I don’t know why, but seemingly every trip I take the journey there somehow eclipses the target experience itself (getting lost in Valley Forge, monsoonal rain in Charlotte, etc).

For instance, I joined my mom on Thursday to go see the Holiday Train Show at the NY Botanical Gardens despite the threat of snow. Fortunately, the weather held off on our way up to NY, but made the trip back extremely difficult.

Anyway, we pull into the gardens around 11am and see about four school buses parked outside of the main gate. I suggested getting lunch right away, but mom said she wasn’t hungry so we ended up trudging through the entire conservatory directly behind the masses of school kids. Once we got all the way around the building to the display area, we found 2 things a) it was a lot smaller than we had anticipated and b) we could barely see the trains with all the kids, the tourists with their cameras and the staff still working on said trains.

Around noon the kids disappeared for lunch leaving the display area empty except for my mom and I, a few grandpas with digital video cameras, and a newspaper reporter taking the media tour. I considered signing up for that myself, but this was more of a last minute trip – besides, I can just hear the editorial meeting about this back at the Ignore offices.

I exhausted the remaining pictures from my camera and head back towards the gate. We ducked into the relatively crowded gift store and picked up a few holiday gifts. I then went across the path to the café and bought a soda and pack of chips for the road before meeting mom again at the car.

It was nearly 2:30 by the time we got out of the city, but the weather was still holding up nicely. We stopped briefly for dinner in Allentown where the temperature was beginning to drop.

The first flakes of snow started falling as we approached the light in Schukyll Haven and continued all the way to Ashland. The entire way up and over the mountain was one giant sheet of ice. We slid, slided and swerved all the way to Ashland Hospital making for a very hair-raising trip back in total darkness (except for the blowing snow reflected in the taillights ahead of us).

Once we passed the hospital everything was clear – no snow, no ice and calm winds. The only question was who could I sell this story to?