6/16/03 Don Bosco Day 1: Road Trip w/Elana to Danbury for Lobster, Squeezable Peanut Butter; Allergies, Waterfalls, and Juggling:
I awoke at Elana's house, in the sleepy town of Leonia. It's actually the Borough of Leonia. Borough of what, I don't know. Also, it's not usually sleepy, except that it was only 7:30am when this picture was taken on one of the towns main drags. Normally, this would be one of New Jersey's collection of famously congested streets.
Elana and I were a little groggy, but we wanted food. So we went to a little Bagel Shoppe.
I asked for a bagel with lox and cream cheese, and got a bagel with lox cream cheese. There is a big difference here. When he rang up my order as $3.50 I didn't want to say anything, because I thought he was undercharging me for what would normally be $7.00 or higher. But, no, he charged me correctly for the stupid lox spread he gave me.
Here's Elana driving up to West Haverstraw New York. you might be wondering why. And no, she doesn't actually drive like this. She knew I was taking this photo.
I got a gig videotaping four lectures. The lectures were being given by some Christian dude to a bunch of priests from around the region. The lecture was at the Don Bosco Retreat Center in West Haverstraw, a little town on the west side of the Hudson River in Lower Up-State New York. The drive from Leonia, which is just south of the George Washington Bridge, was just over a half hour. So, it wasn't far, but I didn't have a car, and trains just don't make the grade up there. So... I asked Elana if she would drive me there for the two days of the lectures, for pay, of course, and she agreed. Additionally, the first 1-hour lecture of the day was at 9am and the second 1-hour lecture was at 4pm, so we had from 10am to 3pm to wander about the beautiful Hudson River Valley all day before heading back to shoot the second lecture of the day. Then we would got back to Elana's and sleep over, as there were two more similarly spaced out lectures the following day. So we made a bit of a mini-road-trip out of it.
West Haverstraw!
And so, we showed up, set up the equipment, and videotaped the morning lecture. During which, I had the most severe allergy attack of my life, and could hardly see through my puffed up eyes. It subsided, luckily, before shooting time. And so, at 10am, we had 6 HOURS to kill. The weather was perfect, we were in an unknown place, and we hit the road!
On a road trip, especially in non-urban areas, after you've been in a gigantic city almost all day, almost every day, for years.... EVERYTHING is amazing. Including the chair sitting out on this porch, on route 9W. Keep in mind, we're within a 30 mile radius of the Statue of Liberty, even where this picture was taken.
Another relic. Driving away from New York is often like traveling back in time. New York City cannibalizes itself constantly, leaving very few reminders of its own history. But in rural suburbia, sometimes old things just sit there, and nobody is trying to replace it with a tall office tower. Like this Hoyers. We made a note of this and planned to stop there later during our two-day visit.
And so, when we hit the Tappan Zee bridge, which is the next bridge north of the George Washington that crosses the Mighty Hudson, we took it, and came up with a ridiculous plan: We would have lunch at Stew Leonard's in Danbury. Yes, DANBURY CONNECTICUT!!!
For those of you who are less spatially savvy, here is a map, showing the location of Leonia, where we started, West Haverstraw, where the job was, Danbury, in CT, and New York City, as a point of reference:
The blue line shows the ridiculous trip we made in one day. Leonia is at the lower left. Danbury at the upper right.
In the above map, the yellow line shows the trip we made to Danbury, CT. The reason: LOBSTER. Because we both went to camp in New Milford, near Danbury, we are familiar with the Lobster Combo at Stew Leonard's. It is a supermarket, with an eatery under a tent next door, where you can get a 1.25 pound whole lobster, a corn on the cobb, fries, and a drink, all for under $13. And, we did the math, figured we had the perfect amount of time, and decided to go for it!
The trip was just lovely. Elana has a massive collection of CD's, including most of the They Might Be Giants albums. We listened to almost all of them, as we had recently seen their new movie, "Gigantic", together. We did see one oddity on the way up. The above photo was taken on I-684, and is apparently what happens to a carnival in transit. Weird!
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THIS IS WHERE THE BLACKOUT OF 2003 OCCURRED. WHERE WAS I? I WAS SITTING HERE, WORKING ON THIS PAGE ON THIS WEBSITE!!!! [YES I HAD A 2-MONTH BACKLOG OF PAGES TO POST, AS THE BLACKOUT OCCURRED ON AUGUST 14, 2003.] TO SEE THE BLACKOUT PHOTOS, FOLLOW THIS LINK.
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This is the tent next to Stew Leonard's' big super-grocery store in Danbury, where we eat our lobster, as often as possible.
Here is Elana in front of the sign showing the Lobster Combo. This is why we had made the trip!
If you love lobster like we do, this is a beautiful picture.
Lobster makes us silly. More than usual. They're just so... fun! And you can EAT them!
Elana likes to get to know her lobster before ingestion.
And when it was all over, this is what was left. The cob but no corn. The cup but no soda. The catsup, but no fries. The shell, but no meat.
We had a little more time after eating, so, of course, we went into the store. It's how they "get" you. They sell us lobster for near cost, and then, we go shopping, and spend lots more money than they could have made on lobster.
Stew Leonard's is hard to describe. It's as unique as Costco or price club. It has one aisle that snakes through the entire store instead of multiple aisles in rows. This way, like a rat in a maze, you pass EVERYTHING. And, along the way, there are various animated creatures singing and dancing. These characters might take the form of milk cartons, chickens laying eggs, or even the Cheetos Cheetah. Some displays are interactive, giving the supermarket a little bit of a Disneyland feel. Click HERE to see Elana interacting with one of these characters.
They have specialty counters for everything, including fish, meat, sushi, buffet, cheese, you name it. This is the meat counter, where they cut the meat for you.
Every few months, I see something that breaks my brain. Something that changes the way I look at the universe and my place in it. This squeezable peanut butter definitely qualifies. Amazing. Just amazing.
We pay for our things. I bought some sushi seaweed, some cotton candy in a plastic container, amazing Stew Leonard's freshly squeezed orange juice, and some banana chips. I enjoyed all of these things on the way back to West Haverstraw. Along the way, we saw a beautiful waterfall in the side of a very strange hill. I suspect we were looking at some of New York City's Aqueduct/Reservoir system. The hill and the waterfall looked strangely man made, and they came out of nowhere. Elana and I screamed "Woah!" and then "Take a picture, quick" and "Allright, allright, I'm working on it!." This is the best shot I got. It was huge and weird. It is possibly a facility that aerates the drinking water, which New York City gets from natural and man made reservoirs this far north of the city.
Realizing that we had come the long way, we decided to go back on a more direct route, generally following Route 6 across the Bear Mountain Bridge, and going down Route 9A to West Haverstraw. The map above shows the return trip. Point "A' on the map, is where we decided to take the "shortcut." Point "B" is the approximate location of the waterfall. Point "C" is about where Elana says "Um... oh shit. I think we're out of gas." I look over, and the needle is teetering on empty. A pleasant drive suddenly becomes a cold sweat. We're entering Bear Mountain park, we are about to go over the bridge, and there are no towns, nor gas stations in sight. The yellow box is where the Bear Mountain Bridge is. In terms of Hudson River crossings, after the George Washington, going north from the city, it's the Tappan Zee, and then the Bear Mountain. We're just about 40 miles from the Statue of Liberty here. It wasn't until we hit point "D" that we found a gas station!!!
Approaching the Bear Mountain Bridge in the beautiful Hudson River Valley. At this point, it's parkland on both sides.
When you first see the Bear Mountain, you think it's far in the distance. At least, I did. I'm used to suspension bridges being HUGE. The George Washington was the longest in the World in 1931. The Verrazano Narrows was the longest when it was built in the 1960's. The Brooklyn Bridge was the longest in the 1880's. This city has BIG bridges. And so, this bridge looks far away, because you assume it is just as big. But all of a sudden, you turn a corner, and you're on it. And it's like a mini-suspension bridge. At least... to me. The views were amazing, though.
We made it back to the retreat with a half hour to spare. We played cards, drank orange juice, and ate banana chips. Then we went back into the building. On the wall, they have an interesting tile mosaic. From far away, it looks like:
Some dude.
We left the equipment in the conference room where the lectures were taking place.
An hour later, we were out of there, and back in the car. My chauffer awaits.
The Fishbeins were nice enough to invite me out to a lovely Indian-food dinner upon our return. Unfortunately, the place they had in mind in Hackensack was closed on Mondays. So here we are, on the main street of town, trying to decide what to do, as I have a second horrible allergy attack that almost seals my eyes shut. We decide on another Indian place across the street, which was quite nice. No pictures though. I couldn't see.
My allergies subsided, finally. We finished dinner. And we went back to Elana's house. At one point, Elana's Father, who is quite a juggler, gets out his batons. He demonstrated a few things for me, and asked me to videotape it so he could see what it looks like. Click on the above photo to see that movie. Elana's Dad JUGGLING!
Finally, I retired to the guest bedroom, which just happened to be outfitted with an old Nintendo game console. I played Mario Bros. into the evening, conquering level after level of my childhood. What a great day! Tomorrow is exactly the same work schedule. What should we do?