Day 5: Major League Baseball Trip

DATE: Thursday, September 6, 2013. Day 5.
LOCATION: From Cleveland to 235 35th Street, Manhattan, New York City

Today was a travel day - no baseball game. We left Cleveland at 8 AM and drove all day on I-80 across Pennsylvania to NY City. At 12:30 we stopped in a little town named Snow Fall, PA  to get gas, food and beer. We wanted to stock up on beer as we felt it would be a lot more expensive in NYC. Pennsylvania has some weird and different laws in regard to selling alcoholic beverages. You can only get beer in one building and you have to go to another building to get wine or hard liquor. We finally found the beer store - it was an old garage. The garage was full of  cases and 12 packs of beer - cold or warm. The price for a 30 pack of Busch Light was $21.00 - the same as what I pay at Wal-Mart in Anamosa.

Anyway, we had a good laugh when we left with our purchases. Greeting us when we walked in the beer garage was a 35-40 year-old-man sitting in his recliner with a sleeveless sweat shirt, his arms up and around the back of his head, armpits on display with  6 inch long hair,  his big gut hanging low and legs spread. He looked to be a smelly mass of cells. He didn't look too ambitious as he never moved nor did he offer to help us find what we wanted. He just sat there. The lady at the cash register looked a little more with it. She was nice and could talk - she apologized for the credit card machine not working so we had to pay cash. We asked where the wine/liquor store was - she directed us down the street - Brad wanted to buy some wine. When we got there it was closed.  I guess they aren't very serious about making money from wine or liquor.

After getting gas and food we took off and started talking about the beer guy sitting in his garage.. Brad suggested we nickname him Billy Bob. We kind of felt that he probably moved off his recliner a couple times a year - most likely for deer hunting  and  pheasant hunting. We brought up Billy Bob's name many times on the rest of our trip. As the days rolled by we kept wondering if Billy Bob had moved off his recliner. And we wondered how Billy Bob would've handled NYC.

We arrived on the outskirts of NYC in midafternoon. Brad and John were the navigators (along with the GPS). They decided that the best way to get into Manhattan was to take the Lincoln Tunnel instead of the George Washington Bridge. It took us close 45-60 minutes to get through the Tunnel - it was rush hour and traffic was heavy. John had used his time share points to get us a hotel in downtown Manhattan - it was the Wingate Hotel (by Windham) located at 235 35th street. It was about 4-5 blocks from Times Square. We finally found it about 5:30 - unloaded our stuff - got to our room. John asked where he had to park the car so he followed their directions and drove several blocks to a parking ramp. When he returned we were all ready to enjoy our first night in the BIG APPLE.

We were lucky because across the street was an establishment  named "JACK DOYLE'S IRISH PUB." Brad had arranged to meet one of his ex-colleagues at Jack's Pub. Her name was Karen and she was from Boston. She was in Manhattan training some French employees of Loreal Cosmetics. They had been sent to NYC from France to work for Loreal - she was training them on how to adjust to American culture and American ways of doing business. We had a wonderful evening with Karen - she is a delightful person, very intelligent, good sense of humor, asks questions instead of talking all the time and actually listens when you answer - she makes you feel good just to be around her.

The price of food and beer at Jack Doyle's was very reasonable - maybe not Anamosa prices but comparable to Cedar Rapids. John and I went back to the hotel at 11:15.  We left Brad and Karen there and I guess they closed the place down. John and I stayed outside the hotel and had a smoke. That's when we met Andrew and Liz from Australia. They were taking a 3-month trip around the U.S. Very interesting people - he gave me his email address. I haven't contacted them yet.

John and I hit the sack about 12:30. I was excited about the next 5 days. Our presence at Jack Doyle's Irish Pub would be a daily ritual over the next four days.