Pennsylvania in Pieces

I ended up with over 100 photos from my trip to Pennsylvania, so I'll post it in pieces! It's going to be a little disjointed, because I either have to post backwards from the last day to the first, or just ask you all to read them backwards! Or, well, I guess I could write them individually. :-)



...



Got it- I'll write about it, and post the pictures in a separate blog.



I left early in the morning, with just a little hang-up at security because my sheer scarf was a potential threat that needed to be sent through separately. The flight had a little bit of excitement, a man had a mild heart attack- and there were 4-5 doctors on the flight! I never want to hear "Is there a doctor on board?" again. Scary.



A quick layover at Chicago-Midway, where a slice of pizza is $8, and off to Pittsburgh! It was really funny- on Southwest, you get to pick your seats, and if you sit in the very front then you get tons of leg room, so you KNOW I was all over that! The one hang-up is that your carry on has to go back behind you in one of the overhead compartments because there's nowhere to stow it during take off/landing. I cannot tell you how many people passed up sitting up front for the 20 minute flight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia because they didn't want to be separated from their purse or laptop for 20 minutes! A gal hoppin' a flight for a wedding shower and a guy hoppin' a flight to meet up with his buddies and go drinking in Philly both decided to sit up front- one had no luggage and the other had a tiny purse that slipped in with the flight attendant's bag.



After being on planes for 7 hours, I welcomed the 20 degree chill that slipped down the tunnel from the plane to the airport, and you know what, I couldn't wait to find a real bathroom! And you know what else, they don't have any well-marked bathrooms in the terminals at the Philadelphia airport. I didn't see a single one until I got to baggage claim!



It's so great to see family, and it's even a sweeter reunion when you haven't seen them for a while! Spending time with Doug, Mimi, and Sydney was so wonderful. There's so much to tell, I don't know where to start!!! Or if I should just leave the memories inside my head... we went to Hershey & they totally put up with me being a cheesy tourist, drove all over the country side, and I got to sit in and participate on Doug & Mimi's small group. That was great, because I haven't really touched base with my faith for a while... Turns out that Sydney just got her lisence, so we went for an adventure to find elephant garlic... it's pretty hard to find that out in Dutch country, and after an hour and 3 stores, we found it at.... drumroll please.... Walmart! Turns out there aren't a lot of Italian food ingredients in Richland PA.



Three days was just not enough time to spend there- I wish I could pick up their whole house and drop it down next door. I miss the Shade family!



Monday, Sydney had to go to school, so Doug, Mimi, and I went to Philly. I had my first Philly Cheese Steak at Campos, and it was AMAZING! I balked when they said to try it with cheese whiz- they wanted to put canned cheese on my deliciously grilled roast? EW! But I tried it- turns out that they call the melted velveta-style cheese "cheese whiz". It was pretty good, but I really do still like the provalone best. It was really funny- I was taking pictures of all the sandwhiches and a woman working there said "Whatta-you gonna do wit those pictures?" I answered "I'm Italian, you gotta take pictures of th'food! And I'm gonna blog about my first cheese steak." She asked for my blog site. (which is why I haven't made it private yet, but of course- I intended to have all this posted a lot earlier!) I told her I got the Italian roll for the plane, and she threw in 3 soft pretzels. It was a sweet and welcoming gesture. And then she told Doug & Mimi to bring her some ... I-don't-remember-what-kind-of-meat... :-)



Independence Hall, and the surrounding buildings, were absolutely amazing! The Liberty Bell- wow. The history around every corner- they have a building that has the beginning of the Preamble, large enough to see across the park! The pride to be a founding city for our country... I could spend a month in those buildings and never get tired of it!!!



I took lots of pictures of random buildings, of course. It was cold there the entire time, as low as 17 degrees! Turns out I missed their incredible snow storms by - just days. Dang it!!! I wanted snow!



The flight home was pretty uneventful, my back hurt a bit, but I figured it was just because I was sitting in a cramped plane for so long, and I had myself all twisted while playing Henry Hatsworth on my DS. I missed my puppy, but didn't realize it, not really, until I was on the way home! Doug & Mimi's dogs were a hoot, and they kept me distracted... When Dad picked me up from the airport at 10:40pm, I could hardly wait! Stanley was pretty happy to see me, and the parental units kept him good and happy while I was away.



My back was still pretty sore for the next day or so, and by the end of Wednesday I couldn't move. Thursday I called in to work from a parking lot, and had to wait for Mom to my rescue!!! Thursday night, it got so bad that I could not move. Something was wrong. I called the consulting nurse, who promptly said "COME IN" and then I rolled over on the floor to wait for Mom and Dad to rescue me again. As I was crying on the floor, puppy piled all of his toys around my head, then jumped up on the red chair with his head hanging over so he could see me, and just whimpered. It was so cute!



Turns out I had a kidney stone- 5.5 mm. Not the best end to the vay-cay, but we've now come full circle. :-)



Okay, photos will be next...