It's OK to be a tourist in NYC

We stopped by NYC's Visitor Center. It feels like a cross between the Apple Shop and The Fifth Element

810 Seventh Avenue

http://www.nycgo.com/

Bitchin'n'twitchin'

This is a touchscreen map of New York. Just hop anywhere you want, and a bunch of interesting stuff to do comes up in little bubbles, complete with descriptions, and contact details. Amazing stuff.

Reclaim the Streets
Times Square gets pedestrian, complete with deck chairs and mini sofas. Strange to see all these people relaxing in what is usually a mad cacophony of horns and engines and and neon and posters.

Clusterfuck...
Even if you've never been to New York before, it feels like you're coming home because everything is so familiar. And overwhelming. Ah, New York. It's louder than your Mum.

Me, and my travel companions
(I took this picture with my foot, in case you were wondering.)

Hotel 414 - Hell's kitchen

We bunked down in Hell's kitchen at a little boutique hotel called the 414, not bad. Right in the middle of a leafy street, surrounded by steers, queers, and eccentric old dears. This is the life... Just need to find me a lady whistle-pig New Yorker, get myself that green-card.

http://www.414hotel.com/

JFK Airport - New York

After two hour's taxiing around Pittsburgh Intl., our plane finally took off. Landed late at night, but so excited, we headed straight for Starbucks to refuel for an exciting midnight stroll around the lean, mean and preened streets of Hell's Kitchen.

Saying goodbye to the last of the Bunolans

No-one will ever guess I'm a tourist...

Lookin' smooth, flyin' the flag and sippin' a starbucks.
In fact, I was so excited to finally be in the city of my dreams - albeit in a the windowless departure area - that I made like a baby whistle-pig and I wet myself. (Hence a strategically placed coffee cup.)

-THE DEPARTURE-

Are we sitting comfortably?
This is me leaving Bunola. It was decided I should leave by the two-legged folk up at the house after a tense standoff involving tomato plants and an air rifle. So off I was sent to seek my fortune in far away lands. This was mainly due to the presence of two other hairy foreign vegetarians, who offered to smuggle me with them on their travels. This is quite a departure for me, since most groundhogs live in tunnels about 30 feet long.

Travelling in Style
As luck would have it, North Face backpacks include a woodchuck pocket

Here I am kissing goodbye to the flag.

Bunolans

Pool party [5 July 2009]

This is the party those b'stards had when I left. Good times...

The World's Strongest Man has left the building. And is now Elvis. Elizabeth, Pennsylvania [July 2009]

The night before I left, I paid a visit to some old friends to say goodbye. The lovely Jamie was once the world's strongest man, until his attempt at a new world record pranged his pectoral muscle, which went flying off into two parts, which now abide somewhere between his chin and his belly button. He is now a highly successful Elvis impersonator, who's wigs alone are worth thousands. His favourite tune is Suspicious Minds. (Actually it's not, but I can't remember his favorite, so I put mine in.) Here he is hangin' in The Club House in his garden in Elizabeth, PA.

Next to him is his wife Michelle. She keeps Pirahnas and has incredible hair

Bad Boy of Bench back in the '90s

The King of bench, and The King

This is Mike. He has no legs, and regularly gets the crap kicked out of him.

Bunola, Pennsylvania - Living on the edge (of the tomato patch)

This garden was once my home. However, my fondness for tomato plants did not go down well with the Independent Mountain Man up at the big house. One day, as dusk settled on the riverside trees, I was cogitating whilst sucking on a juicy red one among the vines.

Suddenly, my whiskers twitched, and my little groundhog mouth did tiny circles in the air... I could smell danger. (I later realised it was just whisky, cigarettes, and unlit gundpowder.) And there it was: an enormous hairy biped was staring at me down the barrel of an air rifle, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, trigger in one hand, beer in the other.

I had the defining Caddyshack moment every groundhog dreads, and decided it was time to make a move. Valderee, valderah. Here are my tales.

This is the roof of my family's house. Little damp, but it was home.


This was our view - right up to the biped's smoking den.