The three hour bargain!

Thanksgiving weekend's coming to a close, so the holiday season's officially underway. We've just had a four-day weekend, which really doesn't come often enough. I'm sure Alicia's covered the Thanksgiving goings-on in her blog, leishasblog.blogspot.com.

Today, we thought it would be good to get out for a while, so Alicia scanned the Entertainment Book and found something called Johnnyboy's in Queens, close to Flushing Meadows. We had a voucher for one free Texas Johnnyboy; didn't know what it was, but it was free so long as we bought another one. Being in the Entertainment Book, we knew it would be worth the trip. We also had a voucher for mini-golf in the same area, so it would be a good day out. The idea was that we catch the G Train and connect to the Q58 bus, and we're there; easy enough. So off we went and caught the G Train at Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, one which we've never been to before. It was only about 5 blocks from our place, but it took about half an hour to find the station. As it turns out, we actually didn't find the station, but we got on the train at the next station along the line. No drama - the G Train pulled up as soon as we got into the station.

We'd been on the train for about 15 minutes and things were looking good. Then the train stopped, the driver got out of his cab and told us that the train wasn't going any further. Fair enough, we'll just find a connecting train. So I looked at the map and figured the V Train will get us to the station we needed for the Q58 bus. We found the platform for the E and V Trains, and after three E Trains came and went, one of the MTA people kindly told us the V Train doesn't run on weekends (sounds like "the train doesn't stop at Bowen on Thursdays"). So we got the E Train to another station and connected to the R Train and finally got to the station we needed.

After walking around for about 10 minutes looking for the Q58 bus stop, we found it and things were looking better. Anyway, it showed up, we got on, and things were back on the original route, although our schedule had copped a hiding. We arrived at the intersection we needed and went in search of Johnnyboy's. We walked around for a while, but there were only light industrial shops (like glaziers, carpenters and the like) and a the back of a giant Home Depot (just like Bunnings, except bigger; of course). There was no way it was where it was supposed to be. The Home Depot was at the exact address, so we gave up and decided we'd have a look in Home Depot, and see if there was somewhere to get a feed. We went around the front of the store and found a semi-permanent hotdog stand. It turned out that was this was the Johnnyboy's we were looking for. We also discovered that a Texas Johnnyboy is a hotdog with cheese and onion.

By now it had taken us almost three hours to get to this place, and all we got for our troubles was a free hotdog. Even worse, because we'd spent so long getting there, we didn't have time to do the mini-golf we'd planned to do in the first place. We walked around Flushing Meadows for a while, had a look at the giant sphere of the earth (as seen in the opening credits of King Of Queens) and walked past the Arthur Ashe Stadium (where the US Open is held).

Rather than doing the reverse to get home, we went with what we knew and caught the 7 Train to Grand Central, connecting with the 4 Train, stopping just a couple of blocks from home. It took less than an hour.

So that's the story of my three hour free hotdog. It didn't taste very good either.