Tourist Turmoil
Tags: New York City, Funny Stuff, Statue Of Liberty, Humorous, Humour

Tourist Turmoil

I was still living in Ohio, as was most of my immediate family. My younger sister Gina had entered the Coast Guard and was stationed in New Jersey, an eight hour drive away.

I decided to drive to New Jersey to visit my sister and her husband for a long weekend. I took our mother and my youngest sister Laura along for the trip. Several hours into the trip, we were coming up on Hershey, Pennsylvania, the site of the Hershey Chocolate Company.

I am no fan of long car rides, and driving is even worse, but the fun is when we decide to stop somewhere ‘just because it is near’ and seems interesting. We all decided to go see the Hershey Park, and we had some lunch and got back into the car to finish our trip to New Jersey. My mother had bought some very sweet cookies and handed them out.

I love cookies, but I only had one, which was probably a good thing. My mother and Laura each had two cookies and in no time at all, they were slumped in their seats in some kind of a comatose state!

I was driving along, feeling a little bit drowsy myself, and wondering what the heck was in those cookies! My two travel companions were sound asleep for at least an hour!

Soon, we reached Gina’s house in New Jersey and over dinner, we planned our trip. They lived halfway between Atlantic City to the south and New York City to the north. We decided to visit both places, starting with New York the next day. I had made this same trip by myself five months before this trip, so I had already been to both places.

New York was the biggest city I had ever been to, and I could not understand how people wanted to live there. I could never live in such a busy, sprawling urban place. But then, I am pretty sure most New Yorkers could never live in the very rural place in Texas that I now call home.

The next day was Saturday, and we got up early and after breakfast, headed into the city. It was the same noisy place I had remembered. This trip was going to be even more fun though, because we were going to see things I did not get to visit on my last trip.

We went to the Empire State Building, the longest elevator ride I had ever taken. We could see for miles and miles from up there, and it was neat seeing Central Park, the only green in the maze of never ending buildings.

After we visited that landmark, we were going to visit Chinatown. Gina and James, living so close to New York City, were much more familiar with how to get around there than us three tourists.

Gina and James decided that we needed to take a bus to wherever we were going. We had long since left their car on Governor’s Island, a military place where my sister was authorized to park, because she was a Coastie.

The five of us stood at the bus stop, waiting for whatever bus we were to board, when Gina and James, conversing between themselves, suddenly thought it a better idea to take the subway.

The subway? There had been a murder on the subway in New York City just the week before, of an unfortunate tourist, and it had become sensationalized news throughout the nation. But, my sister assured me we would be safe.

We all took off, following them to the subway. We took the steps down into the tunnel when suddenly, Gina turned and said with complete horror, “Oh no! Where’s Mom?”

I turned around, everyone else in the group being in front of me, and I did not see our mother! Oh great! I was worried about getting killed on the subway and here we were ditching our mother in the middle of busy New York City!

This was before everyone carried cell phones, so how the heck would we ever find her? At least we did not lose her in the subway, so maybe she would not get killed at the bus stop!

This was starting to feel like an episode of the ‘Beverly Hillbillies Visit Manhattan’! I mean, who goes to New York City and loses their mother?

We raced the two blocks back to the bus stop and there Mom was standing, waiting for a bus, completely oblivious to the fact that we had ever abandoned her. At least she didn’t get killed.

This trip was fun, but starting to get just a little dramatic. I mean, what else could possibly happen just from trying to do a little sightseeing?

We then went to the Statue of Liberty, the highlight of the whole trip. I could not wait to go there! We had to take a ferry boat over to Ellis Island, the island where the statue stands. When we got off the boat, we decided to stop for a late lunch of fish and chips.

We were just finishing up our lunch when we saw the ferry boat heading back in with more people.

“We’ve got to hurry!” our mother implored. “Look at all those people coming! Let’s get to the statue before it gets crowded!”

And with that, she threw her now empty plate and cup into the trash bin and took off running. I knew she was just being silly, having some fun, and the rest of us quickly followed.

Mom kept running, the rest of us trotting not far behind. When she came up on the grassy area that is surrounded by a cement wall of about two feet, she took a hop up onto the grass, somehow missed and next thing I knew, she was laying in the grass. I knew she was not hurt. She was always energetic and young, and I could see she was laughing. I busted out laughing.

My sister Gina completely freaked out. I guess she thought Mom was dead or something.

“OH MY GOD! MOM! MOM!” she screamed.

I was thinking maybe it was a good thing my sister had not become a first responder. I mean there wasn’t any blood or anything, and she just completely lost it. Mom was just laying there, laughing quietly.

Well that just made me laugh all the harder. I looked up and Laura was nearby, laughing as well, and poor James, my sister’s husband, was standing around with a look of embarrassment on his face like he was thinking ‘I don’t know these people…..’

Our mother sat up and I knew for sure that she was not hurt. At this point, everybody was laughing, and I just could not stop laughing. I saw a man walk by, holding the hands of two toddlers. He was trying to cover his face, not wanting us to see him laughing, but his hands were holding the hands of the toddlers. This made me laugh all the more.

We had a fun weekend, but my mother falling at the statue of liberty was the most memorable part for me.