart-burn.

After the meal, we got back on the road, but Debbie felt we needed some more supplies (hand-held radio among other things), so, you guessed it, back to the GPS and back to yet another Wal-Mart.  We found a radio (turns out it was not what we wanted and it will be returned when the weather is clear) and some other stuff (again, a little fuzzy on the details even a few hours later), and we were finally done with the hurricane shopping.  Only issue was that the car was so full that we had to use the bungee cords we bought at the Ace Hardware store and strapped Amanda to the roof rack to make room.  I kid - we really strapped Ethan up there to make even more room.

With a car full of luggage, supplies and gas-emitting children, we headed back onto I-80 for the last time.  The drive back home was uneventful, and we arrived back home in Great Neck safe and sound at around 6:45 pm.  Since we need to clear room in the garage for my car to shield it from the storm (it was moved outside when the boys came home so we could use the area for their trunks), Debbie immediately started doing loads of camp laundry (towels, bedding, etc.) that were in bags in the garage.  Tomorrow we will organize the rest of the non-washable stuff and make room for my car.

Until next year...

Day 10 (2011) - No Cinderella Story

[It's pretty late and I'm tired, so no pictures today]

We started the day off in Cleveland with an early wake up call for the kids so we could get moving for our drive to Williamsport.  The boys have been watching the Little League World Series each year, and for this trip I had planned on passing by Williamsport on the way home right near the end of this year’s World Series.  We stopped by Williamsport last year, but it was after the Series had ended.  I had looked up the schedule of games before we left on our trip, and the schedule for today called for a game at 4:00 and another at 8:00.  The 4:00 game was to be the international semi-finals, and the 8:00 game was the US semi-finals.  Most years getting into these games is no big deal.  The tickets are free and it’s just first come first served if you want to sit in the stadium.   However, this year was different. 

Turns out that a team from nearby in Pennsylvania was still alive and would be playing in the 8:00 game.  Normally, there are probably no more than 10,000 people at the games at this stage of the tournament.  But since the PA team was really a home team, they have had huge crowds at each of their games.  One game had over 41,000 people there.  I read on the Little League web site last night that they decided to change the seating policy and actually give out tickets for the stadium.  The catch was that they would be handing them out between 12-4 at the Little League Museum, which is adjacent to the stadium.  Problem was, we were about 300 miles away in Cleveland, and there was no realistic way we could be there by noon.  I figured they would sell out of the 4,000 or tickets well before we got there.

We got on the road around 9:15, and headed out on our way to Williamsport.  Like I said, the estimate was that the drive would be around 4 hours, but that assumed no traffic and no stops.  No traffic was possible, but unlikely, and no stops was not even remotely achievable.  This another of those really boring drives.  When the GPS lady says "Drive 181 miles on I-80" you know you are in for a boring ride.

With the totally expected bathroom breaks, it did in fact take us a little under 5 hours to get to the museum, and we were stunned to find out that they still had tickets available.  We drove into the parking lot, rolled down my window and told a guy we needed 5 tickets and he gave us 5 tickets.  These were not seat specific tickets, but were for Section 4, whatever that meant.  We were thrilled.

We had some time before the first game, so we decided to do a little hurricane shopping, and found a Wegmans so we could buy some water and non-fridge or freezer foods, in case we lose power during the storm.   At this point we still planned on going to Philly, at least for a day, and were not sure if we would be able to go shopping when we got back.

We stocked up some stuff, and headed to a gourmet lunch at a Subway shop.  To make it even more gourmet, we ate in the car on the 5 minute ride to the parking lot.  We parked our car and gathered our raincoats and umbrellas and hopped on the short shuttle ride to the stadium.  The security at the stadium was tougher than any professional stadium we have ever been to.  I had some water bottles in my bag, and they made me get rid of all of them.  The other day in Cleveland I brought in at least 2 bottles that we drank during the game.  Oh well.

We got in to the complex right around 4:00 when the first game was starting (Venezuela vs. Japan) and went into Section 4 to find some seats.  We didn't have to go into Section 4 for this game, since they had told us that after the first game they would clear the stadium and only then would the tickets be needed.  Turns out Section 4 only has benches, no seats.  We watched the game for a few innings, but it wasn't that exciting of a game, so we went out into the complex to see what else was there.

Outside the stadium they had a bunch of baseball skills games that the kids could play, so they did that and had fun.  We had realized that our camera battery had died, so at this point Debbie took the shuttle back to the car to charge up the battery for a short time while the kids and I stayed in the complex.  We got slushies that they boys had seen on TV while watching the games, then went back into the stadium to watch the end of the first game.  This time we went into the section that had the nice seats, and found a great, shaded spot to watch the end of the game, and Debbie joined us shortly thereafter.

At some point, Debbie looked out into the crowd and asked about what looked like a large line forming.  She wondered if this was the line we would have to wait on to get back in for the 8:00 game.  So I went out to investigate.  Unfortunately, it was the line, and it was growing like an amoeba on steroids.  I decided to go wait on the line while the first game was wrapping up, leaving the others in their seats.

To say this line was long would be like saying Manute Bol was a little tall.  It started near 1st base behind the stadium, wrapped around to center field, then snaked at least 5 times back and forth.  I got to the end of the line at around the middle of the 3rd snake.  I stood there not moving while they cleared the stadium after the game, and Debbie and the kids stayed near the stadium.  It's really hard to explain the chaos that happened next, but basically when people started moving there was confusion near the stadium, and Debbie was able to get Ethan into the stadium alone (I had given Debbie one ticket when she went back to charge the battery, but I had the other 4 with me in line, far from where they were).  Ethan went in and picked out a spot on a bench for the 5 of us, and ended up enlisting some nice people around him to help him save the seats.  Meanwhile, I started to move slowly in my line.  All the while this was going on, Debbie and I were texting back and forth, and I was texting Ethan to make sure he was OK (I could actually see him from my vantage point).  Debbie was hanging out near the entrance and evidently made friends with the guard, who told her to get me down there and we could just go in.  So she texted me to get off of the line (which I was a little nervous about) and to come down.  I followed her instructions, found the three of them at the gate and we simply walked right in.  Still not really sure what happened, or why, but we found Ethan and sat down to get ready to watch the game.

The PA fans outnumbered the CA fans probably 30-1, and since there were about 31,000 people at the game, I felt a little bad for the CA fans.  But you couldn't help but root for the local kids.  The only issue we had was that none of us had eaten dinner, and we were kind of sardined into our seats (Brian did not enjoy the game much because of the overwhelming crowds and the fact that it was hard to see from our seats.  He decided that he liked watching the games on TV much better).  So, Debbie and Brian went out to scope out the food situation, only to shortly text me that if the kids wanted souvenirs they needed to do it now since the shops were closing.  Ethan took Amanda and they met Debbie and Brian at the gift shop.  After buying their stuff (I frankly have no idea what they bought) they came back to the seats to watch the game.

The PA team was the Cinderella story in the tournament, while the CA team was the power house team that was upset in the game before and probably was mad to be in this game instead of waiting for the winner of this game.  The game itself moved pretty quickly, since both pitchers were very good.  The CA pitcher was better, and only gave up 3 hits I think in 5 1/3 innings (he had to be removed due to pitch count issues).  CA ended up winning the game 2-0, thus ending the Cinderella dreams of the local kids.

We walked back to our car this time, but due to the crazy number of cars and the small streets, it took us over 30 minutes of just sitting in the car before we even moved.  When we finally got out of there, we had about a 20 minute drive to our hotel.  Since the World Series was here, there were not any rooms in Williamsport, and the only hotel I could find was a Holiday Inn Express in New Columbia.  I feared that this would be another Red Roof Inn experience, but was pleasantly surprised to find what looks like a renovated hotel, with decent sized rooms (bigger than the Hampton we stayed in).

The issue we face now is what to do about Hurricane Irene.  It looks like it will hit Long Island late on Saturday into Sunday and Monday.  If we go to Philly, we would have to drive back through the storm, which is not a good idea.  Plus, the storm is supposed to hit Philly also.  On the other hand, it sounds kind of nuts to be driving back ONTO an island that is going to get hit by a huge storm.  I want to get home to put some things inside (chairs, grill, etc.), but I am not sure if we aren't better off driving west instead.  Problem there is how and when do we get home?  Ethan is supposed to have soccer tryouts starting on Monday, and if the storm isn't quite as bad as expected, I don't want to be in Pittsburgh or somewhere and then need to get home.  My guess is that in the morning we will head home, after stopping someplace to get some batteries and flashlights.

Thus, this may be the last blog post of this summer.  If it is, I hope you enjoyed following us on this ride.  We had a lot of fun, even though it was a shorter, and different kind of trip than last year's journey.  If we do another trip next year, stay tuned for more blogging.