New York (Aka- the post of doom)

I'm sure this is the post you've all been waiting for. The post of doom. The post with... lets see here... 34 photos and a movie. Actually, 34 is down from the total of 170 I took while I was in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. :) Alright, here is the so far, story, accompanied by photos, and my probably not very interesting commentary. In my own story. Yeah. that makes a lot of sense...

Anyway. My grandparents came on the 8th, and slept over. Then, on the 9th (which also happens to be my father's birthday... Happy Late Birthday, Dad!) we left. We left at the crack of dawn. Aka, at 7. Yes, we left at 7. Yes, that is when we were aiming for. No, I don't see why that was called "The crack of dawn." Because it's not. The crack of dawn is, I dunno... five or so. Anyway, it didn't matter when we LEFT, Valerie and I were awakened bright and early at 4:30 AM by the sound of Paramore's song "That's What You Get" blasting from my phone.
Ouch.
That wasn't fun.
Then we left.
It's interesting being in the car with my grandparents. They do swear quite a bit (though it's not their fault of course), but since Valerie and I know practically every swear word (but of course don't use them. duh), and know not to use them, it really wasn't that big of a deal. We got through Indiana without much happening- it's really just like Illinois, only... well, it really is just like Illinois. :P Then we got to Ohio.
This is Cleveland, Ohio. I'm pretty sure this is the city my mom said she'd demolish with a nuclear bomb if she had the power, and wanted to, destroy a city with one. She says it's because there's practically nothing there.
They had some really cool, buildings, though. Very old ones. Where I live, we don't really have very many old buildings. This made this trip VERY interesting, because it seems like every building in New York has a little plaque that says something about how this house or building was built in 1700 something (or 1800 something) and all about it. And they are all SO OLD. Anyway, moving on.
We got through Ohio (Friendly in the middle and round on either side) without accident. Then we got to Pennsylvania. Most of that ride wasn't super interesting, either. That is, before we got to Erie. (Say it like the adjective, eerie. Then say "Eerie Pennsylvania." cool, right?). That's when things got interesting.
You see, by then it was getting late-ish. And we were very tired, and New York was still about four HOURS away (uhgggghhhh) SO we decided to stay in Erie for the night. On our way to find a suitable hotel, we passed a number of odd signs.
The first one was a sign that said "CAR WASH" and had a picture of a lipstick kiss. *scratches head* ummmm... could someone explain... how do these two... go together? I actually took a picture, to post, so it could baffle YOUR minds as well, but I deleted it to make room for the other pictures (which it ended up that I didn't actually have to, but whatever. What's done is done.) the second cool/weird sign (kinda) was this guy:
WHOA! I saw SPIDERMAN! O.O Granted, he was moving SO FAST I couldn't get a good picture but...
I'm not really fooling you, am I. Of course not. My readers are too smart for that. *cough* no, this was next to a comic book store. I'm sorry about the blurry picture, but when we stopped, it was too bad of a place to take one, so I had to snap a shot of Spiderman while we were driving. Which really isn't opportune.
And he was HUGE! He was soooo tall! If you can see that creamish building next to him, that was the comic book store, which was about average height. You see? Random giant spiderman!
And by then Valerie and I were getting a tad bored. I don't have a "normal" picture of ME, but I'm sure you know what I look like by now. (if not, go and look at my profile.) Here's Valerie:
And here is what we did when we were bored:


Those are M'nMs. :D my grandma had a bag of them, and there were only about fifteen left. So we started doing... that. Yeah. We're weirdos. We confess. Feel free to call us weirdos, we'll say either "Yeah, I know you are, but what am I?" or "Thank you! You're so nice!" (this is sarcasm, but we say it in a sweet, thankful voice, like we really mean it, lol.)

On the road again!
Okay. you're probably wondering why the heck I have this random picture of a building with fences. Ready?
THIS IS A PRISON.
A big prison. With probably electric fences. We saw barbed wire. Giant security things. This isn't like the jails by my house. This was for the bad BAD people. A little ways before this prison, there was a sign that said "The (insert jail name here (I forgot it)) Institute. DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS!" o.O I was scared... yeah... one of those creepy sort of not real horror stories. What if there had been a killer? What if someone picked them up?! WHAT IF THAT PERSON DIED?!
now you know what goes through my head.

Okay, that day we got to New York. Yay!!! FINALLY! We went to my great aunt Martha and my great uncle Harvey's house. It was a very nice house. With very COLD air conditioning. (You see that blue shirt I have on in the goofy pictures? I ended up wearing that all the time because it was so cold because of the AC.) The next day (I think...) my sister went fishing with my uncle John, uncle Harvey, and my grandpa. (Those three are brothers, and look virtually the same, and sound THE SAME.. only John is quieter, grandpa is loud and has a WI accent, and Harvey... just sounds a bit different?) and I went with my grandma, aunt Martha, and Aunt Sue to a dog show. :) These are all pictures from it... (with the exception of an occasional commentary, I think they speak for themselves.)
Mop dog! Their hair naturally grows like that. Even if you washed it all the time, it would still grow into dreadlocks.
:) Beagle- STUPID DOGS.

I called this type a centipede dog.

In... a couple of days we went up to Keuka lake, where my aunt and uncle have a cabin on the lake. It was a beautiful lake, but the sneaky thing about it... ZEBRA MUSSELS. All over. We had to wear water shoes (ugh) or else our feet would get all shredded. My first time in it, I cut open my finger. It bled for a LONG time. Also that day, I cut open my thumb on a cheese knife. *winces* ouch.

That day we also met our second cousins. More about them later.

This is the lake, from the boat:
Pretty. :) And it really was all grey (I can spell grey with an e if I want to, spellcheck!)
This is my cousin... I don't know how to spell his name. :P Anyway, this is one of my 2nd cousins. He's 4 1/2:
And this is the other second cousin, with my sister. She's 3. not my sister. She's almost 11. The cousin. The cousin is 3. :
Some things about my cousins.
They couldn't get my name.
Alright, so I had Evvie (the blond girl) call me Angela ONCE. Other then that, Valerie and I were "Cousins!" And I think from lack of attention at home, we had to do everything with them. It was cousins this, cousins that. "I want cousins to sit next to me!" "COUSINS!" We took to hiding in the basement. Not that they weren't cute, or anything, just... well, they weren't very polite, and they were quite self centered.
Not their fault. Just irritating.
Moving on:
The day after we met "Cousins", we went to the Corning glass museum. IT WAS AMAZING. I loved it. Loved loved loved loved loved loved LOVED IT. I didn't get to see as much glass as I would have liked to. We took a short tour, saw a glass blowing demonstration (where the poor glass blower accidentally broke the glass. :( poor him. He looked sooooooooo embarrassed.) and then left.
But what I DID see, was amazing.
There was another one of these cute teapots, but it doesn't show that it showed up. :P Oh well. They were made by taking tiles of glass, laying them on a flat surface, then melting them slightly, then shoving them together, then draping the finished peace of glass over a mold. Then adding the metal bits. ISN'T IT CUTE??!!! I loved these things. :) They were amazing.
Ho hum, glass fruit. But what you don't see is that this art was HUGE. These fruit pieces were probably as large as my 2 year old sister, if not larger. PER PIECE. It was huge. Huge.
Okay, in this one you can see a little. You see that person on the side? She wasn't super tall, but wasn't incredibly short, either. And the thing is way taller then her. It was sooooooo sparkly. I think it was lead glass, and it was so glittery. And it didn't even have the candles in it. Can you imagine? O.o it would have glittered and glittered and sparkled, and light would have gone everywhere.
This was another chandelier, another big one. This one was also lead glass I think, and it was made mostly for people in India. Because it was so colorful, it wasn't really the fashion in England and America, and probably wouldn't have been bought.
These two (the ship thing and the table) are actually different pieces. They probably weren't displayed that way, and there is no purpose to the boat thing. Nothing. It's just pretty. Actually, if I remember what the tour guide said correctly, a maharaja bought one and brought it back to India.
CINDERELLA'S GLASS SLIPPERS!!!! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! Everyone loved these. Even the teen boys. Even the grown up guys. Even all the girls. EVERYONE. They were maid for an actress who was going to play Cinderella. Thankfully for her, the movie never happened. So she never had to step down, to have a shoe break and glass splinters shoot up into her foot and go lame for most of her life. But they were amazing never the less. Just beautiful.
Actually, the tale of Cinderella is French, and the French word for "Glass" and "Fur" was about the same, and there is actually a debate about whether or not the guy who wrote it down (his mother told him the story) meant the shoes to be fur, or glass. Interesting fun fact..
I caught a picture of this dude on the way out of the display of Cinderella's shoes. I was like... OH MY GOSH! HOW FUNNY! And took a picture. :) I love his surprised face, and the way they used just green, and green, and made it still look interesting. :) I didn't get to look at this one, it was a "hurry up Angela!" "One picture! *snap*" moment.
Another one of those moments...
We were actually on our way to go and see the glass blowing when I found this GIANT BALL OF GLASS. And it was hollow. Those glass bits were just hair thin threads all formed and molded to make it look so beautiful. Just amazing. And it was huge, too.
These I thought were just interesting. I love the colors of the hands... and the fact... that they're hands. interesting sculpture, and these were next to the giant glass ball. Those two were also on the quick photos, so I know nothing about them. :'( The part of me that loves info is crying!
These were actually for sale, but I thought that they were so pretty that I had to take a picture. So I did. :)
This is Valerie on the boat, on the Erie Canal. I do have info about the Erie Canal. (YES!) So be warned, this might go on quite a bit. (My great... great great? grandpa came on one. Or maybe it was my uncle. And maybe it was just my great great... I forget. :P )

The Erie canal runs for approximately 363 miles. It runs from Albany, on the Hudson, to Buffalo on Lake Erie. In case you don't know, Albany is the capital of New York, and Erie is in Pennsylvania. That's a long ways. It's about 8-10 feet deep, and... I don't know how wide. But the impressive thing is that the entire canal was dug by hand. It was an easy way for Immigrants to get work. And fast. It was hard labor, and many MANY people died, but they did it. They dug a 363 mile, working canal. There are tow paths on either side of the canal. They used to be used for mules (a cross between a donkey and horse- if it's a girl it's called a jenny. (another fun fact: A jenny can't have foals.)) to pull the barges up the river. Because there is virtually no current, this used to be a necessity. Now days the tow paths are paved over and are biking/walking/jogging paths. (But that's why it's called a "tow path".) The canal isn't really used for commercial use anymore, according to my uncle Harvey. It's mostly recreational.
I had another photo, but it disappeared. And blogger made this underlined. Why is this underlined? Blogger doesn't let me do underlines. What is up with this?


This is me (on the left, duh) back at the lake. They have these amazing water cannons, and it was the great joy of all involved to shoot at everyone who wore a swimsuit. This is my grandpa and I having a fight. Val took these pictures, so lets all give her a hand for her epic photographical (I know it's not a word, but whatever) skills. *claps*


Then we headed back, after many MANY days of in New York. We ended up going through (sorta) Chicago on our way back. This was one of the bridges on the sky way, up there ^. It was quite dramatic- dark bridge, it was darkish out (though you can't see it) with A LOT of lights. :)
Skyline of Chicago.. if you look on the far left you can see the sears- cross that, the Willis tower. (Bleh. What kind of name is "Willis tower"? I know it won't matter in a couple of years, and everyone will forget it's the "Sears" tower, but I can be indignant while I want to, can't I? After all, it IS the widest known thing in Illinois!)
And then we got home! And a couple days (three, to be exact) later, I posted this! Yay! *claps hands for self*

Shout out to my friend! You know who you are, because I have posted that video down there. Bouncy. Sort of countryish. but happy. :)

now, did you enjoy the post of doom?