To get away from the city, we sometimes like to go to Bear Mountain. This is a really nice, one-day getaway. Especially in the Fall, when -- as you sail up the Hudson River -- you can get a great view of the city's skyline, the George Washington Bridge and the changing colors of the trees, as you go past the Palisades and the Cloisters, on your way to the mountain.
The trip normally takes about 2 and a half hours to complete, each way, but you don't even notice it, because the scenery that goes by is so interesting that before you know it --you have arrived at your destination. Of course for us the best part is being on the ship, and just enjoying the passing scenery and taking lots of photos.
Now we like to make this a fun occasion, so we dress up for it, putting on our dressiest outfits and looking sharp, so that the photos are worthy of being sent to assorted friends and relatives. Sometimes, though, being so nicely dressed can present challenges, especially when the ship itself is not really a fancy one, and occasionally -- mishaps happen. As it happened to us one day.
To understand what happened, I must explain that this ship had three levels. And it's one of those ships that has this big smokestack that releases big, black clouds of smoke as (I guess) it uses the motor to speed along. Well anyway, there we were -- about six of us, on the very top deck, checking out the sights and taking photos. We really were not paying attention to the loudspeakers and the stuff they were saying, when we noticed that people were hurriedly going downstairs, we just shrugged and kept taking pictures.
Then we heard a loud horn, like a foghorn, go on and next thing we knew -- this huge black cloud of soot descended on us, on our nice white outfits! on out face, skin, hair, all over! Had we paid attention to the announcement that told people to please go downstairs...but we were too busy talking and now this!
We went downstairs, where the other people tried, very hard, not to laugh right in our face -- we looked quite the spectacle. One of the ship's crew came over to us, and offered us some cloths and showed us to the lavatory where we washed off as much soot as we could, but our outfits, previously white, were ruined. Now they looked grey and dingy. We had now choice now, since we were already at Bear Mountain, to pretend that everything was fine, and give nasty looks to whomever even so much as looked at us with a look of puzzlement on their face.
Apart from that little distraction, we had a great time, and when we got home went straight to the showers, and just threw the outfits we had worn, in the trash. You see, the soot was sticky and oily and just would not come off. We learned a lesson that day: next time -- pay attention to the announcements, it may prevent you from getting caught in a disaster!
