V.C, CA New Jersey Trip Report Vol. 1

Part One of my incredibly long and probably very boring trip report detailing my trip to the Garden State.

New Jersey Trip Report



Day 1

Well, I set my alarm for 5:00, and promptly overslept by 15 minutes. No biggie though, as I was ready to go well before the airport shuttle picked myself and my grandfather up at 6:15. The ride to the airport was surprisingly fast, and we arrived at the Continental Airlines terminal at 7:00. We checked in at the curb, and then preceded through security. Now, let me go off on a tangent here. This was my first time flying since September 11th, so I was eager to see if I spotted any obvious increases in security. Surprisingly, the only real difference I spotted was the nice, orderly lines, and the big signs saying the objects your not allowed to bring on a plane. Seeing this, I promptly ditched my carry-on bag full of tear gas and mace into a nearby planter.

Alright, back to the main story. We got through security without any problems, and headed to terminal 64 to wait the further hour and forty-five minutes until our 9:00am departure. I had brought two books to enjoy on this trip, Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk, and Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakaur. I began reading Lullaby as we waited at the gate, and being the rabid Palahniuk fan I am, quickly ate through the first hundred pages in no time at all. If you haven?t yet embraced the unique writing style of Chuck Palahniuk, get out to your local book store and buy Fight Club or Survivor. We boarded the plane at 8:25, and headed to our seats. The plane was a Boeing 737, which is just about all most airline companies use anymore, so that means it is two rows of three seats each. We were in 19C and 19B, which are the middle and aisle seats respectfully. I was on the aisle, and a very nice middle-aged woman was in the window seat next to my grandfather. We departed five minutes early, and were at cruising altitude in about fifteen minutes. The flight was pretty uneventful. I finished Lullaby with about an hour left to go in the flight, and spent that hour recovering from the greatness that is Palahniuk. We had to detour south over the Midwest, to avoid a rather large thunderstorm, so that delayed our arrival in Newark by about a half hour.

After we landed, we met my dad and his girlfriend at baggage claim, and then went to dinner at the world-famous (well, county famous) Kenilworth Diner. The food was great as always. Then, we dropped my grandpa off at my great-uncle?s house, and we headed to my dad?s. I unpacked, and spent the rest of the night trying to play Galaxies on my dad?s P3 700mHz computer that has 160MB or RAM. I did discover Digital Llama Radio though, which kept me company until I went to bed at 6:00am EDT. So ended Day 1.

Day 2

Ok, I ended up not going to sleep until 6:00am, for some odd reason. I woke up at about 3:30pm, which was just in time to watch some T.V., check my email, and then head over to my grandmother?s house for about ten minutes. I came back, and we had dinner at around 6:00. After dinner, I plopped down in front of the T.V., and watched most of Clue. Great acting by Tim Curry as always. I went with my dad to his fire house meeting at 7:30, which actually had a rather large attendance because this was their last meeting before the annual Fireman?s Carnival. It was cool to see all the guys I saw when I came here in 2000. It rained constantly, all day, only stopping for around 10 minutes right as the meeting got out. It wasn?t a light rain either, which made me happy. With that, came an end to the rather short and boring Day 2.

Day 3

I went to bed two hours earlier, and awoke two hours earlier, so I am slowly getting used to the time change. My major event for today was that my grandma was coming over for dinner with her cousin Gunther, who was visiting from Germany. They arrived at about 6:15, and we sat down to a very nice dinner. They stayed and chatted until 9:00, and then I headed down into the office and my d

 

Woah, sounds like you're having fun!

Edit: Truth: didn't read it. :/

Edit x2: From what I skimmed though, it does look like you're at least entertaining yourself...and now I don't feel so bad that no one replied to my vacation thread!