Haywire Honeymoon 2

The same night as our unforgettable root beer float Seth and I walked down old 66, through the town we were staying in. If you've ever seen the movie "Cars" that is exactly what it was like. It was a neat experience.

The next morning we got up and kept trucking north. I don't know if any of you have ever been to New Mexico but it is one of the prettiest of the 50 states. The rock formations are beautiful and they're different colors! Not the normal old gray rocks but they're light pink and white and a clayish orange. It's an awesome state to drive through. Don't stop to use the restroom though!!! Seth had to stop, I was smart and waited in the car. When he came back out he was a funny shade of gray and green. He said that people didn't bother to even use the toilet...there were piles in the bathroom. He laid off the soda for the rest of the way through NM.

We finally got to our cabin in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It was about midnight and so black you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Seth, my brave husband got out and walked around looking for the key to the cabin. It was supposed to be in a box under a rock, behind a tree, next to a mushroom that the fairies put there. Seth had a tiny flash light and went on his magical hunt. He finally found the key and we pulled our tired bodies into the house. It was an amazing cabin. It was 1600 square feet, fully furnished and well decorated. It wasn't rustic at all, it was fantastically amazing and so beautiful. It had a wood floor, stone fire place, a fully stocked kitchen, and the biggest shower I'd ever seen. The shower had individual shower heads with their own temp controls! I wanted to take the shower home with me. After we explored the house we went to bed. When we got up the next morning I looked out the huge glass windows and I thought I was looking at a panoramic picture. One hundred feet from the front porch was the Rio Grande River and it was bubbling at the base of a mountain peak that was gold and pink in the morning sun. It was breath taking. What was even more breath taking was the 400,000 signs posted everywhere. Please do not leave trash out, the bears will get into it. Beware of Bears. Bear Crossing. Do not pet baby Bears! My husband had been crawling around in the dark with 20 bears watching...I just know it. Thank goodness he smelled like a bear himself from traveling or they might have thought he was a tasty morsel! There were also signs for wolves and moose, and Seth wanted to go hiking! Not in this life time. I looked out my picture window, drank hot chocolate and left the wildlife in peace. =D

We stayed in that cabin a week. For all my teasing, I really had an amazing honeymoon. I got do so many things and I had fun through ALL of it, even the weird parts. We're about to get into the REALLY weird part so hang on...

The next part of our honeymoon was a surprise. Seth wouldn't tell me anything except we were going to Chicago. We drove ALL night to get there. I say we loosely. Seth kept me awake with his snoring. When we got to Chicago we met up with our friend Matt (from the beginning of the story.) He was a resident in the city of Chicago. We left our vehicle at his place and put our luggage in his truck and we started driving. I had no idea where we were going or WHY we were driving with Matt. I was so tired from my sleepless night that I fell asleep and woke up at Chicago O'Hare. Seth had bought us tickets to NY! We settled on the plane and in no time had landed in the city that never sleeps. We got our rental car and we drove to Ellis Island parking. We viewed the statue of Liberty and other Ellis Island attractions. I'd been there before but Seth hadn't. It was a FUN thing to do on your honeymoon! We finished touring about 3 and decided to drive down to Washington. I can remember what day this was because we planned on going to church in DC. We used our GPS to get us into the main flow of traffic. Only problem was, it didn't FLOW for very long. There is something wrong with New Yorkers. The have the impression that if you blow your horn a gridlocked traffic pattern will suddenly disappear. We got stuck in traffic. We watched the SAME light change 180 times. It was unreal. And the WHOLE time we sat there every horn, except ours, was blaring! Seth and I were so tired we fell asleep! BOTH of us! When the honking got more frantic (if that's possible) we'd crack an eye and move up the inch that had been created. Or we'd TRY to move up that inch but usually some crazy taxi driver had his leg stuck out of his door trying to get into that spot. They are the wildest drivers I've ever seen, and I've been a LOT of places. When we'd been at that light for 3 hours I was SO hungry and thirsty. There were vendors on the side walks but I just KNEW if I got out that the traffic would start to actually for REAL move. I couldn't handle it anymore. Three hours in the sun and I had to have something to drink. So, I got out of the car and walked over to a vendor. Seth wanted 2 hot dogs so I ordered those the way he wanted them. The guy was putting on the mustard when TRAFFIC STARTED TO MOVE! I grabbed Seth's dogs, and one drink, threw a $20 at the vendor and took of running like a mad woman. I was hollering WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT and Seth has his head out the window hollering, you can make it! Faster! Just a little more! Mustard is slapping me in the face and horns are screaming. I made a flying leap and landed next to the car. I threw Seth the soda and yanked open the door and flung myself into the seat. And traffic stopped. I think that hot dog vendor did have the ONE magic horn in all of NY. He must've blown it so I wouldn't have time to get my change. And then he made the traffic stop just has I made my very unlady-like plunge into the car, just for a laugh. I don't like hot dog vendors.

We finally made it to DC about midnight (should've been there about 5) We fell into bed and didn't wake up until 10 the next morning (thursday). I love Washington. It is an amazing city. I've been there 5 times but it never gets old. Seth and I went to many of the museums and walked down Independence Ave. It was so much fun!
We stayed the night again and spent most of Friday in even more museums. On Thursday we had parked 2 miles out of DC and had to walk in. Friday Seth decided he'd park in a parking garage. So, we did and we had a wonderful day, except for lunch. I LOVE Mexican food and there aren't any Mexican places where we live in MI. So, Seth decided to treat me to authentic Mexican food. He typed what we wanted into the GPS and followed the directions. We pull up to our destination...the doors were swinging plywood and I think I saw a chicken or two hopping around. I was scared but didn't want to complain. We walked in and our eyes had a hard time adjusting to the dim lighting. When they finally started to focus I saw a LONG counter with stools all up against it, and the REALLY weird thing was the floor was carpet except on the left there was a huge wooden area with a shiny ball over it. The lady at the counter asked us in broken English if we'd like a drink. Seth asked if they were serving lunch. "Lunch?" She said "We don't serve lunch. This is a bar. The restaurant is next door." Seth took me to my first bar. (He's taken me to another one since...but that's a whole different but just as crazy story) The restaurant was scary. The waitress didn't speak any English. For drinks I went up the fountain and pointed to the one I wanted. They didn't offer soda. It looked like pink lemonade. It wasn't. It was a weird grapefruit thing. Very nasty. I was hoping the food would be better. I tried to order off the Spanish menu. Burrito isn't hard to read. I didn't know what the sauce was. I don't think they did either. I think the cook borrowed some tar from somewhere and mixed in the chili powder and called it good. It was thick and black and oh so very gross. Seth and I both tried to eat it. He didn't want to offend me and my Mexican tastes. I didn't want to offend him because he had just spent $30 on tar. Finally I looked at him and said "Seth, I can't eat it." He said, "Oh thank the Lord, me either! Let's go!" We went to Burger King. Good old burger, fry and shake.

To end the day we went to the IMAX theater. The show ended at 9PM and we went to get find our car. We were going to drive back to NY, spend the night and then fly out the next morning to Chicago. Small problem. We couldn't find our car. We looked for an hour. We had the NAME of our parking garage but come to find out it was like saying, Hey, do you know where Burger King is? There were a million parking garages with that name around DC. We asked locals, we even asked some foot patrol cops. They didn't know, but they did warn us to not take the next street. There were hookers there. Seth put his arm around me and said, "That's okay, she'll protect me." The cop said, "She'd better, because they're not female..."
It was about 11pm and we saw a cop in a car. We walked up to him and Seth a bright idea. When we walked out of the garage Seth had taken a picture of the Capitol. Our camera was dying but with it's last breath it showed the cop the angle we had parked at. Brave little camera. GLORY TO GOD the cop recognized it! He told us how to get there. We were SO excited and TIRED! We'd had nothing to eat since lunch that day and nothing to drink either. We left the very helpful cop and it was a 10 minute walk to our car. We found the garage! But, it was locked. Did you know parking garages have closing times? Yeah, me either. They had closed at 7pm. Our RENTAL car (and keys, they took our keys for whatever reason) and all our luggage was in that car. Seth and I didn't know what to do. The parking garage was attached to a tall building with lots of windows. Probably an office building we were thinking. We went and banged on the doors. Finally we called the cops. A cop came out and she looked at the building with us. She helped us bang on the door some more. Finally a security guard from the next building walked over. He was a tall black man and very very nice. His news wasn't so nice though. The garage we had parked in was federal building's garage. They let the public use it but it follows the federal's schedule. Not too bad, it'll open for work the next morning, right? Wrong. It was memorial day weekend. They wouldn't open until Tuesday. Our rental car was due at 10 the next morning. Our flight left at 10:30 AM! Tuesday was FOUR DAYS away! The cop left and the security guard took us to the grass patch in front of their building. They were going to make some phone calls for us. I sat down in the grass. It felt so good. It was 12 AM by now and I was so tired and hungry and thirsty. The second security guard stuck her head out of the door and said "I wouldn't sit in that grass if I wuz you. There be some big rats in there." I started laughing, and then crying then laughing again. Could it get worse? The security guards finally took pity and let us into their building. They had a drink machine. I think we drank every can left in it. Those security guards were so kind and did everything they could but they couldn't get hold of anyone. Seth and I went back outside and we were staring at the building when we saw a well dressed young man coming up to the door of the building that was holding our car prisoner. HE WORKED THERE! We told him our trouble and he said he could get us into the garage no problem! Our prayers were answered. (It's now 1AM) This guy was REALLY nice but you could tell he was um...well, he like men. Anyway, he took us through the federal building and down into the garage. His HUMMER was parked there. We saw our lonely little car but the KEYS weren't with it. There was a little office space in the garage. The keys must be in there. Seth and this nice guy picked the lock! We got into the office and no keys. We did find a number to some guy who might be able to help us. We called it and I don't think he was happy to be bothered that time of the morning. He said call again around 8AM. Nice hummer guy offered to give us a ride to our hotel. We told him where we were staying. He said, "Oh, you can't stay there, that's ghetto! (it wasn't) He took us down town DC. The hotels there are really high price. Believe it or not where we'd been staying for $60 a night was MUCH nicer than where he took us. It was in a great neighborhood but it cost $400 for that night. And they didn't even have toothbrushes! We thanked Mr. Hummer man and fell asleep in our clothes.

The next morning (Saturday) we called and rescheduled our flight for later that day. We walked back to the parking garage and called Mr. Parking Garage man. He said he'd come down with our keys in an hour. Three hours later he come SLOWLY walking up. He handed us our keys and turned around to leave. We were like SIR! Our car?? He said, I can't get you in there. It's federal building! AG! Last night we had got in. We had our car but no keys. NOW we have keys but no car!! We went through the same dance we had the night before. Beat on the door, call the cops. The security guards from the night before were gone, but the second shift stuck their heads out the door. "Hey, you two the honeymooners from last night? We heard all 'bout y'all." As Seth was talking to them I walked around the back of the building. There was an old grumpy janitor getting into his truck. I ran up to him and told him our plight. He told me without permission he couldn't get me in there. I asked if a security guard would be enough permission. He said it would but he wasn't gonna wait for me to go find one. Right then Seth and one of the guards walked around the corner. We were saved! The grumpy janitor let us in AND we had our keys. We jumped in our car and drove off waving to the nice guard. We'd already missed one flight and we were rushing to make it to the second. We made it to the airport, dropped off the car and ran to the counter. We missed our flight by five minutes. The lady was nice and didn't make us repurchase the tickets, we just had to pay an adjustment fee. So, our flight was leaving the next morning. We still hadn't eaten ANYthing since the day before. So we walked to a hotel and ordered NY pizza. Little slices of heaven. =D It was a nice relaxing evening. We made our flight the next day and our very crazy NY/DC trip was finished. It was a trip we'll never forget. I doubt the security guards will either. =D

We stayed a week at a cabin in MI to rest from our NY trip, and then we started life. It is a fun, crazy, weird but amazing life with my Seth.