I can no longer own guns due to my conviction for conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping. But Mrs. Liddy owns 27 guns, some of which she keeps on my side of the bed..."
Heh, that's great!
As for being disappointed when you see these things in person:
- When I went to Paris as a kid, I thought it was a big, dirty city with the Eiffel Tower. My dad gave us kids the option of paying the fee to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, or being able to buy more Cokes to drink that day, and we all voted for the Cokes.
- When I went to the Egypt in the USN back in the Seventies, the Pyramids did not disappoint. Even more, that was when you could climb them, if you were brave or stupid enough to try. I climbed about three or four levels IIRC, and I was astonished at how high that was. But even though I felt safe there, it was clear that the higher you went, the more sandy and crumbly the stones became, the more narrow the footholds became, and the more likely you were to slip, so I didn't go any higher. I heard that some time after that, they closed them off so you couldn't climb on them (which made a lot of sense to me) because some tourists (I heard stupid US Navy sailors) fell to their deaths.
- I went on an unplanned road trip some years back (I had a huge amount of vacation time that I was going to lose, and my wife didn't have any) that took me on this path:
So, I was kind of excited to take my path through St. Louis where I could see The Gateway Arch. I had seen a documentary in high school about it many years ago, so I had this vision of a great arch, filling the sky, sitting astride the Mississippi River with a leg on each side. I drove through St. Louis at 01:00 AM, and had been warned not to stop there after hours as it was a dangerous part of the city, so I was content to look at it, and...good gosh. The thing was puny compared to what my mind had made it out to be! I was so let down...