Xiaoniu 小妞

We got back on Wednesday from our mini-vacation. It was two days of peace and lots of travelling. Well, a little peace and some annoyance, some disgusting events and some aggravation (just a little). Overall the trip was well worth it. By the end we both were feeling very relieved and amazingly relaxed.

The whole mini-vacation was centered around dropping off and picking up Sue’s parents and brother at the airport. They were making the cross country trip to LA to bury (part of) grandma in her new home for eternity. In between trips to the airport we enjoyed the hell out of ourselves. Ummm, not the best choice of words, but you get it right?

Monday after picking up the urn, driving to NY and dropping off our passengers at JFK we made our way up to Flushing. It’s a much nicer place than Chinatown in Manhattan. Plenty of eats, some stores and great parking. $4 for 12 hours. You can’t get anything like that in Manhattan.

Our first stop was a local appliance store to pick up a vent fan for Sue’s father. We are rarely in that area so it was good timing. After walking around we found two old/closed locations and one open location. They had what we wanted. Purchased and then carried, lugged and damn near dragged by both of us for 7 blocks. The damn thing was heavy. Driving the van over to the store wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t losing my parking spot. It took a while, but we made it. I’ll be damned, but it is a lot of work carrying something like that in the city with people everywhere, with the sun beating down on your neck.

With the chores done we made our escape to Manhattan. 30 minutes on the 7 train and we were there. Our plan was to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s an amazingly nice and very large museum. It’s the kind of place you need more than one day to see.

Well, or plans were dashed since the Museum is closed on Monday’s. Damn. We asked around and found that the American Museum of Natural History was just a short walk across the park away. It’s another amazingly large museum, but for nature and stuff instead of Art. We spent the day there and were both very tired and sore from walking. Go figure.

So far so good. Our trip was shaping up pretty well. No comes the disgusting part. We were taking the train to Grand Central to make our way back to Flushing. All is going well until we here the sound of water splashing on the floor. WTF? Sue leans over to look and turns back to me practically gagging, holding her hand over her mouth. Some woman was leaning over the side of her seat puking all over the floor. No sounds were being made except for the sound of puke hitting the floor. Once, twice, three times and then a forth. WTF did she eat?

The train started to stop and the people across from us were nice enough to tell us to lift our feet. The puke was sliding our way. Okay, now I can smell it. I’m ready to gag. The train stopped and we damn near jumped out of the train. The whole thing emptied faster than if it was on fire. Disgusting. I pity anybody that got on that car later that day.

Needless to say our trip back wasn’t starting too well. We got on the 7 train and expected a nice quite ride. Nope. Some woman got on the train, “Is this the express or local?”. It was the express. She came in and sat down next to some girl sitting next to me. They talked for a bit and then the girl left the train. I’m not sure if it was her stop, but she got off anyways. Then the woman started on me.

She pulls out some papers and hands them to me. I don’t recall exactly what she said, but it was something to do with a “revival”. Something to do with a Pastor who is American, etc, etc. She then proceeds to stand up on the train and start handing out flyers to everybody unwilling to completely ignore her all the while yelling “We all need God and Jesus in our hearts!!! Come to the revival!!” Or something like that. After than she sits down and loudly asks me, “Do you believe in God and Jesus?” I politely told her that I was in no mood to talk. She shut up and didn’t say a word for the remainder of the trip. What a day!

We escaped the Jesus-pusher’s car and went to eat dinner. There is one restaurant that we both like. Great food and it’s cheap. $22 for the both of us including tax. One big bowl of soup, three dishes and rice. Good eats! After that we poured ourselves into the car for the trip to Riverhead. It was the cheapest place I could find a decent hotel and it was decently placed about halfway out on the island.

The hotel wasn’t bad. Holiday Inn Express. The only complaint we had was that the room was a handicap room. It has a large walk in shower that thoroughly gets everything else in the room wet any time you are in there. At least it was clean and quiet. A good night of rest and full of free continental breakfast we started our trek to Montauk.

The ride out is pretty nice. We left around 9am and got there pretty early in the day. There were not too many tourists out yet. We spent a couple hours just enjoying the scenery, walking around and checking out the light house. We even walked up the stairs to the top. I looked out and took some pics, but Sue isn’t so keen on heights so she just rested.

Primed and ready for ocean we decided to find a beach. Fortunately, there is Hither Hills park, which was only a short distance away and our parking ticket that we paid for works there too. We hit Montauk for a short walk around the strip and some lunch, then made it out the beach.

It’s a pretty nice beach out there. Not too many people and it’s clean. No garbage on the ground and no ocean puke on the beach either. Sue and I spent plenty of time out there enjoying the waves and sand. I think our trip next year may be to a beach some place. We may even go back to this one. They have basic camping sites right near the water.

After getting soaked we made our way back to Riverhead. There is a fairly large outlet shopping area there. We stocked up on Christmas gifts and a few things for ourselves. Then it was back to NY. We went to Flushing for another quick dinner at the same place and then off to JFK. Pretty much everything in Flushing closes at 9pm so we left earlier than expected. We killed time by trying to sleep in the car. Didn’t work. So we ended up spending time in the terminal waiting for the family to arrive.

The trip from the parking lot to the terminal was pretty entertaining. It was about 11:30pm by the time we boarded the shuttle bus. Some family was loudly talking on the bus. They realized they had stopped, then ran to the front to talk with the driver. Apparently, they needed to get back to the terminal quickly. I guess they were late. Then two more groups came on and each one also said they needed to get the terminal fast. Hold on. The guy driving probably set a speed record getting there. Flying around corners, blasting through stop signs and going much faster than the 50 MPH speed limit. I figure we were going at least 60-70.

When we got there he says, “Terminal 8, Internation flights”. The loud family stops talking/yelling and runs to the front. They start arguing with the driving saying that they had to get to the terminal 8 parking lot. Why did the go back to the terminal? The driver calmly explained that they just left the parking lot. After all the arguing they realized they screwed up and should have gotten off where we got on. D’oh! The funny part is that one guy in the group kept saying “Ah Shit!” over and over again while pacing the length of the bus. He did it both times we stopped. Funny as hell to watch such stupidity in action.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the trip, but we made it back by 3am all safe and sound. I made a back choice on the highway and scared all of us trying to get in the right lane, but luck was on my side and we made it safely home.

When I get a chance I’ll post the pics from the trip. I took most pictures at the lighthouse and beach. If you can believe it, we were happy to have had these two days. It was busy at times, we got to see a lot and we put 800 miles on the car doing it all, but we feel good now. I wonder how long it’ll last. Not long, but at least it is something.