Christina and Robert's Cross-Country Trip: Story and Pictures
This is our Honeymoon Journal: A Diary of People, Places, and Food Across the Country. It was Robert's idea to keep a journal to remember all the things we did and places we saw, and I think that someday these notes will be helpful for our travel book series called In The Shade Of A Truck--A Dim Sum and Ice Cream Tour Of North America (better said with a Boston accent, of course). The first draft of this web-essay was written on a Palm Pilot Personal in the car while driving cross-country; the photos were either taken with an Apple QuickTake 200 or else a Kodak disposable camera and then scanned in when we got to Los Angeles.
So, since the honeymoon begins right after the wedding, I'll start there. On 6/20, after the wedding reception we went back to College Point to change and load up the car, and then met Ben, MokYoung, Bernie, and Stu at the Whitestone Lanes (open 24 hours) to bowl one game. They had already started when we got there, so we went up to the counter and asked to join their lane. Although not wearing our new Nike matching his and hers sneakers, we were wearing our "Just Married" (or so we like to think of them) 1998 Colorado All-star game caps from Asma when I asked the guy, "Excuse me, do you have a 'Just Married' discount?" "You didn't just get married!" the guy scoffed. "Really, we did--we just went home to change. That's why those guys over there are bowling in suits, and why one of the names on the automatic scoring is 'Best Man'!" we said. That was Ben's, of course, but actually, Bernie's also said "Good Man," although that seemed way too complicated to go into just then. "You just got married--and you came BOWLING?" he asked incredulously. "Yes," we said. "Well--I'll give you your shoes free," he said, seeming to think that we made up a good story more than anything else. After that, Robert bowled one string, beating everyone with a 130, and then we said our good-byes and went to the LaGuardia Sheraton East off of Main St., Flushing. (All the out of town guests were staying at the Marriot on Ditmars by LaGuardia airport.)
We had a really nice suite there, and then the next morning at 11 we ate at the hotel's special all you can eat Father's Day buffet. The buffet was incredible--for $26 you got a made to order omelet bar, juices, coffee, sodas, and freely poured champagne (we made many mimosas), soups, prime rib, ham, shrimp cocktail, lox, bagels, bialys, California rolls, vegetable maki, lobster with ginger and scallion (it was basically a Chinese hotel), crab, Peking duck carved and rolled fresh, half a dozen Chinese dishes, including more shrimp, scallops, noodles, and rice, oysters on the half shell, lots of fresh fruit, Chinese pastries, and many kinds of cake. I ate mainly lobster and duck, while trying some of almost everything. It was truly a feast.
Then we went back to College Point once more to drop off some stuff and say good-bye and pick up the last two pieces of leftover wedding cake to eat in the car, and we drove up to Boston that afternoon. We left Boston Wednesday 6/24 after picking up Robert's computer and other stuff and repacking the trunk of the car. We drove through heavy rain till we spent the night near Syracuse, where we got a suite for the same price as our discount coupon room, just for asking.