Philadelphia 2021 Day 1

Ye Old Midnight Ride
May 26, 2021

 
We were determined to get an early start to our adventures. This, for us, meant we absolutely had to be on location the day the adventures started, because we are absolute rubbish at leaving our home in any sort of orderly fashion.
 
Driving two hours to Pennsylvania late at night, as compared to my work related seven-hour treks to New Hampshire seemed like no challenge at all.  There was no way Anabelle was going to, or should have, missed any of her final month of in studio dance classes, and we planned to leave once she came home and got cleaned up.  Rosa and I packed everything together and loaded the car while she was in class.  There, she injured her ankle wearing the poorly designed fake boots of one of the new instructor’s costume choices.
 
The ever awesome Miss Chris used her executive power to remove them from the show requirements shortly thereafter.  We grabbed some extra braces and tape from the nearly inexhaustible supply in our home, which comes from having a heavily committed dancer who includes my genetic pool in the house, and headed out.
 
This trip featured “inconvenient rain” as often as the nature deities could manage over the three days.  The first instance was on the way down. About half way into the drive, a strong and steady downpour battered us. Luckily, the massive flashes of ground strike lightning remained on the horizon, generating only massive amounts of fear in the car, as opposed to massive amounts of electrical charges.  No rest stops were needed on this short hop. I maintained focus with a steady infusion of Diet Mountain Dew and my patented snack bag of unsalted pretzels, nuts and jellybeans.
 
Rosa and Anabelle napped here and there on the trip, waking up for unplanned jam sessions to the newly added playlist of childhood favorites, The Wiggles!
 
We reached the Best Western in King of Prussia after experiencing negligible traffic, a condition we would sorely miss any time we approached Philadelphia proper.   Across the road from the hotel was a Chili’s, meaning one of our meals was instantly scheduled.  Anabelle missed the local ones, which have been closed for quite a while now. Thanks to the plague conditions that rendered this tiny trip as “Travelogue” material, we had not been to visit the Colorado locations we’d found in far too long.
 
The clerk was amazingly helpful, friendly and perky for any time of the day, but especially for one o’clock in the morning.  There are many reasons I never entertained a career in hotel services.  Staying out of jail for assault due to failing to maintain any levels of helpfulness, friendliness and perkiness when tired is a key one.
 
We checked in, decided walking around the hotel wasn’t anywhere near too much exertion after sitting in the car for two hours, and found the section with our room.
 
Before fully settling in, we did our standard “Jeff lifts the mattress while Rosa does a spot check” inspection. I figure I have five to ten years left of the required strength to do this, before we’re forced to sleep on whatever they choose to hide under there.  This will be slightly longer than the window we have left for me hauling the Christmas Tree up into the attic, at which time we'll leave the thing set up in the living room all year.
 
This mattress review was followed by an over and above standard bit of disinfecting.
 
Old habits die-hard. We’re all going to be a little obsessive for an excessively long time. 
 
They passed out almost instantly. As I was overly caffeinated for the drive, I made it through two chapters of Spike Jones’s biography before reaching a similar state.
 
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