The tradition of a honeymoon trip after a couple gets married is a long and revered practice. As I was looking through the wedding announcements in the newspapers recently I noticed that every couple had some sort of trip. Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed will be honeymooning in Puerto Villarta. Or, the couple will settle in Podunk after a two week cruise on the Mediterranean. It always seems like a big expensive trip is planned for the bride and groom. One couple I know about actually rented a big fancy sailboat and spent a whole month in the South Pacific. That trip cost them about thirty thousand dollars.
Forty years ago the trips were a little less elaborate. Couples would go to the Pocono Mountains for a week at a resort. Or they might go to a big city and spend a long weekend in a nice hotel, dine out and see a show or two. The fancy honeymoons might cost a thousand dollars or so. My wife and I had a somewhat less expensive trip. If you include the price of the carwash to get all the nasty green writing off our car I think we spent about sixty or seventy dollars. It was a short trip.
When we left our wedding reception we drove about an hour to the Niagara Falls area. Since we had only eaten wedding cake at the reception we decided to have dinner. We didn’t have motel reservations yet so we stopped at a Lum’s restaurant. We had hot dogs, fries and I think we each had a beer. I asked the waitress where we could find an inexpensive motel. She said that would be a problem since it was Labor Day weekend. Most hotels and motels would be full and if they weren’t they would be very expensive. She suggested that we drive down along the Niagara River towards Buffalo. In some of the industrial areas we could find a couple places that would be cheaper.
So after our dinner and carwash we started driving aimlessly south along the roads that border the river. We checked a Howard Johnson’s but they were full. We checked a place called the Riverside but they wanted almost thirty dollars for one night. Finally in an area right near a couple of factories, bars and strip clubs we came across a place called the Anchor Inn. I went to the desk and asked the guy for a room. He looked out to the car and saw my lovely bride waiting patiently. Then he said he had only one room left but it was the special honeymoon accommodation and it was $14.95 a night. Feeling like we deserved a special treat for our wedding night I agreed to the price. He said it was cash, in advance and no refunds. So I paid.
The room was almost clean. The bedding, except for the smoky flavored and cigarette burned bedspread, seemed recently laundered. But the bathroom was another story. My new bride went into that den of dangerous bacteria and came out very quickly. She grabbed a pen and piece of paper, made a list of cleaning supplies and sent me out to find them. After hunting around for a little while I found a grocery store, bought the items and headed back. The bottle of champagne that we brought was sitting in the ice bucket. It had been opened and was about half empty. My wife grabbed the cleaning stuff, took off most of her clothes and headed into the bathroom to do battle. It was at that time that I learned she always takes off most of her clothing to clean bathrooms. After about forty-five minutes the job was done to her satisfaction and the bathroom was deemed useable. It was now after ten o’clock. She drew a bath, grabbed the flimsy, sexy night gown she had brought for this most auspicious of nights, entered the bathroom and closed the door. I was thinking things were rolling now. I poured myself a big tumbler of champagne and chugged it on down.
That was the last thing I remembered until I woke up at about three in the morning. My new wife was snoring softly beside me totally wrapped up in the blankets. She had even pulled the nasty bedspread up over her body. What woke me was the intense cold in the room and the chattering of the ancient air conditioner mounted in the window. We had turned the a/c on as soon as we arrived because, as you may recall, it was a hot and humid day. I went over to the bathroom and turned on the light. When I looked at where the a/c unit was mounted all I saw was ice. It looked like the inside of an old freezer compartment that hadn’t been defrosted in three years. There was so much ice I couldn’t even get at the knobs to turn the thing off. So I pulled the plug. My wife, hearing my banging around and colorful language, woke up. She went to her purse, reached inside and pulled out an ice pick. When I asked her why she had an ice pick in her purse she just said “emergencies”. She crawled back into bed and fell sound asleep immediately. That was another thing I learned on our wedding night. My wife can fall asleep at any time under any conditions.
So I chipped most of the ice off the a/c and put the “bergs” in the bathroom sink to melt. Then I reset the unit to medium cool and went to bed. My wife didn’t stir.
The next morning I woke to find my wife up, dressed and ready to go sight-seeing at the Falls. We only had one day to see everything. The plan was to get a room that night near our hometown, pick up a U-haul trailer the following morning, and pick up our furnishings that were stored at various places and move into our new apartment. So we went sight-seeing. After roaming around the tourist spots for a short time we stopped at a diner for a combination lunch and dinner. Then we headed back towards our hometown. By the time we got to the motel where we planned on staying my wife was feeling queasy. She thought that the liver and onions she had eaten were upsetting her stomach. I hadn’t eaten that delicacy so I was feeling fine and thinking about a big old cheeseburger at the stand near the motel. We checked in to the motel, a much nicer and cleaner place than the previous night’s disaster. As soon as we were inside my wife became quite ill. She made it to the bathroom just in time and there she stayed for quite a while. I went and got my cheeseburger.
When I got back to the motel room my bride was wrapped up in her “chin to toe” flannel nightgown and sleeping soundly. I turned on the TV and watched it until the test pattern came on at about two in the morning.
That was our honeymoon. Probably the best thing about it was seeing the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum. I’m thinking of trying to sell them this story.
Have a fine day.
Forty years ago the trips were a little less elaborate. Couples would go to the Pocono Mountains for a week at a resort. Or they might go to a big city and spend a long weekend in a nice hotel, dine out and see a show or two. The fancy honeymoons might cost a thousand dollars or so. My wife and I had a somewhat less expensive trip. If you include the price of the carwash to get all the nasty green writing off our car I think we spent about sixty or seventy dollars. It was a short trip.
When we left our wedding reception we drove about an hour to the Niagara Falls area. Since we had only eaten wedding cake at the reception we decided to have dinner. We didn’t have motel reservations yet so we stopped at a Lum’s restaurant. We had hot dogs, fries and I think we each had a beer. I asked the waitress where we could find an inexpensive motel. She said that would be a problem since it was Labor Day weekend. Most hotels and motels would be full and if they weren’t they would be very expensive. She suggested that we drive down along the Niagara River towards Buffalo. In some of the industrial areas we could find a couple places that would be cheaper.
So after our dinner and carwash we started driving aimlessly south along the roads that border the river. We checked a Howard Johnson’s but they were full. We checked a place called the Riverside but they wanted almost thirty dollars for one night. Finally in an area right near a couple of factories, bars and strip clubs we came across a place called the Anchor Inn. I went to the desk and asked the guy for a room. He looked out to the car and saw my lovely bride waiting patiently. Then he said he had only one room left but it was the special honeymoon accommodation and it was $14.95 a night. Feeling like we deserved a special treat for our wedding night I agreed to the price. He said it was cash, in advance and no refunds. So I paid.
The room was almost clean. The bedding, except for the smoky flavored and cigarette burned bedspread, seemed recently laundered. But the bathroom was another story. My new bride went into that den of dangerous bacteria and came out very quickly. She grabbed a pen and piece of paper, made a list of cleaning supplies and sent me out to find them. After hunting around for a little while I found a grocery store, bought the items and headed back. The bottle of champagne that we brought was sitting in the ice bucket. It had been opened and was about half empty. My wife grabbed the cleaning stuff, took off most of her clothes and headed into the bathroom to do battle. It was at that time that I learned she always takes off most of her clothing to clean bathrooms. After about forty-five minutes the job was done to her satisfaction and the bathroom was deemed useable. It was now after ten o’clock. She drew a bath, grabbed the flimsy, sexy night gown she had brought for this most auspicious of nights, entered the bathroom and closed the door. I was thinking things were rolling now. I poured myself a big tumbler of champagne and chugged it on down.
That was the last thing I remembered until I woke up at about three in the morning. My new wife was snoring softly beside me totally wrapped up in the blankets. She had even pulled the nasty bedspread up over her body. What woke me was the intense cold in the room and the chattering of the ancient air conditioner mounted in the window. We had turned the a/c on as soon as we arrived because, as you may recall, it was a hot and humid day. I went over to the bathroom and turned on the light. When I looked at where the a/c unit was mounted all I saw was ice. It looked like the inside of an old freezer compartment that hadn’t been defrosted in three years. There was so much ice I couldn’t even get at the knobs to turn the thing off. So I pulled the plug. My wife, hearing my banging around and colorful language, woke up. She went to her purse, reached inside and pulled out an ice pick. When I asked her why she had an ice pick in her purse she just said “emergencies”. She crawled back into bed and fell sound asleep immediately. That was another thing I learned on our wedding night. My wife can fall asleep at any time under any conditions.
So I chipped most of the ice off the a/c and put the “bergs” in the bathroom sink to melt. Then I reset the unit to medium cool and went to bed. My wife didn’t stir.
The next morning I woke to find my wife up, dressed and ready to go sight-seeing at the Falls. We only had one day to see everything. The plan was to get a room that night near our hometown, pick up a U-haul trailer the following morning, and pick up our furnishings that were stored at various places and move into our new apartment. So we went sight-seeing. After roaming around the tourist spots for a short time we stopped at a diner for a combination lunch and dinner. Then we headed back towards our hometown. By the time we got to the motel where we planned on staying my wife was feeling queasy. She thought that the liver and onions she had eaten were upsetting her stomach. I hadn’t eaten that delicacy so I was feeling fine and thinking about a big old cheeseburger at the stand near the motel. We checked in to the motel, a much nicer and cleaner place than the previous night’s disaster. As soon as we were inside my wife became quite ill. She made it to the bathroom just in time and there she stayed for quite a while. I went and got my cheeseburger.
When I got back to the motel room my bride was wrapped up in her “chin to toe” flannel nightgown and sleeping soundly. I turned on the TV and watched it until the test pattern came on at about two in the morning.
That was our honeymoon. Probably the best thing about it was seeing the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum. I’m thinking of trying to sell them this story.
Have a fine day.
2 comments:
Isn't it remarkable how sometimes the truth can be quite entertaining enough? Great entry Jim and I almost mean every word of this.
Wow. I see a lot of similarities in our wives.
We also did Niagara Falls for our Honeymoon and left town the next day fearing that my ex-wife was coming to the Falls after her wedding the day after ours!!!
You can't make this stuff up.
We got home after a night in beautiful downtown Tupper Lake and stayed a night at home before heading to Cape Cod.
After our weekend at the Cape we headed home to find out the ex never made it to the Falls that weekend, but went the next weekend to the Cape!!! I would have died if we had bumped into her.
Thanks for the story Jim. It is amazing you can remember that far back.
I will now continue on having a fine day.
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