Epic Journey

Have you ever had those moments when you figured nothing else could possibly go wrong?

In celebration of July 4th, my family and I decided to head to Warren, New Jersey in order to visit my godparents. Since my godparents just bought a new $1.2 million dollar house of ridiculous proportions, I figured this was one trip I was truly excited to make. Even though I only slept between the hours of 4 AM to 8 AM, departing early in the morning was not too much of a hassle for me.

Time passed. The day went by at my godparents' place with ease and enjoyability. I spent time with my five year old godbrother and his little elementary school pals, played with their Wii, and had some great food from the barbeque. But once it struck 9 PM and our departure time arrived, this was when the Independence Day nightmare began.

The trip back was fairly straighforward for the first hour. As soon as we got off the George Washington Bridge, however, the family car decided to kill itself and shut the engine down completely. At first, we figured maybe the motor oil needed changing. It was just a hunch. But because we were literally halted dead in the middle of a lane, doing anything was an issue.

Like normal people with traffic problems, we decided to request some aid from AAA. As if our problems weren't enough, a short-handed AAA (because of the holiday) could not make the trip. This was after over an hour of waiting for a tow truck. Meanwhile, some shady guy from the opposite side of I95 decided to waltz over to our car and push it across the highway onto a shoulder. Holy. Crap. With speeding cars next to us, we figured either the shady guy was going to get run over or our car will be totaled in a matter of seconds. Instead, nothing happened and the shady guy left us to wait for AAA. Guardian angel in the disguise of a bum-shady-man? Maybe.

So. Departed New Jersey around 9 PM. Estimated arrival time on Long Island was about 11 PM. Because of the car death and failed AAA, the time hit 12:30 AM. Just when impatience seemed to get the best of us and our fingers were about to dial 911, the I95 highway patrol came by with a tow truck and helped us off the nearest exit. Now this exit happened to be in a rowdy Bronx neighborhood which did NOT seem like the friendliest place at 1 in the morning.

Back to our motor oil hunch, my dad and I decided to walk (more like slow jog) to the nearest gas station to get us some oil. Of course, everything seemed to be wrong that day, so obviously our efforts were failed attempts. The car's engine was dead for other unknown reasons, thus we were trapped yet again.

Now that we were pretty much out of options, we called AAA again. This time, since we were off the highway, requesting a tow truck was an easier business. But then we hit another obstacle (there's a trend here). The tow truck could only fit one person other than the driver. So the family decided to enlist the aid of my poor cousin at 2 AM in the morning. I'm sure that was fun for him. About 15 minutes after the arrival of a AAA tow truck, my cousin rolled by from Queens to the Bronx in his flashy BMW to escort us to safety.

Dude, it's past 2 in the morning, where are we going without our car? The last event got me good. Some of my friends may know about my grandmother from my mother's side who, at 85, has become somewhat senile. Well, "somewhat" may be a friendly term right now. Anyway, we were forced to spend the night at her place. Dust in my eyes, dust in my brother's nose, mosquitoes and moths were just nuisances piled on top of each other. I finally got some shut-eye around 4 AM, but I took it. Some sleep is better than no sleep.

So where am I now? Home, around 2:30 PM on July 5th! Let's think about this wonderful road trip as a 15-hour traffic delay. I'll post photos of the good times earlier on July 4th, not the epicly agonizing hours after the holiday.