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| From left to Right- Yoakum, me, Ryan, and Bub |
Plans for the trip
- An 18 hole golf excursion at Bethpage Black in Long Island, New York- One of the best (and hardest) public golf courses in the U.S. and site of the 2002 and 2009 US Open
- A trip into New York City
- A three day concert series headlined by the Dave Matthews Band in Atlantic City, New Jersey
- Three nights at the Borgata Hotel with a massive casino on the bottom floor.
The plan was to leave Wednesday morning about 7 am, less than 40 hours after getting home from the US Open. In order to secure a tee time at Bethpage Black for Thursday morning, we had to do it in an unusual fashion. Bethpage is a famous public course and they don't accept tee times more than two days in advance, so we had to call an automated system on Tuesday night. (And supposedly the phone lines are a madhouse when they open up.) Ryan, Yoakum and I met to call- the phone lines opened at 7 pm, but we started calling at 6:58, and the system was fairly complicated, you had to push like 7 different numbers. After mass confusion and a few obscenities towards each other while trying to call, Ryan ended up getting the tee time for 10 am on Thursday morning. (Somehow all 3 of us made it through to the automated system, which caused chaos.) The conversation went something like this.
Ryan: "I GOT IT!"
Me: "I'm through, should I stay on the...."
Ryan: "Shut up, I can't hear"
Yoakum: "Hey! I got through, what time did we want again."
Ryan: "Be Quiet! I can't hear what the voice is saying"
Me: "So..... I can hang up now?"
Yoakum: "Guys, I made it through, do I keep going."
Ryan: "What the hell, I can't hear, quit talking"
Me: "So..... It's cool if I hang up?"
Yoakum: "I hung up, you better get it Ryan"
Ryan: "If you would quit screaming I would be able to hear"
Me: "Uhhh guys, can I hang up the phone yet?"
So needless to say, we made it through. The plan was to stay at my house on Tuesday night before we left on Wednesday morning. Ryan and Yoakum arrived at my house about 11 pm, shortly after Bub. Yoakum claims he has a proposal for me.... I said, "Man, I don't even care what it is, I'm in." So the U.S. men's soccer team was playing in the Gold Cup semi-finals on Wednesday night and we wanted to get to New York City to watch it. How do we accomplish that? Well, by leaving at 2 am on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I packed my bag that hadn't been touched yet 10 minutes, we collectively packed the car, and we were on the way. We had a 2 night reservation in Long Island, New York and then a 3 night stay in Atlantic City. 13 hour drives really aren't that fun after hour 2 to be honest but with 4 capable drivers, it shouldn't be too bad switching off drivers the whole way. I drove the first 3 hour shift from 2 am to 5 am. Yoakum drove the next shift from 5 am to 2:55 pm and Ryan finished us off.... by driving from 2:55 pm to 3 pm, and Bub slept for about 7 hours. Yoakum just didn't have it in him to finish the trip off. Just kidding Yoakum. Somehow the GPS took us through New York City to get to Long Island and Yoakum claimed it was the worst hour and a half of his life. (And he almost nailed a lady on a bike driving through the city.) After 3 or 4 stops and a hellacious of a drive, we arrived in Long Island.
After checking into our somewhat sketchy motel (Yes, a motel) we decided to ride the train from Long Island to New York City on Wednesday night to see a few things and watch the soccer game. (Anytime you see people paying for a room with cash, you might be staying in a sketchy place.) We walked around the city for a little while and checked out the people walking around. I haven't been to NYC in 5 plus years but I sure didn't remember all the different groups of people living there. (NYC is less than 50% white and over 150 different languages are spoken, at least according to Wikipedia.) Ryan then lost a bet to Yoakum (A hot dog) over which building was the Empire State Building, which provided some good trash talking for the next 30 minutes. After this we found the soccer bar where we wanted to watch the game, realized we had an hour to kill, and then took a cab down to ground Zero. To think that two planes were hijacked, ran into two of the tallest buildings in the U.S. is pretty mind-blowing, but I don't need to say anymore, we all know the story. The area was all blocked off while the Freedom Tower is being constructed, along with a 9/11 memorial. It was hard to fathom that multiple 80 plus story buildings were once there. The area didn't have a crazy feeling to it, but with the huge cranes everywhere and hundreds of people around, what can you expect. The Freedom Tower was about half constructed and there was a picture of what it's supposed to look like in the area- pretty awesome.
After that, we went over to Wall Street and saw the legal gambling area..... oh I mean the New York Stock Exchange. Even if our bank accounts were rocked and the economy tanked in part because of some irresponsible people here, the street was pretty cool. No cars were allowed on the street and the area had a certain feeling to it, like the feeling that shit goes down here. We were there after 5 pm when the Stock Market closes, so who knows what it is like in the daytime. It was here where George Washington took the oath to become the first president of the United States and this is where the financial capital of the United States is. You better believe some powerful people walk around here in the daytime.
The soccer game was too much fun and the U.S. won 1-0. The place went absolutely nuts when we scored. One of the cool things about U.S. soccer is it is one of the only sporting events in the country where everyone is pretty much rooting for the same team. This is one of most famous soccer bars in the United States and had a great atmosphere.
We awoke Thursday bright and early to play Bethpage Black. Our tee time was for 10 am, but we arrived about 8:45. The last thing we wanted to do was miss our tee time or have something mixed up. Bub and I caught a bad-ass breakfast before we played and we wandered around the Pro-Shop and the clubhouse for a few minutes before teeing off. There aren't golf carts allowed on the course, so we decided to carry the bags ourselves. The golf course itself measures over 7,000 yards and this doesn't include walking from the green of one hole to the tee box on the next hole. (A mile is 1,760 yards so we walked about 5 miles with golf bags on a hilly course, not the easiest thing in the world.) Ryan decided to try the championship tees, while Bub, Yoakum and I played from the white tees.
The course was nice- really hard, with bunkers everywhere and impossible rough to hit out of, but we had a blast playing. In the words of Ryan, "Every hole was memorable." We both went to the US Open the week before and agreed that Bethpage Black trumped Congressional Country Clubhouse hands down. But hey, for a million bucks you can play Congressional.... oh, if you're invited. Bub ended up hitting about half his shots from bunkers and Yoakum might have assaulted someone on the golf course after hitting out the rough. I ended up shooting 103 and can claim that it didn't take me more than one shot to get out of any bunker. Plus, I didn't hit a single fairway bunker, which seemed like a miracle given the course. Ryan took the cake though, he shot a solid 85 and has about 35 years before he is eligible to play on the Senior PGA Tour, his golfing goal. (To put things in perspective, Ryan shoots about even par on normal golf course. Here he shot 14 over par.) It was supposed to rain in the afternoon, but it ended up just being cloudy and in the low 70s the whole round. We didn't feel a drop of rain and ended up with amazing golf weather. Hey, it was just meant to be.
After the round, we recovered at the hotel and then went to a sports bar to watch the NBA draft, where Kyrie Irving from Duke was drafted first. (I am a die hard Duke basketball fan, but no one from NC State should judge me for it.) Sitting around a few minutes, we spotted a New York Mets game on tv only in the 1st inning. Yoakum and Ryan checked the surrounding area before we left Marion to see if there were any baseball games during our trip but found nothing. We all thought they made a mistake so we debated whether to go or not. Our thoughts, "Hey the Mets play in Queens, we can make it in 30 minutes and catch 6 or 7 innings. So we hop and the car and speed off to the game. I pull up the score on my Blackberry in route to the game to find out how the game is going and if we were missing anything exciting. The score comes up and..... the game is over? Heeeyyyyy, wait a minute, were we watching a replay of the game? Yep, we sure were. Good thing for smart phones. We had a pretty good laugh about it once we figured it out..... I almost wish we had made it all the way to the game though. The rest of the night consisted of putt-putt, batting cages, Chinese food, and an invasion of Canada. Okay okay, that hasn't happened yet.
Oh and on a side note, who is in charge of the roads and tolls in New Jersey. We had to pass $13 to cross a bridge in New Jersey and ended up paying about $40 total to drive in New Jersey. Plus, the toll lines had no order to it... there was complete chaos. There were no lanes drawn on the road once we neared the toll station and people were crossing over 5 lanes to get in the lane that best suited them. New Jersey, what the hell are you doing? Whoever designed that should be fired. Sorry for the rant, but it was the tolls were a little outrageous.
The next morning we checked out of the Sketchasaurus Rex motel and headed for Atlantic City. A 3 hour ride from Long Island to Atlantic City and then we officially check in for the weekend at the Borgata Hotel. (Dave Matthews Band were also staying there.)
We put $25 apiece into the roulette pool and decide to take our chances on red to start the weekend. 2 minutes later, we are out $100 total. This should have been a sign. We took our chances at BlackJack, and found a $10 minimum table that had 4 seats open. I ended up winning about $300, Bub and Yoakum ended up even, and Ryan hit the Jackpot on side bet and won about $350. (In BlackJack, your two cards are face up, while the dealer has one card face up. You could make a side bet whether the dealer's card would be in between yours and got different payouts for how many numbers there were between the cards- but if your two cards and the dealer's card were all the same, you got 30-1 odds.... Ryan hit this within 30 minutes of playing.) Maybe this was a good omen for the weekend, or maybe we used all of our luck in the first 30 minutes of the trip.
We headed out to the concert site on an old military base to see the Dave Matthews Band play on Friday night. Luckily, we bought a package that included free transportation back and forth from our hotel to the concerts. There were 3 stages set up on the site and there were bands from 1 pm to 11 pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but we only cared to see a few bands. Bub and I checked out the Flaming Lips (Crazy name, but cool music) before DMB and then walked over to the other stage shortly after. We all agreed that the first night was the least exciting of the 3 main shows, but still a fun time. For any DMB fans, some personal favorites from night one- You Might Die Trying, Satellite, Cornbread, Jimi Thing into Sexy Mfers, and Crash. We regrouped in the hotel after the concert, and decided to hit the casino again. (Like there was a 2nd option for the night) Night one did not go as well, as Ryan and I were back to even and Bub and Yoakum took a plunge into the red. Ryan and I met a gunslinger at the BlackJack tables. We will simply remember him as that guy with the backwards hat screaming at the dealer. He got up to $3,200 and then proceeded to lose it all in a span of 5 hands. This was at a $10 minimum table too. Man, was this guy pissed.
Day 2
We woke up, went to eat McDonalds and then to get some drinks at the store instead of paying $10 for a beer at the concert. This took longer than expected and we missed most of the Dave and Tim show that are usually really good. (Sorry Ryan and Yoakum. Bub said he would take all the blame for that one.) We hit the casino again in the late afternoon (See a theme here) where I won $300 in the span of about 30 minutes. We took the bus back to the concert to see OAR at 7 and then DMB at 8:15. OAR was awesome- they played Night Shift, 52-50, and Crazy Game of Poker to name a few. DMB night 2 was much better than night 1. Some highlights- Crush (My all-time favorite Dave song), Gravedigger, Dancing Nancies, Everyday (with Vusi Mahasela), #41, and Two Step with Damien Marley, a great finish. There isn't much to say about night 2 in the casino. Ryan and I walked away losers and made it to bed after the sun came up. What an awful combination.
Great Atmosphere, and how can you not like Vusi, he was having so much fun
Day 3
On one end of the spectrum, Sunday was the best day at the concerts. Bub and I watched Bass Nectar, a DJ mixing songs with a lot of bass that was nothing but fun, and then over to DMB. Bub claimed we had to check out this guy, and he didn't dissapoint. Try jumping up and down for an hour and see if you have fun, it's hard not to.
Bass Nectar
Dave played the best concert in recent memory and ended with a bang.
Highlights
Warehouse, So Much to Say, One Sweet World, Raven, Granny, Lying in the Hands of God, Watchtower, Halloween, Ants Marching and Thank you for Letting me be Myself.
In the encore the crowd started chanting for Halloween, a fan favorite, and the band huddled for a second and clearly changed their plans. They played Halloween and then Ants Marching- their trademark song and then went into Thank you for letting me be Myself. The crowd sang this one for 5 or 6 verses and then everyone was singing it on the way out, 10 minutes after the concert ended.
Halloween into Ants Marching (About 2 min in)
And then there is the other end of the spectrum, the casino. All of us didn't even come close to winning. You know, it's like the casino has better odds than the players do. What a minute, is that how they make money? We met a guy in his late 20s on Sunday night playing $1,000 hands at a $5 minimum table where we were playing. This guy was either crazy or a pathological liar, or maybe both. He provided us with a few good laughs but in the end, we all lost our money. On Sunday night, the legend of Herminia was born. She was a Hispanic dealer at the BlackJack table and spoke broken English. None of us actually remember what she looked like and she is like this mythical creature a week later. She took every chip we had and had trouble pronouncing numbers too, so you almost had to count your cards to make sure she was telling the truth. Herminia roams the Borgota casino floor as almost a ghost-like creature and takes your chips, so if we ever make it back to Atlantic City, we will hunt her down.
So we all walked back to the hotel room on Sunday night feeling down (No pun intended) and decided to catch a few hours of sleep before the long ride home. Dad, I know you would have won all of our money back for us and more and showed us a thing or two in the casino. (The gambling gene was definitely passed from father to son) We departed Atlantic City about 11 am and arrived home about 10 pm on Monday night. Any flight or ride somewhere is much more exciting than the ride home because about halfway home, the minutes seem to drag by and you just want to get home by that point. Besides getting rocked at the casino, we had a blast, and I hope we sent Ryan out in style. His wedding date is July 30th and I'm honored to be in it.
Next up is a trip to Washington D.C. starting next Thursday. After that Ryan's wedding, and then the big road trip. Thanks for anyone reads my posts, because without you guys, I am basically writing a journal to myself. If you have any suggestions of places in the United States to visit on the road trip, let me know, I want to visit as many cool places as possible. Other than California, I haven't been further than Wisconsin and Texas in the United States so the western part of the U.S. is not my area of expertise. (Wait a minute, do I have an area of expertise?) So long for now and stay tuned for D.C.
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| Freedom Tower on the left |
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| What it's supposed to look like |
After that, we went over to Wall Street and saw the legal gambling area..... oh I mean the New York Stock Exchange. Even if our bank accounts were rocked and the economy tanked in part because of some irresponsible people here, the street was pretty cool. No cars were allowed on the street and the area had a certain feeling to it, like the feeling that shit goes down here. We were there after 5 pm when the Stock Market closes, so who knows what it is like in the daytime. It was here where George Washington took the oath to become the first president of the United States and this is where the financial capital of the United States is. You better believe some powerful people walk around here in the daytime.
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| New York Stock Exchange |
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| Site of G.W. Oath |
The soccer game was too much fun and the U.S. won 1-0. The place went absolutely nuts when we scored. One of the cool things about U.S. soccer is it is one of the only sporting events in the country where everyone is pretty much rooting for the same team. This is one of most famous soccer bars in the United States and had a great atmosphere.
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| Nevada Smith's Soccer Bar |
We awoke Thursday bright and early to play Bethpage Black. Our tee time was for 10 am, but we arrived about 8:45. The last thing we wanted to do was miss our tee time or have something mixed up. Bub and I caught a bad-ass breakfast before we played and we wandered around the Pro-Shop and the clubhouse for a few minutes before teeing off. There aren't golf carts allowed on the course, so we decided to carry the bags ourselves. The golf course itself measures over 7,000 yards and this doesn't include walking from the green of one hole to the tee box on the next hole. (A mile is 1,760 yards so we walked about 5 miles with golf bags on a hilly course, not the easiest thing in the world.) Ryan decided to try the championship tees, while Bub, Yoakum and I played from the white tees.
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| Bub and the warning off the first tee. He looks startled |
The course was nice- really hard, with bunkers everywhere and impossible rough to hit out of, but we had a blast playing. In the words of Ryan, "Every hole was memorable." We both went to the US Open the week before and agreed that Bethpage Black trumped Congressional Country Clubhouse hands down. But hey, for a million bucks you can play Congressional.... oh, if you're invited. Bub ended up hitting about half his shots from bunkers and Yoakum might have assaulted someone on the golf course after hitting out the rough. I ended up shooting 103 and can claim that it didn't take me more than one shot to get out of any bunker. Plus, I didn't hit a single fairway bunker, which seemed like a miracle given the course. Ryan took the cake though, he shot a solid 85 and has about 35 years before he is eligible to play on the Senior PGA Tour, his golfing goal. (To put things in perspective, Ryan shoots about even par on normal golf course. Here he shot 14 over par.) It was supposed to rain in the afternoon, but it ended up just being cloudy and in the low 70s the whole round. We didn't feel a drop of rain and ended up with amazing golf weather. Hey, it was just meant to be.
After the round, we recovered at the hotel and then went to a sports bar to watch the NBA draft, where Kyrie Irving from Duke was drafted first. (I am a die hard Duke basketball fan, but no one from NC State should judge me for it.) Sitting around a few minutes, we spotted a New York Mets game on tv only in the 1st inning. Yoakum and Ryan checked the surrounding area before we left Marion to see if there were any baseball games during our trip but found nothing. We all thought they made a mistake so we debated whether to go or not. Our thoughts, "Hey the Mets play in Queens, we can make it in 30 minutes and catch 6 or 7 innings. So we hop and the car and speed off to the game. I pull up the score on my Blackberry in route to the game to find out how the game is going and if we were missing anything exciting. The score comes up and..... the game is over? Heeeyyyyy, wait a minute, were we watching a replay of the game? Yep, we sure were. Good thing for smart phones. We had a pretty good laugh about it once we figured it out..... I almost wish we had made it all the way to the game though. The rest of the night consisted of putt-putt, batting cages, Chinese food, and an invasion of Canada. Okay okay, that hasn't happened yet.
Oh and on a side note, who is in charge of the roads and tolls in New Jersey. We had to pass $13 to cross a bridge in New Jersey and ended up paying about $40 total to drive in New Jersey. Plus, the toll lines had no order to it... there was complete chaos. There were no lanes drawn on the road once we neared the toll station and people were crossing over 5 lanes to get in the lane that best suited them. New Jersey, what the hell are you doing? Whoever designed that should be fired. Sorry for the rant, but it was the tolls were a little outrageous.
The next morning we checked out of the Sketchasaurus Rex motel and headed for Atlantic City. A 3 hour ride from Long Island to Atlantic City and then we officially check in for the weekend at the Borgata Hotel. (Dave Matthews Band were also staying there.)
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| Our hotel, the Borgata |
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| The View from the Borgata |
We put $25 apiece into the roulette pool and decide to take our chances on red to start the weekend. 2 minutes later, we are out $100 total. This should have been a sign. We took our chances at BlackJack, and found a $10 minimum table that had 4 seats open. I ended up winning about $300, Bub and Yoakum ended up even, and Ryan hit the Jackpot on side bet and won about $350. (In BlackJack, your two cards are face up, while the dealer has one card face up. You could make a side bet whether the dealer's card would be in between yours and got different payouts for how many numbers there were between the cards- but if your two cards and the dealer's card were all the same, you got 30-1 odds.... Ryan hit this within 30 minutes of playing.) Maybe this was a good omen for the weekend, or maybe we used all of our luck in the first 30 minutes of the trip.
We headed out to the concert site on an old military base to see the Dave Matthews Band play on Friday night. Luckily, we bought a package that included free transportation back and forth from our hotel to the concerts. There were 3 stages set up on the site and there were bands from 1 pm to 11 pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but we only cared to see a few bands. Bub and I checked out the Flaming Lips (Crazy name, but cool music) before DMB and then walked over to the other stage shortly after. We all agreed that the first night was the least exciting of the 3 main shows, but still a fun time. For any DMB fans, some personal favorites from night one- You Might Die Trying, Satellite, Cornbread, Jimi Thing into Sexy Mfers, and Crash. We regrouped in the hotel after the concert, and decided to hit the casino again. (Like there was a 2nd option for the night) Night one did not go as well, as Ryan and I were back to even and Bub and Yoakum took a plunge into the red. Ryan and I met a gunslinger at the BlackJack tables. We will simply remember him as that guy with the backwards hat screaming at the dealer. He got up to $3,200 and then proceeded to lose it all in a span of 5 hands. This was at a $10 minimum table too. Man, was this guy pissed.
Day 2
We woke up, went to eat McDonalds and then to get some drinks at the store instead of paying $10 for a beer at the concert. This took longer than expected and we missed most of the Dave and Tim show that are usually really good. (Sorry Ryan and Yoakum. Bub said he would take all the blame for that one.) We hit the casino again in the late afternoon (See a theme here) where I won $300 in the span of about 30 minutes. We took the bus back to the concert to see OAR at 7 and then DMB at 8:15. OAR was awesome- they played Night Shift, 52-50, and Crazy Game of Poker to name a few. DMB night 2 was much better than night 1. Some highlights- Crush (My all-time favorite Dave song), Gravedigger, Dancing Nancies, Everyday (with Vusi Mahasela), #41, and Two Step with Damien Marley, a great finish. There isn't much to say about night 2 in the casino. Ryan and I walked away losers and made it to bed after the sun came up. What an awful combination.
Great Atmosphere, and how can you not like Vusi, he was having so much fun
Day 3
On one end of the spectrum, Sunday was the best day at the concerts. Bub and I watched Bass Nectar, a DJ mixing songs with a lot of bass that was nothing but fun, and then over to DMB. Bub claimed we had to check out this guy, and he didn't dissapoint. Try jumping up and down for an hour and see if you have fun, it's hard not to.
Bass Nectar
Dave played the best concert in recent memory and ended with a bang.
Highlights
Warehouse, So Much to Say, One Sweet World, Raven, Granny, Lying in the Hands of God, Watchtower, Halloween, Ants Marching and Thank you for Letting me be Myself.
In the encore the crowd started chanting for Halloween, a fan favorite, and the band huddled for a second and clearly changed their plans. They played Halloween and then Ants Marching- their trademark song and then went into Thank you for letting me be Myself. The crowd sang this one for 5 or 6 verses and then everyone was singing it on the way out, 10 minutes after the concert ended.
Halloween into Ants Marching (About 2 min in)
And then there is the other end of the spectrum, the casino. All of us didn't even come close to winning. You know, it's like the casino has better odds than the players do. What a minute, is that how they make money? We met a guy in his late 20s on Sunday night playing $1,000 hands at a $5 minimum table where we were playing. This guy was either crazy or a pathological liar, or maybe both. He provided us with a few good laughs but in the end, we all lost our money. On Sunday night, the legend of Herminia was born. She was a Hispanic dealer at the BlackJack table and spoke broken English. None of us actually remember what she looked like and she is like this mythical creature a week later. She took every chip we had and had trouble pronouncing numbers too, so you almost had to count your cards to make sure she was telling the truth. Herminia roams the Borgota casino floor as almost a ghost-like creature and takes your chips, so if we ever make it back to Atlantic City, we will hunt her down.
So we all walked back to the hotel room on Sunday night feeling down (No pun intended) and decided to catch a few hours of sleep before the long ride home. Dad, I know you would have won all of our money back for us and more and showed us a thing or two in the casino. (The gambling gene was definitely passed from father to son) We departed Atlantic City about 11 am and arrived home about 10 pm on Monday night. Any flight or ride somewhere is much more exciting than the ride home because about halfway home, the minutes seem to drag by and you just want to get home by that point. Besides getting rocked at the casino, we had a blast, and I hope we sent Ryan out in style. His wedding date is July 30th and I'm honored to be in it.
Next up is a trip to Washington D.C. starting next Thursday. After that Ryan's wedding, and then the big road trip. Thanks for anyone reads my posts, because without you guys, I am basically writing a journal to myself. If you have any suggestions of places in the United States to visit on the road trip, let me know, I want to visit as many cool places as possible. Other than California, I haven't been further than Wisconsin and Texas in the United States so the western part of the U.S. is not my area of expertise. (Wait a minute, do I have an area of expertise?) So long for now and stay tuned for D.C.
NICE POST!!!! Enjoyed it!
ReplyDeletei've really enjoyed reading your posts! keep up the good work, cant wait to hear whats next!
ReplyDeletei want more pictures of Bethpage!!! Oh, and post up the D.C. trip so that you don't get really behind once the road trip starts
ReplyDelete