Part II
Rossman's Travelogue (June 03, 2003)
After a couple of days of driving around to see my cousins' houses/mansions (Dammit! Why can't I be rich too?!?), the gang and I finally did some Jersey-style sightseeing. First we drove over to the shore and checked out something called the Twin Towers and Lights of Navesink. It's like a really ooooooold lighthouse that is famous for saving lives, being old, having cannons on the premises, having a pretty cool view of Manhattan, selling batteries for morons who let the flash die in their cameras, and for NOT having two hijacked planes fly into them. Those were two other towers.
I was impressed! I wasn't bored with the place, and I actually learned something by reading through all the historical stuff in its mini museum. Of course, I forgot it all as soon as my stomach started growling, but the point is that I did initially broaden my horizons for even the briefest of flecks of sand through an hourglass worth of time.
And if you ever go to the Twin Lights, wear a fucking sweater. It was EARLY JUNE when we went, but it was 42 degrees and as windy as fatboy Ebert after eating at Raul's All You Can Eat Chili Burrito Palace in Chicago (aka the "Windy City"). Lots of wind.
Afterwards we drove up (down?) the coast to a beach I remembered going to as a kid (too cold to swim though), and then to some fancy schmancy place for dinner that charged you by the glass for each Coke you ordered. What a crock!
Heather's Journal (June 03, 2003)
Okay, like, not to freak you out or anything, Journal, but like that was a disaster of a day. Seriously, in like 50 years time they are going to make a big budget summer disaster movie about this day. And it will be better than Twister, but not Independence Day (that was a fun movie :). So, the Rossman's Aunt is nice enough to like take us to a couple of sights and stuff around the area so that we don't get bored because the Rossman was stupid enough to not book any hotel rooms at our next destination until a few days later than he told us he would. So she took us to the Twin Lights place, which was like really cool and all, but the Rossman had to start making a spectacle of himself every 2 minutes. First he climbed up the front light-tower (after smacking his fat head 2 or 5 times and tumbling down the stairs backwards all the way to the bottom while taking Rodney and Big D with him once or twice) and started jumping up and down shouting "Dee plane! Dee plane!! Boss, boss, dee plane!" like a little retarded monkey boy. That was stupid enough, but some other tourists from Kansas were there too, and they started freaking out because like I guess they thought that, hey, twin towers, and whoa, planes, equals badness. They started running around yelling "Al Qaida" and stuff and the Rossman then got in a panic and started punching people out claiming that he thought they had bombs and stuff on them (but I think he was really just taking their wallets while they were unconscious and he frisked them). Then he went to the gift shop and punched the shopkeepers out (granted, they were high school dickheads) and then stole some batteries for his GameBoy or something before running to the car screaming "Viva la resistance!!"
After we got the hell away from there, and the ringing in my ears from the howling winds stopped, we drove down to some beach with some big hotels and nice homes and stuff around them. We tried to tell the Rossman that it was just too cold to swim (Rodney's nipples were showing, and he had three layers of sweatshirts on), but he said "Psshaw" or something, put on a bathing suit and ran into the sea. He kind of passed out from the shock of the freezing water, but none of us wanted to freeze either in order to save him, so we just waited till the tide pushed him back onto the shore again to get him. Then we went to that $50 a plate restaurant which would have totally broken our trip's budget by itself if we didn't dine and dash like that. Jeez, what a day. Good night.
See, I was being all cool and myself, but apparently battle-hardened New York just can't handle that yet. I was walking around the base of the statue trying to find the best shot to use up the last roll on my camera (unfortunately due to the cowardly acts of 9/11 the Statue herself wasn't open at the time of our visit). I had Karen take this shot, and then I turned around, got down on my knees and started bowing in praise of Lady Liberty's green-tinted beauty all the while chanting "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!" Well, some of the fully armed and operational Marines who were patrolling the island must have thought that I was saying my last prayer to Allah or something before doing something drastic. So they all tackled me, kicked me, smashed my face in with the butts of their rifles, and screamed, "You Jihadist sonovabitch! You ain't gonna take this island! Don't tread on me, monster!!!" I eventually got them to cool down and stop with the beatdown by yelling back, "Soy un Americanese! The French suck! U.S.A! U.S.A.!!!" Then they helped me up, patted me on the back and bought me some new teeth. Marines, I salute you! Keep keeping us safe! |
We
never did get to go to Manhattan Island, but Liberty Island was
close enough. Here's a picture of me right before "the incident".Rossman's Travelogue (June 04, 2003)
Ah, finally! Today we all went to Ellis and Liberty Islands. Still no Manhattan, but it was just a hop, skip and a jump away. Let me tell you something, nothing makes you feel more like an American than going to Ellis and Liberty. I had Grand and Great Grandparents who came through Ellis way back when. And to go through that museum there and read about all the hardships and total shit those people had to go through way back when just to get to this country, just so that decades later I can sit on my lazy ass every night and watch crappy anime and my Buffy DVDs until I pass out from eating too many Doritos and drinking too many bottles of vodka. God bless them, everyone!
Liberty Island was even cooler. The ferry ride over was kind of bumpy (but it did cause Heather to fall in my lap on more than one occasion, so that was cool), but the destination was worth it. Even though we couldn't actually go up into the Statue of Liberty herself, we could walk anywhere else on the little island that we wanted to. The gift shop there was cool, but just a word of warning... Don't run around with a mini statue of liberty while "pretending" to shove it up someone's arse. The laws of probability and Murphy state that something will go horribly wrong. I also want to take this time to apologize my main man Rodney. Dude, seriously, it was never my intention to give you a copper-plated enema. They should put warning labels on those souvenirs.
Rodney's Logbook (June 04, 2003)
Truly, some day I will kill that goddamn Rossman. Would have done it today after the "torch-hole" episode but Karen begged me to not rip his head off... mostly cause he borrowed all of our credit cards the night before and refused to tell us where they were hidden. Honestly, I'm not ashamed in the least that I told those US soldiers that "that guy in the purple sweatshirt kneeling on the ground said something about '71 virgins' waiting for him in the next world or something." It's good to see that some people in this great country take their jobs seriously.
Now, some people claim that it's just a symbol of the Pilgrims' pride and all that jazz, but I just don't buy it. I think that if you're going to label something as important as Plymouth Rock, you should be pretty damn sure of what you're doing. If you ARE just going to go "eeny meeny miney moe" with large pebbles on the beach in order to choose an historical artifact, at least go with something that has a little more oomfph to it. Pick something the size of Gibraltar. Pick a landmark as unique as something from Monument Valley. Don't pick a rock that looks like it came from my backyard. At least the Plymouthians didn't decorate the thing with pink flamingos and torn up bits of trashy magazines or else I REALLY may have confused it with my own property.. |
When
we eventually got to Plymouth, I was expecting a giant, two-storied
boulder or something in the bay to mark Plymouth Rock. The real
Rock is really only a couple of feet around though, and it turns
out that the Massachusians only picked the thing out as the official
"Plymouth Rock" years and years after the actual landing...
So there's no real way to even know if it was like the first rock
stepped upon by some Pilgrimy harlot or her England-fleeing man
toy as they came ashore way back when.Rossman's Travelogue (June 05, 2003)
After all the goodbyes shared with my relatives, we hit the road again on our way up to the Mystic, Cape of Cod, Quincy, Bahston, and Rockport... But, before we found the freeway, we found a Best Buy, and I made Big D pull in so that I could see what had recently come out on CD and DVD (I'm a victim of commercialism, what do you want?).
Lo and behold, I had forgotten that it was to come out that week! My prayers had been answered, and the rest of the journey was/is now promising to be the best part of the whole vacation. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4 is now mine to own. As God is my witness, so long as I still breathe, we shall not watch anything more until this DVD set is completed. This I command!!!
Karen's Hello Kitty Diary (June 05, 2003)
Sweeeeeet! Buffy Season 4! Finally, the Rossman did something right!
Little J's Diary (June 05, 2003)
This trip is now officially HELL on wheels.
Shit.
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