Honeymoons
Honeymoons have a sketchy history. It used to mean
that the groom would kidnap the bride and then get her drunk on honey flavored
wine, called mead, for a month. The grooms hope was, that in that month, she'd
get knocked up and he could take her proudly back to his village. I guess they
never heard of fetal alcohol syndrome. It doesn't say what the bride might have
been thinking, but it was 433 A.D., and the feminist movement was still pretty
young.
Our honeymoon was pretty straight forward. We were
broke. We had enough money to get where we were going and back provided there
were no "surprises". Where we were going was Niagara Falls. I know, cliché, but we certainly couldn't afford to go to the
Bahamas!
We drove DeWitte's Grand Prix, which was
sketchy. That thing was in such bad shape that, today, I wouldn't drive it
around the block, let alone all the way to Canada. (Incidentally, that car
finally bit the dust when we were driving down the road and DeWitte said "If
one more thing breaks on this car, that's it!". His words were still in a
cartoon bubble hanging over his head when the alternator belt broke. I laughed
until I cried and then we bought a new car.) Anyway, it was the only car we had,
so that's the one we took.
It started out nice. We packed up a bunch of
sandwiches and hit the road. Our first stop was DC. We took turns taking
pictures of each other holding the Washington Monument in our hands (it's a
perspective thing, stand far enough away and hold your hand palm up and you can
hold it in your hand.). Next we headed to Hershey PA. Rip off! The park might
have been fun, but we couldn't afford that. We took the tour of the actual
chocolate bar factory. Let me tell you, it was no Willy Wonka!
On we traveled. Somewhere in the mountains of PA,
at a turkey restaurant, the thermostat on the car punked out. It would over heat
about once an hour. To protect your engine, when your car is over heating, your
supposed to turn on the heater, full blast. If it was December, I'd say
great but in the middle of August, it's rough. As a matter of fact, I highly
recommend this as the torture of choice for the person that you hate the
most.
We gathered up a couple gallon sized water bottles
and continued on, stopping to put water in the radiator when the gauge got too
high. Somewhere in New York we stopped at an auto place to get a new thermostat.
Unfortunately, we didn't have the right tools for the job. That and even sitting
on top of the engine, I couldn't get a good enough reach (yes, this was a joint
project). We tried a sealant but all that did was make a mess, that stuff is
gooey. My biggest fear was, if something horrible happened, like the engine
froze up, how would we get home? I imagine a taxi ride from NY to VA would be
pretty pricey.
Finally, we made it to Niagara Falls. We parked the
car and forgot about it. We didn't have to drive, so might as well have a good
time. And we did. The first bit of fun was our motel room. Like I said, we were
broke. We got a room in some seedy little place that was in our price range.
That room was so small you had to climb over the bed to get to the bathroom. It
had a water bed, too. DeWitte weighed about 200 lb.'s more than I did. I'd lay
down on the bed and he'd lay down next to me, sending me up onto a sort of water
bed mountain. He'd get up and send me flying to the earth so fast that I was
thankful I don't get sea sick. A roller coaster couldn't have been more
fun.
We kicked back and relaxed and then it was time to
come home. What started as stopping once an hour, turned into once ever forty
five min., then once every half hour and by the time we got home, once every 15
min. We collected more and more gallon jugs. We tried to stop in well lit areas,
like gas stations. Not only could we refill the radiator, but we could refill
our jugs with water.
It wasn't always possible to stop in well lit
areas, though. There are long spans of nothingness between NY and here.
Sometimes we just had to stop, no matter where we were. Once we stopped in the
middle of nowhere and a nice family stopped to see if we needed any help. They
earned a huge amount of karma points for that one. We could have been serial
killers for all they knew. Another time we stopped by a prison. We spooked
ourselves out talking about escaped convicts. I guess one could have
high jacked our car, but they wouldn't have gotten very far. The scariest place
we stopped, though, was near a red neck bar at closing time. You sure got a
pretty mouth! I'd rather stop during a riot than at a red neck bar after midnight.
The thing that sticks out the most, though, is even
with all that stress, from money and car issues, we didn't fight! It took us
four years to get married. I'd been married once and didn't want to make the
same mistake twice, but that's when I knew. If we could survive that without
taking it out on each other, I'd definitely made the right choice.
Comments
When we returned home, the car sat at the apartment lot for about six months. When we finally fixed it, it was only a broken hose on the heater - but it spewed hot steam right at the thermostat - go figure. Something about hearing "Yee Ha!" at 1am still makes me shiver. I certainly like our 'easy going' nature - it makes life a lot more enjoyable!
You have your system and you're happy.
Even though I've heard this story before, I still CRACKED UP laughing outloud. Funny funny stuff. "You sure got a pretty mouth!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
And yeah - I'd say ya'll are pretty perfect for each other.
i somehow pictured you still in your wedding dress sitting atop the engine attempting to access the thermostat. i blinked and realized you'd probably changed your clothes.
then again, the story is even funnier if i visualize y'all in your wedding dress and tux the whole time.
fat people on a waterbed. comedy doesn't reach a higher pinnacle than that.
you shore have a pretty mouth.......