Honeymoons Can Be Fun and Funny!

As i recall how it all unfolded, our first attempt at having an official "honeymoon" was not the most fun we ever had with our clothes on or off. The weekend we were married in our front yard by my wife's minister, Rev. Beth, we were immediately preempted by a water system emergency at the Toyota Plant in Georgetown Kentucky.

See I had just finished starting up a huge water purification system that was used for the water based paints on all of the Toyota's! So when my boss got the call, we had to launch right away. Well my new bride of less than two days, drove along with me to the wonderful town of Georgetown Kentucky. We got her on site as an employee by having her hold a clipboard in the passenger seat. That seemed easier than hiding her under some work junk in the back of the van, and she just would not fit inside the body of the shop vac.

This was back in the early 90's so the Georgetown we remember is pretty much long gone now. The best restaurant in town was the "Shoneys" over by the highway. We had to stay at less expensive motels since the company was not doing really well, and we certainly did not have any extra money. We had in fact planned on just spending some time together at home before receiving "the call" She was mad at my boss for years after this event took place, sorry about that Jimmy. So when I was not at the plant fixing their mysterious water quality problems, we were trying to find fun things to do as a couple from out of town.

This was not exactly a resort area, and the best we could do for entertainment was to settle for a movie at the local mall Cinema. That was going just fine until some drunken hoodlums started fighting each other and throwing popcorn, and worse yet, they began spilling their beers all over us! Since there was about ten of them, all I did was tell them to grow the hell up, then we ran for our lives. This is the same area where we saw some dude buzzing down the highway in a really beat up primer black pickup truck with his buddy drinking beer, tossing the empty beer cans back to the truck bed through the missing rear window, while his pregnant wife and two children sat on a spare tire and probably a case or two of beer in the open bed of the truck!

So naturally we made the best of it, and while I had that job I traveled 75-80% of the time, we did not get that special honeymoon we always wanted. We promised ourselves to go and have a "real honeymoon" somewhere someday. Fast forward to some time in the early 2000's and my wife decided we were going to do it right this time and by damn it we were going to the Poconos! We had the nicest driving trip with Los Lonely Boys and Big Head Todd and the Monsters playing on the rented car radio. The leaves were just getting ready to turn, the road we chose was winding and desolate. This part was really nice!

We went to a resort that caters to newlyweds and since we were not really part of that crowd, we felt a little out of place. We were also one of the oldest couples there. The room was fairly atrocious from the perspective that this place had been used for "the act" more than most porn sets will ever be. In fact i am sure that i recognized some of the decor in a few of those dirty movies we have watched since then! Some of the foam couches were probably full of DNA from the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. and the rest of the rat pack. If you don't want to wait for VH1 to do a where are they now show about someone you miss, check out the upcoming events at Caesers Pocono Palace! You can see ABBA GOLD, Sinbad, Billy Ray Cyrus! sounds like they know their demographic! Hell the name even sounds cheesy to me. BUT, with the right attitude I am sure that this place can be quite a lot of fun! I think that someday we will have to revisit and see if it has changed.

We covered everything we sat on with extra sheets from the closet. There were bugs coming in under the door, and the fireplace fumes were horrible especially odd since we did not have a fire going! But our neighbor in the room next door did! So we covered the cracks it our fireplace with wet towels. I figured later that they probably had a chimney fire going and were so busy getting it on, that they did not even know about it. Calling the front desk did nothing. The dining on site was sketchy, we had to sit with huge tables full of strangers like they do on cruise ships! This was not a romantic way to spend our time. The staff glared at us for requesting an intimate table in the back. We did enjoy the lake with a speedboat ride, the girl who drive us around was really into it and she kept us out twice as long as the other boats, so she was cool!!! We played some racquetball which I really enjoy doing. Then we did find a nice little diner in town called the Hamlin Diner, which was so absolutely perfect that we ate almost every meal there!

The waitresses were amazed that we would come over there instead of dining at the Coliseum at the resort!!! They all dreamed of working there someday. We did take a run into Scranton PA. one day and I will always regret it and never forget it! There is hell, there is Texas, and then there is Scranton. What an odd place this was, so foreign, so strange, all that was missing was the place where you show your passport, it felt that odd.
We will probably go back there someday as well to see if it was just us?

Anyhow I really wanted to hit golf balls there just once, but the driving range pro was sick, and he apparently locked up tight before heading over to Scranton, probably to lay down and die alone beneath an underpass, which was probably a better way to end it all than working at that love palace in the Poconos. They should have filmed the show Love Connection from this place!

For real romance on the road give me the days inn down in Huntsville Alabama where we went on another job for Lockheed Martin Marietta. On this trip my wife read a lot of books, watched television, and gave me daily reports of her time spent watching a real pro who was working out of her white Camaro, and a room just across the courtyard from us. She would hide behind the curtains when she heard the Camaro roar into the lot, followed closely by some other car, usually departing anywhere from 16, to 31 or really big spenders 61 minutes later depending on how upscale his car was. It was all so very exciting. Then there was the time we went to Honda in Marysville, and she had the really huge iced tea from Wendys, and it took me a really long time to fix the water system. It took her a few hours to explain why she just would not share her iced tea with me once i got back in the van.

All in all our attempts at a honeymoon have improved since we have taken some long weekend trips to Boston, New York, Chicago, and have had a really great time in each of these super cities! Now we are content to watch the garden grow, and spend time at home laughing at the things that we have done together.

My philosophical advice here is that the honeymoon location is just a minor part of the bigger picture of your relationship. you could be on a desert island, on the space shuttle or trapped in some strange town with very little entertainment and even less hope. As long as you are together then you should be able to make it fun!
Or at least make fun of it! And if you can't do that, then maybe you should evaluate your marital motives...