A Typical Family Vacation

Every family has their own little funny stories surrounding vacations. Most families have places where they go every year, and certain traditions are created. Well, my family has vacation traditions, but they don't result from going to the same place every year. In fact, we don't usually go on vacations. When I was younger we used to go camping, and it would always rain. Guaranteed. Even if there was a 0% chance of rain. Finally one year we got smart enough to stay in a cabin. It still rained, and the bugs decided to hang out in our room.



There was one family vacation, a few years ago, that will never be forgotten. It involved The Adler. It looked like a great hotel online. Well, those pictures were at least 25 years old. There was no curtain on the window in the bathroom. The shower didn't work. Neither did the air conditioning. To top it all off, there were sulfur springs nearby. Ever since then, we rate hotels in comparison to The Adler. No matter how bad they've been (and the band trips, yeah, we've had some bad oens), they've not come close to that one.

Well, now we've got some new family memories. Actually, more like father-daughter memories. My mom was at a nursing conference, so my dad and I were left to fend for ourselves and find our own entertainment. Apparently we have the ability to not find ANY main roads when we go out traveling. After going down a variety of roads, Dad headed towards the business district. It was one street. Where they had a jail and a juevinelle detention facility. That was a little weird. We then headed off to a Shaker community. It was supposed to be some historical site. On the way there, we saw a rundown building called "nursing home laundry facility". There was no way it should have been in operation, yet tehre was still smoke coming from it. We drove into the Shaker community. I guess at one time it was something of a working farm. Now it's just a bunch of abandoned buildings because the foundation only had enough money to restore one of them. While driving around the community, we came across the "Ann Lee Nursing Home", persumabley the nursing home that uses the "nursing home laundry facility". Talk about CREPPY!!!! It was a huge building that definately looked like it had been abandoned. Yet there was still one main light on inside. When I got back to the hotel, I googled it. It was stilli n operation as of 2004. As by the looks of the laundry facility, it still is. There is no way anyone should be there. Oh, and they were cited for unnecessary use of physical restraints with patients. I now called it the creepy should-be abandoned nursing home. So traveling to another part of town, we almost got lost after we went past the arsenal and army barracks. And we went past a palce called "Rapid Park". And it even looked the part. So by the time we made it back to the hotel, I was sufficiently creeped out. Then my parent's bathroom had a leak int he ceiling, which they fixed, but of course it came back the next day. Not to mention the torrential rainstorms that cancelled our evening activity - going to see West Side Story in the park. The plan was to go the next night instead.

Thursday was SO MUCH BETTER. Dad and I spent at least 3 hours in the New York State Museum, which was very cool. Then we went to the Corning tower, and went up the 41 floors (via elevator, of course) and the view was AMAZING. Then we wandered around the Empire State Plaza for a bit before heading back to the hotel. We went out for dinner, then went to see the performance of "West Side Story". It was held in an ampitheater out in the park. It was so beyond amazing. This was no community production. 99% of the people are/have majored in music theater. It completely blew me away. The dancing by the guys alone was very cool. Another neat efect was ahving the pit backstage, so you didn't ahve any of those annoying pit lights to distract you. You got compeltely pulled into the drama of the show. Then, because it's free to the public (we had reserved seats, which cost 10 bucks) they performed during intermission. It was a medly of broadway songs that they parodied, to the effect of "please give us donations". It included a tap dance number. Depending on how much you gave, you could even get a t-shirt, which I did. And they the cast signed it, which was awesome. That day ended up being amazing.

Today was the last day, which was actually only a hlaf day. We went to IHoP for breakfast and then went tothe hot tub and pool. After that we checked out and headed home!

Highlight of the trip: West Side Story
Lowlight of the trip: The rain on Wednesday

I'm glad to be back home now, but it was fun. Now I just have to get my sleep cycle back in order.