DAY ONE - May 22, 2004

Day One of the trip started out with an ever-so-slight hangover from spending most of the night before alone and drinking beer. I woke up at 9am and proceeded to take a shower and get ready for anything. I cleaned myself to a T and got a bunch of little things ready even though I had packed most of what I needed the night before. I drove over to Norwich to meet up with Martin and he wasn't even close to ready. One of his friends took us to Utica where our trip would be starting. Martin got the tickets and told me of the conversation he had with the ticket agent when he came back out. Apparently the ticket agent asked about our final destination and Martin had answered "Well, here", of course completely confusing the agent. About an hour after we got there the bus arrived, an Adirondack Trailways bus.

That first leg of the trip was pleasant, but Martin and I had both seen all this before, so I spent time listening to music and Martin spent time writing. We skirted past Albany and Martin and I disagreed on whether or not we were seeing the Catskills. They actually played a movie on this trip ("Mona Lisa Smile") but it looked like a chick flick so I was not interested and opted to listen to music.

About ten miles outside of New York City the land assumed urban sprawl formation and Martin and I decided to read signs to keep ourselves interested. We saw the New York City skyline soon after and Martin went through the Lincoln Tunnel for the first time ever.

Port Authority was a mess and the line to get on the bus to Florida was almost over the limit. The bus has a 55-person capacity and Martin and I were numbers 48 and 49. We sat together again among a very noisy bus full of window squeaks, crying children, someone right behind us singing to his walkman, and two French-Canadian guys speaking French very loudly until 2am. There was a lady in thee two seats across from us who had a child who was very ill-behaved, but not as ill-behaved as her. She would dangle sugar-loaded treats in front of his face and tell him he wasn't getting them, she was going to eat it all herself because he was being bad. Needless to say we did not get much sleep that night, but I got to see some pretty amazing sights for the first time, including the industrial sprawl of Newark, New Jersey and the Oranges and also driving right through the middle of Washington, DC where we saw such famous sights as the Capital building, the Washington Monument, and the Pentagon. I tried to make a joke to Martin ("See how one side of the Pentagon looks like it's sagging?") but he didn't get it. We both fell asleep soon after and that ended Day One.