Mike and Ray's Bogus Journey, The 283 from HELL... Options

[Mike T]

Last Sunday I was high bidder on a 283 V8 engine, recently rebuilt and supposedly in good running condition. The owner was in New York City, actually Inwood, NY on Long Island, about 3.5 hours away, so I decided to go get it instead of having it shipped. I took a good friend of mine who had never been to the City. We figured it would be an interesting road trip. We set out at 7:00AM this morning headed for Long Island.

I had 2 sets of directions, one from a friend and a turn by turn map from Mapquest. Didn't stop me from getting lost a 1/2 dozen times and what should have been a 3.5 hr trip took 5hrs. The Mapquest directions were useless.

We crossed the Tappan Zee bridge to get to the East side of the river. We don't see bridges that big in Brackney, pretty imposing span. I shot some pretty cool pictures and some video. Later we crossed to Long Island taking the Throgs Neck bridge. Another pretty neat sight. We shot more pics and video.

About 1/2 way across the Throgs Neck Bridge I noticed a NYPD car following me, sort of close, before I knew it his lights came on and I was pulled over at the end of the bridge. Speeding? Everybody was speeding... I got out my liscence and insurance card. He got to the window and asked me if we were taking pictures of the bridge? Huh? I said we had. He then said "this was not a good time to be taking pictures of Tunnels and Bridges" Real straight face, all business... Then he asked me for our cameras and camcorder! He told me he was calling a Supervisor and we had to wait and off he went back to his squad car and puts it on the hood. Evidence. I was stunned! Never considered that when we were taking pictures. Holy crap. I'm a suspected terrorist? Ray and I look at each other in, I don't know, disbelief I guess. About 20 mins later another car pulls up- the Supervisor. He doesn't want to confiscate or cameras or even film(digital) he just has us play back the tape and pics. I show him how to work the VCR and Ray runs through all his pics for the first cop. After they see we're just a couple of Goofs taking tourist shots they get friendlier. We left with the suggestion we take no more pics or video of Tunnels or Bridges.

Oh, yeah. I did get the engine. Looks good. Won't know any details until I open it up. I'm not quite as excited about it as I was though.

Mike T

[brant]

my in-laws are outside of the city and in a couple of visits in the last year and a half.. it seems that (especially) in NY.. they take this stuff pretty seriously..

good for the cops.. I mean I know it was a delay.. but good for the cops..

We were walking around my in-laws during a visit.. Walked down to the reservoir. Two correction officers with what appeared to be M-16's stop us.. The officers were friendly, but it was clear we could not and should not be walking around a water source.

brant