NY/NJ Drinking Expedition

“Hey Everyone, have a great time toasting the tenacious travelor of Trail Talk! Please raise a glass for me in my absence, and remember...

Don't Do Drudge!”

“LOL

You are very welcome...”

“lol.....now she get it. Adventurist, you prev. Whats wrong with you....lol Why is your mind in the gutter?”

“A big thank you, NE TT clan, for a very fun evening last night, and thanks also for the beer and presents. :-) I was very glad to get together with y'all again before I ship out. I'll be up to visit and plan to move up to the-place-that-must-not-be-named (I don't want to jinx it) once I'm done with school. So, this is not goodbye, just a see you later. :-)

You guys are the best!”

“Had a great time!

Hope to see all of you again soon.

Enjoyed drinking motor oil...”

“68 miles to the Holland Tunnel - one hour.

Getting through the Tunnel - 45 minutes.

Finding the Chelsea Brewery - 15 minutes.

Finding a place to park - one hour.

Keeping your sanity driving in Manhatten - priceless impossible!

Swilling beer and sharing good times with this clan - priceless.

I'll hike naked up Mt Washington in winter before I'll drive in Manhatten again, but I had a great time with these nuts. We closed the place up!

Beforehand, Treebeard had rescued me by finding me a parking spot behind his car, assuring me it was ok to park there. Well, for some reason they left mine alone but towed Treebeard's car. Five of us (Geobeet, Cynthia, Treebeard, Mapleleaf and I) crammed into my pickup truck to find the tow pound. I think it cost $200 to get his car back. What an adventure!

How about a nice quiet town in Pa for the next fiesta?”

“After we left we decided on taking a couple of loops through the city to get through the Lincon Tunnel because the sign would point to the Lincon Tunnel but then that way would be blocked off....then we would see another sign and it would take us to the same damn blocked off part!!!

So then we had to take the Bus/Truck entrance. Atleast have a freak'n sign saying that!!!”

“Pictures!

Here are some pictures. I'm not happy with the way they turned out... I should of atleast had people look at the camera I guess.”

“200 BUCKS?

That's like three packs of Marlboro Lights, eh?


Sounds like you guys had a great time. Except for the driving, LOL”

“Always a blast with the NE Crew!”

“I kinda like the candid shots, m'self.

You can't get good pics for blackmail if you have everyone stop and say "cheese", LOL”

“Eek! Sorry to hear treebeard's car got towed. 200 bucks, wowsers! :-(”

“Looks like you all had a good time. Wish we could hae made it. 200 bucks, man does that suck. Not to rub any salt in, but just think of how much gear you could have bought with that. Well, not much if your Pennsy, but for the normal person......”

“Should come to Chicago, the tow would have been only $150! :-)”

“Uh oh.... no word from the Tree people. Do you think Maple mouthed off to NYPD and got them all a special suite for the night?

Hey, I like those pics! Quality is not a high priority when you're trying to capture people acting stupid.”

“What do you think of my enlargement of the Crazed Lunatic?”

“I thought that was his normal pose. I've seen him much loonier. ;o)”

“Why should a nice evening like that end on such a mundane note like,"everyone goes home happy and secure without any extraordinary circumstances." Well, I didn't disappoint. As stated above, Maple and I took Geo and Cindy on (pick up Rod Serling voice here) an unexpected turn, on an unanticipated detour right through the heart of "The Twilight Zone." I started driving in this city in 1972 and have never had a car towed in all that time. Oh, well, there's a first time for everything. Broke a good streak though. Frankly, I am glad I didn't have to eat my words about parking there because Pennsy's car was towed. He never would have let me live that one down. If it had to be one of us, glad it was me and not you, Penns. Anyway, it was $185 dollars to be exact. But, the one thing that I found surprising in that journey into neverland was the general mood of that place. Like I said, I have never had the pleasure of that process before, so I could only imagine what it's like at the 'auto jail.' I expected seething, pissed off people wearing holes in the carpet and punching walls. Instead, and parallel to Geo's observation about the whole event being out of a Seinfeld episode, we took a turn right into the 'Bizarro' world. All those pissed off people I imagined, had generally calm dispositions, including myself. We even took pictures and had some other folks laughing along with us. Hey, what's the point of getting all bent out of shape? Not going to change anything. They didn't keep us waiting too long and the process wasn't especially grueling. Of course, this was extremely expensive entertainment for Geo and Cindy. Well, we could have spent the same on Broadway for entertainment, but they are on strike and there are no shows, so I took them to the 'car pokey' instead. Now, when all was said and done, one of the NYPD traffic guys took me on a tram out through aisles and aisles of cars. I saw that all of them were made to look nice and uniform by the careful placement of that traffic ticket (accompanied by that ever present orange and white envelope) tucked ever so cozily under the windshield wiper blade. I asked the guy how much my ticket would be and, after telling him the circumstances, said $105.00. I said to him, "with a spread like this, how can you guys be broke?" He laughed and said, "hey man, I didnt't get a raise, yada , yada... He told me that if I can find some way to get the ticket suspended, that the money for the tow would be reimbursed also. I am not positive, but I think there may have been a mistake in the way the ticket was written. I am going to drive by tomorrow and check the signs on the street and, if they don't jive, maybe I have a case. One other point, when we found the car missing, they wrote the phone number of the pound next to where the car was in the snow.

It would be fair to mention the reasain we were out there to begin with. Maple and I brought Geo and Cindy to the Chelsea Brewery to meet up with the Adventurists, Corp Nasty, Twinkle Toes and PennsyHiker (who obviously wants nothing more in life than to drive a cab in New York City) to send Artex off to Florida with a bang. My only regret is that I didn't get to show him the auto pound last night.”

“sounds like a good time.”

“It was, Tea. Despite the unwanted expense...”

“I was thinking how senfield like that insident was as I was sitting on the thrown. Good thing it wasn't penny who got towed, you would have felt like mondo-#&%!$. Anyway, it reminded me of the episoned when crammer tells george to park in the handicapt space and when they get back there is a huge mob tearing georges car apart. That the episode with the Drake.”

“Yes, Tea. Great one! Also reminded me of the one where Kramer was parking his car at a garage on 12th Ave. that was using the cars they parked for hookers to go out in. Maybe because the pound is also on 12th Ave...”

“another great one..”

“I had a wonderful time with you guys on Friday. It was a blast getting to see the familiar faces again and also getting to meet some new people - Cynthia and Geo. Hope to spend some BP'ing time with you in the near future!

PS - Artex, you will be greatly missed but wish you the best in Fl.!”

“Ah, to live in NYC!”

“Treebeard said - I am going to drive by tomorrow and check the signs on the street and, if they don't jive, maybe I have a case.

Just watch where you park. You've heard of deja vu?

You might be right about me wanting to be a NYC cabbie. I'm qualified: I cursed, beeped for no reason, took several illegal turns, and gave several waves with one finger.

Good luck getting the ticket suspended. I can't believe the $185 tow didn't cover the ticket. YIKES!!”

“They didn't swipe your sleds, did they?”

“Just got back to Virginia. It sure was great to meet y'all. I had never been to NY, and this is definately a trip to remember. The Brewery was fun, but I gotta tell ya, the car impound place was a high point of the trip. I felt as if I had stepped onto the stage of sitcom, and Maple was the director. Where she doesn't find humor, she creates it.

Geo and I spent the night at the Tree House and the tree people were wonderful hosts. Thanks you guys!

Hope to hike with y'all some day.”

“Penns, glad you managed to have a good time anyway. Sorry about any mishaps that caused you any grief. Circumstances did get a little 'over the top' that night, I guess. Didn't get a chance to go back over there today to check the signs. Will do it soom. And, BTW, I am not parking and leaving the car. Just getting out to read them and take pics of them.

Cynthia, thank you for your kind words. It was a pleasure to have you folks and we will see you on the trail sometime. You can bet on that...”

“Good to see old friends again and meet new ones. The Trees were wonderful hosts, and what happened at the car lot was just an extension of their wonderful, whacky personalities. What can I say? See my review.

Artex's Farewell was bittersweet. He's embarking on a new adventure in life and I wish him the very best. But it was sad that he will be leaving the area. Stay on the board, my friend, and make it back this way for hikes as often as possible. I figure you probably bugged out because my leg healed and you're afraid I'll show you up on the trail!

Thanks, Maple and Tree, for your wonderful hospitality, and for the guided tour as well. We really did see other parts of Manhattan, including a drive past Ground Zero, still a place that gives pause even though the site has been cleaned up and fenced off.

For those who do not know it, the Trees, in the aftermath of 9-11, gave freely of their time, volunteering to provide assistance to emergency workers. We all have our fun with New Yorkers, but my hat will always be off to not only those who died there, but the way New Yorkers responded to that tragedy. The Trees personify that reaction. It was something larger than patriotism or jingoism, it was a labor of love and caring, of reaching out in a time of crisis to do what had to be done in any way they could help.”

“Thanks for the kind words, Geo! I'll definitely be on this board quite often still, and I'll definitely be coming up y'alls way to get my mountain fixes. :-)”

“Thank you, Geo. Those words mean an awful lot. You are a true gentleman.”

“No, thank you!”

“The raspberry beer was gooooooooood.”

“...We had technical difficulties with the presentation of the pix. Thank you for standing by.

Here is the Chelsea Brewery part of the evening:

part1”

“wassup Stu! The link's not working right, it says I'm not the owner of the album...”

“You're not, you friggin' thief!”

“I will rework it, man. How are ya, anyway. Let's get together soon, ok?”

“doing good, how's the family?
We should celebrate the start of spring with some more drinking, I think. Oh yeah, and maybe some of this backpacking stuff I've heard about.”

“sounds good. Family's fine. We went on a trip with the cub scouts today. Will post some cool stuff about that for tomorrow. Yes, a change of season is more than ample reason to go out and drink. We can hike to the bar together. Oh, you mean real backpacking..”

“Try this link! You can also get a gander at the expensive parrt of the evening...

pictures”

“Ha ha ha, funny captions! Great pics, I miss you guys. :-)”

“How the heck are you supposed to give them your registration and insurance info if its in the car???”

“Tell it to the judge!”

“Miss ya too, Arty. Glad I finally got those posted... Going to attempt to get out of the ticket this week.

Advent, good question. One thing that worried me was that I didn't have my updated insurance card in the car. It was at home. Iwasa hoping that they wouldn't ask for it because when I called them, they said I needed it. I was going to use that it was in the glove compartment as an excuse, but they never asked, so i didn't tell...”

“Definitely an outstanding tour of the Big Apple.

Go get 'em treebeard. Tell 'em they presented an embarassment to two people who had come to the Big Apple to see the sites and all they saw was the impoundment lot. Don't tell 'em we had a great time there.

One suggestion, they could at least offer beer and wine at the impoundment lot.”

“lol, Geo. I'll tell Maple to talk to that lady whe took the pictures with. Maybe she can 'do her a solid.'”

“Do her a solid?

gee your staring to sound like twignut!!


LOL i love the pic of cindie and geo. wanted sings. to funny!”

“Yeah, I emailed it to her. She thought it was a gas too.”