That Was Then 11.10.06: Stuart's Insane ROH Weekend Road Trip

Posted by Stuart Carapola on 11.10.2006

Last weekend, I took a weekend road trip to go to the ROH shows in Boston and Philadelphia. A grand total of 12 hours of driving and four hours of sleep made this perhaps my most arduous weekend of insane wrestling fandom yet. Here is my story, complete with Bridgeport hating, toxic wastelands, the Jersey Devil, stupid out of state laws, and...finding the Long Island Expressway in the wrong state?

Go me! This past Sunday was my one year anniversary writing for 411! Thank you all for reading both columns and thanks to Ashish and Larry for not firing me for my various social and political crimes.

For all the crazy road trips I've taken to Ring Of Honor shows, last weekend may have been the craziest yet. ROH often runs double shot weekends in a pair of markets that are close enough to run over a two day span, but inconveniently far enough apart that many fans won't make the trip to both. I am not one of these fans. I will make the trip to any Ring Of Honor show I can realistically make it to, and often work around real life and even take days off of work to get to the shows. I am a diehard fan and an admitted ROH mark, and it's something I just love to do. Part of the fun of going to these shows is the road trip itself, just driving through places you would never go in a million years otherwise and often spend hours sightseeing as I pass through. I decided I spent so much time on the road on this particular weekend that it'd make for a good column. So...Bret and Shawn can wait. Even they take a backseat to ROH.

The first of the two nights brought me to the Boston area. This was ROH's first show in the Boston area in over a year, not having run there since Survival Of The Fittest on September 24, 2005. In a weird development their old venue was in Dorchester and though both the old site and the new one are close to Boston, the directions to take me to Dorchester had me going up I-84 and then to the Massachusetts Turnpike, while this trip (to Braintree) had me taking I-95 instead. While I was initially confused since they're so close, I checked the other route and both trips were within minutes in terms of driving time, so I figured why not. Plus, taking I-95 would have me cutting through almost the entire length of Rhode Island, which I was excited about because I'd never been in the state. I was psyched to see what the Ocean State was all about.

Unfortunately, first I had to get through Connecticut. I hate Connecticut. It's a disgusting, wretched place. People seem to have this picture of Connecticut being this affluent place because of Greenwich (in much the same way as people picture all of New York State as being one sprawling urban area with, of course, an astronomical crime rate), but once you get outside of that area, the picture shifts considerably. The entire state is forever under construction, and once you get past Greenwich, it's really woefully underdeveloped, at least the areas off of the interstates, still looking like upstate New York did 25 years ago. As best as I've been able to make out, Connecticut is mainly home to three things: crime (in the urban areas), white trash with less than the normal complement of teeth (in the sticks), and drugs (in both). To make things worse, I hit some pretty bad traffic as soon as I entered the state, because I guess rush hour starts at 2:30PM on Friday on Connecticut. It was about 40MPH for about an hour and a half. The good news is that this means I got to spend some twenty minutes staring at my least favorite city in the world, Bridgeport. I disagree with Bret Hart on Pittsburgh, I think that if one were to give the United States an enema, they'd stick the hose in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It's a really shitty place to be, and the best thing about the city is that it has an exit.

So this continued, and traffic thankfully opened up once I got past New Haven, and I got to cruise at about 80 MPH through the entire eastern half of Connecticut in all its Stone Age glory, and then I crossed over into Rhode Island. I knew something was up when I got there and it wasn't an island. But the really charming thing about the state of Rhode Island is that it appears to be completely deserted. There was nothing but trees as far as the eye could see on both sides of the road for the entire drive through the state. Now, one good thing I will say about Connecticut is that it has a rest stop every few miles that is guaranteed to at least have a McDonald's and a bathroom in it, but there was a dearth of such things in Rhode Island. I was about halfway through when I saw a sign for a rest area, so I pulled off thinking "Hey great, I could really go for a cup of coffee and a trip to a filthy truckstop bathroom." Unfortunately, I found neither. The rest areas are just basically parking lots with nothing in them except trucks containing unconscious truck drivers.

After getting suckered in like this three times, I figured maybe I'd try one of the other exits they have listed as having food and/or gas on the signs, but here's another great thing about Rhode Island: all the exits off of I-95 take you to these roads with a median in the middle, no obvious way to turn around and get back on the highway and, once again, nobody in sight. I didn't feel like wasting time poking around some ghost town looking for a cup of coffee, so I immediately got back on the highway, except for a couple of times where trying to get back on caused me to get horribly lost for like seven minutes. But finally I found the highway again and continued on my way, and as my drive progressed, I saw a sign for I-495. I looked it the sign and thought to myself "Isn't I-495 the Long Island Expressway? What's the Long Island Expressway doing in Rhode Island?" Rhode Island is an incredibly fucked up state and when I crossed over into Massachusetts a short while later, I hadn't been that happy to get out of a state since I left Connecticut.

After stopping off at the first real rest stop in two states to gas up (at $2.09 a gallon!) and grab a sorely needed cup of coffee, I got to Braintree about a half hour later, and got lost again. For some reason, a lot of highway exits in Massachusetts seem to drop you off in these rotary things where you drive around in a circle and pick one of several available exits. I picked the wrong one of course, but luckily found a cop about a block or two down the road, and he pointed me back to the rotary, which I drove towards...and right past, sending me another seven miles down the highway, where I turned around in a thankfully rotary-free exit and came back, and this time found the right place.

I went to the show and it was great, and even got to talk to a couple of the workers, then started the trip back home. See, here's the tricky part, because while it was broad daylight on the way up, it was now darkest night. I left Massachusetts in short order, and now this time when I was driving through Rhode Island, the dark saved me the bother of looking at the people who aren't there. I also was smart enough to avoid getting suckered into any of those lousy rest stops or maze exits.

Back into Connecticut, and it appeared that my theory about them being primitives was correct, because apparently the entire eastern region of the state is without power. I did not see a non-car powered light for miles, and except for New Haven, I didn't see another electric light of any kind until I got to...you guessed it, FREAKIN' BRIDGEPORT. I guess the idea is that you can't find your crack dealers and prostitutes without light to see them in. The state was mostly illuminated from there back to New York, and I made really good time coming home, getting back into New York State exactly three hours after leaving Braintree.

But as long and arduous a trip as this was, it wasn't the end. I am a trooper, my friends. My weekend road trip had not come to an end, not by a longshot. The second part took me to the birthplace of our country: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At least, I think that was the birthplace of the country. Whatever.

In any event, I left home at about 4PM, and crossed over the Tappan Zee Bridge (which spans the Hudson River near where I live) about ten minutes later. I always love crossing the Tappan Zee because from it, one can see the river snaking northward into the Hudson Valley, and I think it's one of the most beautiful sights around. Even looking south toward New York City is cool, because you can see the valley taper away toward the lights and bridges down that way. Such a nice, tranquil looking area to be.

However, my enjoyment of this place is soon shattered as, after crossing the bridge and taking a short jaunt through Rockland County, I head south into the toxic wasteland known as New Jersey. I'm not going to dance around this one, New Jersey (or at least the part I pass through) is a dump, and I honestly believe its sole purpose is to be a place to toss all the garbage we don't want in New York. In fact, as I was passing through Newark, there was this one structure that had a smokestack coming out the top that was belching a big cloud of black smoke into the air that was so thick that there was a haze all the way down on the highway. It kind of looked like that smoke they pump out of the Vatican when a pope dies or whatever the black smoke means, except it was about as much smoke as they would pump out if thirty-five popes died at once. Come to think of it, the Vatican must surely be breaking some kind of air pollution restrictions with all that black smoke/white smoke crap. But I digress.

So I enter New Jersey and head down the Garden State Parkway, which seems to have a toll booth roughly every five feet or so. I exaggerate, of course, but there are a lot of them. As I was hitting the end of the portion of my journey that takes me down the Garden State Parkway, I saw the most beautiful sunset. Big day for natural beauty, yeah. It was one of those nice orange and purple sunsets that one sees in pictures of New Mexico, just minus the red rocks. Really nice to look at, except for the conspicuous streaks of pollution smoking through the air around it. I don't know where Mr. Yuck's been living since the mid 80s, but I'd be willing to bet he's somewhere in New Jersey.

Right about this time, I thought about how if I were to get in some kind of accident at the speed I was going (roughly 75-80 MPH) I would more than likely be killed, or at least terribly injured, and it really struck me as odd that the thought didn't really bother me that much. I don't mean that in a "my life sucks and I want to die" self-pity, cry for help kind of way because dying would really suck, but you'd think that this kind of thought would at least rattle you a little bit, yet I just said to myself "Yes self, that would be a terrible thing were it to occur. But just now, you have a wrestling show to finish driving to." I'm not sure what to make of that whole thought process.

So after this little bout of self-analysis, I make a quick stop at a rest area (which, unlike Rhode Island, New Jersey does quite correctly, yet without the commercial extravagance of a Connecticut rest stop), and then hop onto my all-time favorite highway ever, the New Jersey Turnpike. While I can't speak for the entire highway (because it's really, really long), the portion that takes me from the Garden State Parkway to Pennsylvania is the most boring stretch of highway imaginable. Much like Rhode Island, you can see very little on either side of the highway except trees for the entire forty mile stretch, but unlike Rhode Island, the trees here are of a strange and sinister aspect. In fact, as I look at it, I can see why the locals would believe in a creature such as the Jersey Devil, because this seems like the kind of place something like that would inhabit. Of course, my theory is that the Jersey Devil is just a deer or pig that fell into a vat of toxic chemicals in one of New Jersey's fine factories, and decided to take its frustration over its newly deformed body out by running around New Jersey and flying and yelling at people and whatever else the Jersey Devil was supposed to have done.

Now, this is not to say that the New Jersey Turnpike is entirely without its share of entertainment. For one, there's only a few exits in this stretch of the Turnpike, and they're all miles apart, but the signs helpfully tell you how many miles away the next exit is, so I can while away the time by counting down how many miles to go before the next exit, and giggle with glee whenever the Turnpike fakes my out when, for example, instead of Exit 8 being followed by Exit 9, it's followed by Exit 8A. That Turnpike has quite the sense of humor. One of its other little pranks is when the two segments of the highway (one for cars and the other for trucks and buses), which run side by side but separate for a stretch, join together at the same time the left and right lanes disappear, leaving everybody scrambling to merge the traffic together without smashing into each other. It's a real gas to watch some dude in a VW Beetle zip around to avoid being smashed between two semi tractor-trailers while merging. Now, I know that all this might not sound entertaining to you, but when you drove to Boston and back the day before and now are taking a two-hour trek through a place like New Jersey by yourself, you need to be amused by something like this in order to think about something other than "Oh shit, I forgot to give my landlord the rent. I hope my key works when I get home."

So I finish up on the New Jersey Turnpike and cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania and, six miles later, enter Philadelphia. There is a lot of history behind this city and a ton of historical sights to see, but unfortunately I have no time to drive around looking at them because I'm just there to go to the show and then come home the same night. So I pop off the highway and it's just a couple of blocks to the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory where the show is being held. By the way, the show up near Boston the night before was held at the Braintree National Guard Armory. So while you all are pissing and moaning about how horrible our military activity has been for the American people over the last several years, you can take some small comfort in the fact that if it wasn't for our military, I wouldn't have a place to go see all these wrestling shows.

It was a really, really good show, too, with an awesome main event that finally blew off a feud between two wrestlers that had been running for four years. As I got back in my car and headed back home, I was very happy that I had seen an excellent weekend of wrestling and nothing was going to ruin that for me, not even driving through New Jersey twice in one day.

Unfortunately, my trip home was mostly uneventful, except for my required stop at the Montvale Service Area. It's the last stop on the Garden State Parkway before crossing back into New York State, and I always stop there to gas up before heading home since it's like 30 cents cheaper in New Jersey. Here's another thing I love about New Jersey: you're not supposed to pump your own gas there for some weird reason. This doesn't ever stop me from insisting on doing it myself, of course, but I find it tragic that we have an entire state full of people who, in addition to living in a toxic wasteland, don't even know how to pump their own gas. I think the whole gay thing was a cover, I believe that Jim McGreevey resigned as Governor because he didn't want to be responsible for a large portion of the population of this country being unable to perform such a simple task as pumping gas. Being in New York, where you're more sort of expected to pump your own gas, you can always tell when somebody's from New Jersey because they don't know how to pump their own gas. You can also tell because their car has New Jersey plates, but I'm multifaceted. So anyway, the (obviously born and raised American) gas attendant who was predictably not a midget (has anyone EVER seen an Arab midget?), comes over to do the honors, and I just tell him "Don't worry about it, pal, I'm from New York, I know how to pump my own gas." The guy looks at me uncomprehendingly and says "What this mean New York?" I point over at the border and say "New York. You know, the big place over there." The guy seemed truly offended that I wanted to pump my own gas. I know I don't have to and I don't pay any more for letting him do it, it's just a matter of principle. Plus, I think it's a stupid fucking rule.

I finish up and cross back into my home sweet home of New York State, jam back through Rockland, across the Tappan Zee, and home. I was exhausted, it really was a tiring weekend, but it was 100% worth it because I saw an excellent weekend of wrestling (kept excellent by the fact that I did not watch Cyber Sunday) and passed through six states along the way.

Also, all this driving gave me the chance to listen to a lot of music, as I went through an astonishing FIFTEEN CDs, four of which were double-length. So right now I would like to thank Superchunk, Beck, Built To Spill, Pavement, Nashville Pussy, Opie & Anthony, and Stephen Lynch for rocking me through the LAST TIME I WILL EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS EVER AGAIN.