My Trip to New York

Ricky Brahinsky  4A                                              May 9, 1966

          It was about 9:00 A.M. on the day of June 23, 1964. Today we would leave for New York. We got into the car and left. We stopped by a 7–11 to get some Brylcreem and then we got on to Highway 75. We took it to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we visited some friends named the Penafeather's. We stayed there for three days and then we took the Will Rogers Turnpike to Joplin, Missouri. Then we got on Highway 66. We stopped in Lebanon, Missouri and had a snack. Then we followed Highway 66 to St. Louis. We crossed the Mississippi River. As we crossed it, we took pictures of the boats crossing it. Then we got on Highway 40. After a while, when it was late, we got sleepy, so my father stopped at a motel in Vandalia, Illinois. We went to sleep almost the minute we got in bed. The next morning we got up and ate breakfast at the motel. Then we continued on Highway 40, of which part was part of the Lincoln Highway. We went through Indiana and saw the Indianapolis race track. There were no cars racing then, though. So we went a few blocks and found a good place to eat lunch. We had fried chicken, french fried potatoes, and lemonade. Then we continued on Highway 40 through the rest of Indiana. Then we came to Ohio. We saw the state capital in Columbus. Also in Columbus, we saw a man that we knew in Dallas. We were very surprised about seeing him, but he didn't see us. We ate supper there at a Chinese restaurant. Then we found a motel and slept there. The next morning we went across the Ohio River and in to Pennsylvania. We got on to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We had to wait almost 20 minutes to get onto it because so many other people were getting on to it. Finally we made it. Once we got on it, there was a sign that said Pittsburgh and had an arrow pointing to the right by it. Then it said Harrisburg and had an arrow pointing to the left by it. We were supposed to go towards Harrisburg because we would go to Washington, D.C. But we accidentaly went towards Pittsburgh. Now we were really in a mess because once you started one way, you would have to go to the next exit before you could turn around and go the other way. So we had to go to the McDonald exit, pay 15¢, turn around, go back to the same place we started, pay 15 more cents, and then we were on our way. In other words, we had to spend 30¢ just because we went the wrong way. Finally we got to the place that we were supposed to get off of the turnpike, which was exit 8, New Stanton. As we paid our toll, $1.85, we saw 3 trucks carrying Cadillacs. We wished we owned them. We started towards Washington, D.C. We arrived there at about 12:00 noon. We ate lunch at a restaurant in Georgetown, the oldest part of the city. I had chicken noodle soup and water. After we had finished lunch, we visited a man named Captain Thompson there. He lived in an over 200-year-old house. He had a dalmatian named Sophie. Captain Thompson, my father, and two other men were practicing in a string quartet so my mother, my two brothers, and I went for a walk. Captain Thompson lived on 3015 Dumbarton Avenue, which was next to Avenue N, where Mrs. Kennedy lived. So during our walk, we saw Mrs. Kennedy's house. We didn't see Mrs. Kennedy, though. That night we stayed at a motel in Cheverly, Maryland, a suburb of Washington that was 6 miles away. The next day we went sightseeing. We saw Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol, and the White House. We got to take a tour of the Capitol. From a porch that was near the top, we could look far out over the city. Then we slept another night at the motel. The next morning we had breakfast at the motel. I had sausage and a kind of potatoes called home fries. I liked them very much. That night we left Washington. As we were going down the road, we passed a stockyard. Nobody else liked the smell, but I said, "It's not so bad. It smells like home fries." We were going to try to get as close to Philadelphia as we could that night. We saw a road mileage sign. I can't remember the exact figures but they were something like "Dover, Delaware, 50 miles. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 150 miles. "We still have pretty far to go," one of my brothers said. It was about 11:45 P.M. when we saw a lighted sign. It said "Highway 40." The highway cut off, as sort of an exit, off Highway 1, on which we were traveling. AAA didn't tell us to make the cutoff, but we took a chance. We must have been having good luck that night because after we traveled on Highway 40 for about 5 miles, we saw a road mileage sign. It said, "Dover, Delaware, 28 miles, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 72 miles." We could hardly believe our eyes. We got closer to the sign. Sure enough, that's what it said. "Highway 1 must have been the long way around," my mother said.
          "The next motel we come to, we'll stop at," said my father. We traveled 4 more miles. Another sign said, Dover, Delaware, 24 miles, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 68 miles. Right after the sign, we saw a motel. It had a little restaurant so we stopped at it for a midnight snack. (It wasn't really midnight, it was 12:30). All I had was chocolate milk. There were some pinball machines there that I wanted to play, but you had to be 21 or older to play it. We got a room at about 12:50. We finally got to sleep at about 1:00 A.M. The same morning, bright and early, we left Edgewood, Maryland where the motel was. In about 3 minutes, we were in Delaware. We saw a truck carrying Philadelphia® brand cream cheese. "It doesn't have very far to go," we said. We passed by a Zee toilet paper company in Dover. It only took us about 30 minutes to get through Delaware since it was so small. Finally we got to Philadelphia. We stopped at a Mariott motel. We called our relatives that we would be visiting. They told us how to get there. We had some trouble finding their house, but we got there. We had spaghetti and meatballs for supper. We went back to the motel. The next day we left Pennsylvania. We got on to the New Jersey Turnpike. We were supposed to get off on exit 14B but we got off on 14A. We ended up in Bayonne, New Jersey, where we saw the Statue of Liberty. But we got to 14B and got off. In about 30 minutes we were in Port Chester, New York where we visited some friends for a day. The next day we visited some other friends named the Billig's. We stayed with them for 2 days. On the 2nd day we went to the New York World's Fair. We only stayed there for about 2 hours and we didn't get to see much. On our way back, we made a mistake and we ended up in Kennedy International Airport. But we finally got back to the Billig's house. That afternoon, we went wading in the Atlantic Ocean, which was only about 2 blocks from their house. The next day we left Rockaways and came back to the Silton's. We went bowling and took a little side trip into Connecticut that day with Mrs. Silton. That night we slept there. The next morning at about 5:30 A.M. we started back home. I can not remember the return trip near as well. We went back through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and then we stopped in Wheeling, West Virginia for lunch at Elby's, Home of the Big Boy. I had a Big Boy Hamburger. For dessert, my parents and brothers had strawberry pie, which I didn't like at that time, but now I do. It had Texas-size strawberries, grown in California, and served and eaten in West Virginia. When we finished we went through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. This time we crossed the Mississippi River on the Chain-of-Rocks Bridge. It was about 3 miles long. I thought it would never end. But it finally did. We stopped at a motel near St. Louis called the Gardenway. The next morning we went through Missouri and into Oklahoma. That day was unusually hot. It was 106º in Tulsa. We got a haircut in Tulsa by a real Indian. We say we got "scalped" there. Then we got on Highway 75 south. We followed it to Dallas and arrived home. The trip had taken 4,050 miles. We had gone through Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, West Virginia and last, but not least, our own home state, Texas.

The End