Honeymoon - Day 8 - September 27, 2010

We headed out early Monday morning to get to Atlantic City with enough time to walk around before it got too dark.  Our first stop was a Starbucks with the most regal exterior I have ever seen.  Tre fancy, no?  We drove for a little while and eventually stopped for breakfast at a small diner called Town and Country.  Basic breakfast, good service, you know, a diner.

Can't find a link for the place, but here's the juice we drank.  That's good enough, right?

Jesse has never been to Vegas so I tried my hardest not to get his hopes up too much about Atlantic City being anything like he sees on television about Vegas.  Let me just say that Atlantic City was so much worse than I had anticipated.  Besides the fact that it was dreary and cold it might possibly be the saddest place on Earth.  People there aren't gambling for fun, they're gambling to buy their kids shoes.  Pretty tragic.

We stayed at Caesar's which was fine.  The room was a good size and we had a view of the ocean.  I had bought the room on the American Express travel site and ended up having to pay for it a second time when we checked out and then it took seven phone calls to get it cleared up and returned to my card.  What a mess.

Our room at Caesar's

Our roof/ocean view

Caesar's has a lot of shopping and restaurants, all of which are also pretty $$$.  A sports bar called Game On! looked good enough and little did we know the little gem of greasy, caloric goodness it would offer.

Behold the Buffalo Blue Cheese Fries.

Warning:  This picture will clog your arteries.

Though I would never recommend anyone visit Atlantic City, in the event that you are ever there it would be un-american not to try these.  Keep in mind, they weren't on the menu.  It was only by the awesomeness of our server that we were able to experience this delightful nastiness.

As we're not big gamblers after we had lost about $10 we went to the bar instead.  If you're not gambling enough to get the free drinks, it's not really worth losing the money in my opinion.  Either way, we met some people that seemed very nice at the bar and started chatting.  Let me preface this by saying that Jesse and I are magnets for crazy people.  Liars, cheaters, freaks and cons - they'll find us and we gots ta get tha hell outta there.  Ya dig.  So....these two seemingly nice people, right?  Well, the lady of the couple and I go to the bathroom - you know, how drunk girls do and she's telling me how nice her husband is and how they've been together for years and he's so good to her.  Back at the bar her husband is telling Jesse how he cheats on her constantly and she has no idea and that he's never been faithful, etc, etc, etc.  After we realize this, the night began to sour quickly.  The stories got more and more bizarre and the hugging more and more frequent.  Jesse and I pulled a good maneuver and while he was in the bathroom, I pretended like I needed to go also and we split.  This also meant that we stuck them with our bill.  But after all the crazy sh*t they were telling us, I think we earned our $4 in drinks.  Crazy people, if you ever find this and remember (which I doubt you even knew where you were), let me know and I'll send you a check.

It was a good thing it was already pretty late because in fear of crossing paths with them, we got a quick dinner, albeit at 3:30 am, and went to bed.  Wow Atlantic City.  I get it, but you ain't no Vegas.

Honeymoon - Day 7 - September 26, 2010

After another late night, we woke up on our last day in the city and tottled over to a place called Pax Wholesome Food next to the hotel.  I have a breakfast sandwich with hashbrowns and Jesse had an omelet.  Both were actually pretty good.  We also stocked up on orange juice, coffee and iced tea to release some of the alcohol demons that were still holding fast in our bodies.

Since we were leaving later in the afternoon we didn't want to stray too far so we wanted to make a few 'Gossip Girl' stops.  Yeah, I know, it's lame, but I won't lie, it was pretty cool to see where Serena came in the first episode in Grand Central Terminal and where she 'lives' at The Palace.  But I digress...

Grand Central Terminal

We took the subway back to the hotel to wait for our friends Simone and Larry to pick us up to take us to their house.  After arriving a little early, we stopped again in Bryant Park and sat down at the Bryant Park Cafe for a drink before they arrived.  We didn't eat but the food we saw and smelled looked fantastic!

Simone and Larry arrived shortly thereafter and drove us back into New Jersey where our car was.  They always go out of their way and are so hospitable to us.  It was my first time meeting Larry and he was such a nice dude.  Jesse and I tried to talk them into moving to Kentucky, but I think we at least got them convinced to visit.  They made us a delicious meal of Chicken and eggplant parmesan and could have rivaled any Italian we have here in Kentucky.  Then there were Henrietta and Gus, just about the cutest dogs ever.  So little, so cute, so wrinkly, so full of 'puppy smell'.  It almost convinced us to get a dog.  Almost.  ;)

The behbeh pugs, Henrietta and Gus.

Honeymoon - Day 2 - September 21, 2010

We finally made it to New York this day after a lot of driving and stopping.  We had breakfast at McDonald's which I think I could eat every day.  Not McDonald's in general, but their Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit with the hashbrown put right inside I would seriously consider as an option for my last meal.  I know, it's disgusting.  We also had Long John Silvers which is also a guilty pleasure of ours and learned that they were now offering fish tacos for $1.  Not outstanding, but definitely worth $1 if you don't care about being dehydrated for a week after eating one.

We also stopped at Sheetz a few times.  If you're unfamiliar with Sheetz, it's a chain of pretty awesome gas stations that run across the north east.  Their food offerings put our local chains to shame and there are actually fan pages dedicated to how much people love this place.

We actually stopped in Jersey and parked the car at my friends Simone and Larry's place and took a car service to our hotel in Manhattan.  We stayed at Chelsea Pines Inn.  It was wonderful.  You can read my review on Trip Advisor.

Chelsea Pines Inn - Ann Margret room

Chelsea Pines Inn - Ann Margret room

The resident cat at Chelsea Pines Inn, Charlie.

 

Jesse really liked the mounted television.

Taken by the Innkeeper for their inline scrapbook.

But the day was not all a loss 'culinarily' speaking.  We did have dinner at Cafe Loup.  I don't remember what we had so I guess that doesn't bode well for it's memorability, but I do remember it was good.