Today I had planned a jam-packed day full of intense driving and Hard Rock Café stops. We needed to be out of the hotel at precisely 7am to stick to the schedule. Instead we sauntered out of the hotel at a very leisurely 8:30… yikes! The reason for my demanding schedule will be clear later in this post. For now, just know that we started very late, so my schedule was shot to heck from the beginning.
HARD ROCK CAFE FOXWOODS
Because my fiancé collects Hard Rock Café shot glasses, we decided to take the long way home from Boston and pick up a few new additions to his collection along the way. Instead of heading west, we headed south, into Connecticut. Our first stop of the day was quite a surprise. The Foxwoods Hard Rock Café is inside a hotel/casino/shopping complex that is absolutely mind-boggling. When the directions said we were only 5 minutes away, it still looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, with one lone building poking up above the trees. Turns out, that building is the tower hotel part of a huge complex that houses 4 full-size casinos, restaurants, hotels, and an entire shopping center. The Hard Rock was somewhere around the middle. It made for a good leg stretch and fortunately we parked by the Starbucks… yay!
HARD ROCK CAFE NYC (THE BRONX)
Our next stop was the Hard Rock Café in the Bronx on the north side of New York City. Unbeknownst to me, the Hard Rock is attached to Yankee Stadium. That would have been excellent information to have ahead of time (thanks Goggle!), because we arrived about an hour before the start of a Yankees game and the entire area was insanely crowded! My fiancé is not a fan of either big cities or crowds, so our day was starting to turn sour pretty fast. We were able to find short-term metered parking about a block from the stadium. Because the Hard Rock was so busy, I waited outside while he went in to get his collectible. They were completely sold out of shot glasses and he came out disappointed and annoyed at having to deal with the crowds. We ate a quick lunch at an overpriced Subway with no bathroom (stick with me, this is important later) and got on the road as fast as possible.
We drove between Manhattan and the Hudson towards our next stop, the Hard Rock Café in Times Square as the clock started to tick down to around 4pm… on a Friday… the Friday before Labor Day weekend…. in New York City! Some of you might have already discerned where this is going, but for those who haven’t, I’ll continue.
In addition to big cities and crowds, my fiancé really hates traffic, even if he isn’t the one driving. When we took the turn left to head into the city towards Times Square, you would have thought he was going to die. I’ve driven in Chicago a lot, so I wasn’t really phased by the New York City traffic, but he was about jumping out of his skin. The tall buildings, the insane traffic, the noise, the smells… it was all just too much for him and although we were within 2 blocks of the Hard Rock, he insisted we get out of the city and continue on our way immediately.
Despite the fact that we were both somewhat desperately in need of a bathroom, we decided to play bodily function roulette. I got in the mess of cars heading into the Lincoln Tunnel and we very slowly escaped New York City by way of New Jersey. We inched along for what seemed like an eternity and the traffic didn’t ease up for a good 2 hours. By then we were happy to be free, and our bodies had abandon all hope of a bathroom, so we continued on until we finally stopped to eat at a Texas Roadhouse outside Allentown, PA. According to my plan, we were supposed to make it to Hershey, PA that night (about another hour drive), but it was all too much for my fiancé and we ended up finding a nearby hotel, the Parkview Inn, and calling it a day.
Had we left on time (an hour and a half earlier), we would have missed the Yankees crowd in the Bronx and rolled into Times Square around 2:30pm. While it may have still been busy, it is Manhattan after all, the entire day probably wouldn’t have been as much of a trigger for my fiancé. I was a bit disappointed that we abandon hope only 2 blocks from our goal, but I am careful to pick my battles and this was one I’m happy to have avoided.
Live The Bucket 