Road trip!

[catko]

exhibit at Penn Station, NJ Transit Terminal

My first-ever visit to Atlantic City! Took the A to Penn Station, to get on the NJ Transit Northeast Corridor line to Metro Park, where Melissa was going to pick me up. Oooh, heading out of town on a Saturday morning is a little hectic; city people with towels in tote bags heading to various beaches, it seemed. Kinda crazy, but I have to say, the various transit systems around here work pretty damn well.

 

I liked the views from the train going to meet Melissa, on the Northeast Corridor line to Metro Park. She ran into traffic, so I had time to hang outside the station, watching the locals pick up and drop off. It felt good to get out of the city, actually. We hit a diner and had a cheap and good breakfast--according to her, diners are kind of a thing in New Jersey. ("The Galaxy Diner: Where the Stars Eat.")

Melissa told me lots of New Jersey road lore on the extremely long and trafficky drive to AC. It's against the law to pump your own gas, and the roads are tollroads and turnpikes, so you're always scrambling for quarters and being sure you're in the correct lane if you do or don't have exact change in coins. And you can't pick up the coins from the floor of the car, because those are there for good luck, but that tradition I knew from Dave.

  

Atlantic City was a blast: the Boardwalk! Cheesesteaks! The Atlantic Ocean! The crazy crowded beach. At least the casino was the same as casinos everywhere, except the ubiquitous presence of the persona of Donald Trump. Good fun gambling, pretty easy drive back. Melissa kindly offered to drop me in the City, so we took the Lincoln Tunnel in. That's one crazy tunnel, so long and narrow. She dropped me at Penn Station at midnight, and I urbanely took the A train home, along with many other urbanites, some of whom were going to my neighborhood to party with the others thronging the streets, eating falafels, and drinking. Yahoo! I haven't wanted to do any nightlife, but it's fun to walk through it.