Vegas - Day 4

As per my assignment from Ann, we went back to Tiffany's on Monday so I could photograph the paper art in the windows. I'm still undecided if it's truly hand cut by Jeff Rudell or some other artist, or mass produced by Tiffany's for all their stores' windows - probably the latter.

That top photo was to whet your appetite. Look at these two windows! I think they are just breath-taking. The mitered frames around the windows are gray leather. It's Tiffany's, of course they are.

Tiffany's is in the street of shops at Bellagio, which also featured this atrium area. I love the burst of color of these lanterns (or seed pods) - not sure what they represent. There were also very large pots of sand sitting around, each holding a dozen or so giant burning incense sticks. Each was about 1" in diameter, about 18" long. (But not smoking as much as you'd imagine, it was very subtle.)

Then there's this dude.

I was kind of taken with these gold coins because artists use these (normal sized!) for embellishment on cards and as collage elements.

Before our trip, we had strongly considered renting a car and driving to Red Rock Canyon and Hoover Dam as I mentioned in a previous entry. Then I got the wild idea of driving to a California beach because I've never been to the Pacific Ocean. I did a MapBlast search and it seems like it would have been about 4 hours. I thought if we left the hotel at 6:00 AM, we'd get there by 10:00. We could hang out for about 6 hours, then drive back, arriving at the hotel by 8:00ish. (We never really slept past 7:00 any day we were there, try as we might.)

I wasn't totally convinced it was a good idea - that's 8 hours of driving for 6 hours of unguaranteed fun. But I floated the idea past Steve while we were eating lunch at New York New York, awaiting our room. He was moderately receptive to the idea.

Then we got our really cool suite and said screw any plans - let's just hang out and relax. So Monday after breakfast, we walked down to Bellagio for the above photos, then went back to the room, read for a while and napped for a while. Then I stitched for a few hours, watching Michael Jackson's movie, This is It, which honestly wasn't as good as I thought it would be.

Steve decided that would be a good time to go play some video blackjack. The movie was well over and he wasn't back yet - I was hoping that was good news. :-) I thought about going downstairs to find him but the casino is so big, it was likely I would miss him if he headed up to the room at the same time. (Duh, I could have called him on his cell phone.) When he came back to the room I asked if I should call our respective jobs to give notice. Nope, darn it. He'd played 3+ hours on the same $20 he started with! Guess he got his money's worth of fun out of that 2o bucks.

We walked around a couple of hotels trying to find just the right place to eat dinner. We ended up at a steak place in Excalibur. Truthfully, I only had French Onion Soup and a salad because I'd had a pizza pretzel mid-afternoon. Steve enjoyed his steak though.

This is the view from one side of the suite, during the day. You can see that crazy roller coaster track. Beside the rollercoasterness of it, add in alcohol - how much puking you think goes on, on that thing?? Ewww. It went until 10:30 at night (I think it was) - we could hear the screams faintly from our room. You can also see the Statue of Liberty in the lower left. It all looked so big from the ground.

Mom, I thought of you often, in our big fancy hotel room on the 32nd floor. There were specific elevators to specific sets of floors so the higher floors didn't have to stop at every podunk lower floor. That thing zipped so fast, it just showed XX for the floors it was skipping! (It was beautiful inside, all inlaid wood looking.) You would have hated every minute of it.

Same view at night. Not bad for photos taken through windows.

This is out the front window, overlooking the strip.

Same view at night.

This is the sun setting over the mountains in the distance. We didn't want to go to bed because then vacation would pretty much be over but we got to bed at a reasonable time. Good thing, because we both slept like crap, waking up a lot. Must have been the anticipation of the alarm and getting showered, packed and to the airport by 9:00 the next morning.

I watched most of two mediocre movies on the plane, Fame and Post Grad. I even stitched while watching because we had no one with us on the aisle seat so Steve moved over and we put the tray down between us to hold my stitching things. I was so afraid I'd drop a spool of thread or my scissors and not be able to pick them up because everything is so cramped, especially with the seat in front of me reclined. On the way to Las Vegas, when the seat in front of me reclined, I could no longer hold my book out far enough to read without my glasses. I asked Steve if he would mind holding it for me out by the the aisle, but he politely declined. :-) I could read okay with my glasses on but it's kind of weird because I never do and I had to figure out just where to look through them.

A fine time was had by all.

Vegas - Day 3

We moved from The Luxor to New York New York today, Sunday. We upgraded to a corner suite with a Jacuzzi in the room. We were blown away when we walked in and saw how big it was - with spectacular views of the strip! This is what $70/night will get you in Vegas in January. I know the website says $120 and up but I've seen our bill. (This photo is from their website - there was no champagne in our room.)

We even got to check in a few hours early so we just hung out in the room then wandered around in the hotel casino for a while. We'd had lunch at ESPN Zone so Steve could watch the football game.

We split some loaded fries (cheese & bacon sprinkled on a mountain of fries) that we didn't finish. Steve then ordered a burger and helped me with this sundae but we left a good third of it. I should have put a basketball or something in the photo for reference. It was huge and delicious and way too huge for human consumption.

We went back to the room, read and napped and we couldn't bear to think of food again. We did actually go down and get a NY pretzel quite a bit later, then watched another movie in the room, Whip It. It was okay, not great. We've been wanting to see another Ellen Page movie since we watched Juno around Christmas time when Steve's sister was staying with us.

O.M.G. I knew Juno had won awards and was a good movie, but man, oh man. I cried my eyes out - at Jennifer Garner's character, who wanted a baby so badly and was afraid the adoption with Juno would fall through. I adopted Simon 22 years ago but in an instant, I was back in those feelings of my own. I literally couldn't breathe. Poor Steve and Barb, not sure what to say or do, other than wait it out. My complete over-reaction (heaving sobs, people) must have had to do with the holidays or work stress or something other than the movie. Because pulease.

Around that time, we also watched the movie, He's Just Not That Into You - which I liked a lot. Steve liked them both too, though probably not quite as much as I did. We watch a lot of crime shows, so it was nice to watch some romantic comedies.

The weather has been perfect - sunny and in the low 60s. When we booked this trip back in October, we read that the average temperature at this time of January is usually in the high 50s. I was looking at the 10-day forecast today - it will be going down to the mid-50s soon enough. Vacations just always work out for us (except for rainy Maine).

Vegas - Day 2

I meant to ask - is this a known thing that happens? Yesterday, on takeoff of both flights, as soon as we were airborne, I got so sleepy, I couldn't keep my eyes open and had to take a little nap. Is that an altitude thing? Weird.

In spite of trying to sleep in, we were both awake at 5:00 am, having had 8 hours sleep. We had a delicious breakfast in the Pyramid Cafe in The Luxor. But pretty early in the day, we were over the jet lag/time confusion thing.

I don't gamble.

Not!

Simon will be pleased that I can no longer say I don't gamble. "Who does that, Mom?? Who goes to Vegas and doesn't gamble?" When I got out of the shower this morning, Steve was watching the Players Network on TV, where different games were explained. I was kind of taken with Roulette, I gotta say. That's because it is literally a game of chance. All the other games require more brain power than I'm willing to give in order to give away money at lightning speed.

So we did a little casino hopping and ended up playing roulette at New York, New York. We had the table to ourselves and the dealer was a young kid, very personable and helpful to us. Turns out his wife is from Rochester and he used to visit his grandparents in Utica. We joked later that he pulled those city names from his dealer database to suit the players. For the next set of tourists, his wife was from Nashville, TN and he visited his grandparents in Memphis.

When I say I gambled, I should be clear, that I gambled with Steve's money, which turns out to be not that hard to do. :-) At one point I considered whipping out my own cash but couldn't quite do it. Guess I haven't totally gone over to the dark side. Too much tightwad in me to ever have a gambling problem.

We walked around different hotels for hours. We drank smoothies and milkshakes at a Haagen Dazs place. We went to see the lions at MGM and this time there were cubs there! Two years ago there were trainers playing with adult lions. This time there were three young women throwing balls for two cubs. They were like little kittens with balls of yarn except the balls were 18" in diameter and chewed to shreds. And the kittens had paws the size of my head. Still, cute as hell, we could have stood there all day.

We walked around one of the new hotels, Aria - just opened in the City Center a few weeks ago. That space was a big construction zone when we were here 2 years ago. This is a 4-ton, 19' tall typewriter eraser sculpture by Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen. They are known for all sorts of "pop art" - large sculptures of everyday objects.

Here's another sculpture - bunch of boats stuck together. It's, um, colorful. By Nancy Rubins.

There was other glass art that I saw through a window - but I can't find it online now to show you. It was very cool - in a gallery, I think. But the art that really blew my mind was some white cut paper art in the windows of Tiffany's. I don't know if it was by Jeff Rudell, but he is who came to mind immediately, because I know he did some unbelievable work for Tiffany's in New York City a while back. I saw these windows as we were walking back to the hotel after a show and was kinda of tired and didn't think a photo through the glass would come out too well at night. I can't find it online anywhere. I explained to Steve that Jeff Rudell's work is the holy grail to us paper artists, a big deal aplenty.

Heck, it might have been the work of Molly Jey - the style was very similar to hers.

We went back to the hotel after a while and read. I soon got so sleepy that I ended up taking a nap. I mean a good solid in-my-nightshirt, under-the-covers nap. My cell phone rang, medium-high with vibration, on the table next to my head and I never heard a note.

At 7:30 we went to see the Cirque du Soleil show, "O". Unbelievably wonderful! It's all set in and on top of water. From the moment the audience files into the auditorium and there are performers hanging out in the audience doing bits - to the way the curtain is removed - not even parted, but removed creatively, you know you're in for a mind-blowing experience. So much happening at once, so much to see.

You may recall we saw Cirque's "Love" last time, set to Beatles music. I had high expectations and they were exceeded but Steve didn't know what to expect so he was completely blown away. Even though by now we're both experienced, this show was nothing short of outstanding.

Dave Taylor writes a great review with lots of pictures. He has also written a piece about behind the scenes, which I'm off to read now. You can't watch one of these Cirque shows without wondering about the logistics of such a performance.

A good, long day. Lots of fun.

Vegas - Day 1

Our hotel, The Luxor, in the foreground. That beam of light shooting out of the top can be seen in space they say. Whatever.

"All Continental flights have been canceled."

Those are the first words we heard when we got out of the car at the Rochester airport departure zone at 4:30 am. We sent Simon to wait in the Cell Phone Parking Lot while we went inside to sort things out. They put us on a US Air flight that left only an hour later than our scheduled flight. So I called Simon with the okay-to-go-home call and we were off on our adventure!

In retrospect, I think it's good we didn't check our flight before leaving for the airport. I have visions of getting stuck in a queue on the phone forever awaiting help to switch us to another flight. Since our alternate flight left only 50 minutes later than our original, we would have to hustle to the airport anyway. I'd rather be there, checked in and relax & stitch until boarding time. But that's me. :-)

Our new flight went through Philadelphia instead of icy Newark (the reason for our canceled flight). Both flights were uneventful other than the plane was uncomfortably hot, even with the air blowing on me. I slept and read, didn't even try to stitch, though I stitched in the airports.

Oddly, I have been so screwed up time-wise this trip. I don't remember the 3 hour time difference being that big of a deal the last time we came here. I think it was because of the flight change, not that the flight was an hour later but because we talked about the time so much, figuring what time we'd arrive, etc. I tried to stay hydrated throughout the day. Dunno.

We checked into our room in The Luxor, both surprised to see we'd booked a room that had a Jacuzzi in it. This is where middle-aged absent-mindedness is a good thing - it was a pleasant surprise - oh yeah! Look what we did!

We rested for a bit, then went to dinner at the highly recommended Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay. Thanks John - the food was outstanding! We walked around a bit and I bought a Mandalay Bay shot glass for Simon. He has a bit of a collection, mostly provided by me in my never ending effort corrupt his morals. I only bring him shot glasses from hotels or cities in which I've stayed overnight. Yep, I have rules for even that. (I don't think I bought him one from Mandalay Bay when we stayed there 2 years ago or maybe he'll have 2 now.)

We made use of the Jacuzzi and boy, I was ready for bed! Except it was 6:30. Steve wanted to watch a movie so I begrudgingly gave in. We found a movie we'd wanted to see in the theater but never did, Pelham 123. What a good movie! I can prove it because I watched it start to finish, without stitching. I never do that! Denzel Washington is always excellent and John Travolta played an excellent bad guy. As I'm writing this, Steve is watching a football game and there was a commercial on just now for another movie with John as a bad-ass. As I said to Steve last night, "Who would have ever thought that Vinnie Barbarino would have turned into such a good actor?"

We slept like babies.

Here and There

Snowy Rochester, NY: 13 degrees (feels like 6!)

Sunny Las Vegas: high 50s and low 60s! We're staying at The Luxor Friday and Saturday nights.

We're staying at New York, New York on Sunday and Monday nights.

We're seeing Cirque du Soleil "O" at the Bellagio Saturday night.

Yep, Steve and I are going to Vegas again. We'll get there noonish on Friday and return Tuesday. The trip kind of just happened. In October, a few weeks after his mom died, I said, "Steve, you really need to get away and just relax for a minute. You've had so much on your plate with your mom for the last couple of years, plus the uncertainty of your job, it's been so much for you. You need to get away - and of course I would need to go with you. Even if it's just a weekend in Vegas, or anyplace, really, I th..."

"Okay, let's do it!"

We were going to go just for a weekend literally but decided that's too much flying in time and money for a short trip. Plus, they are practically giving the rooms away during the week. So it would be silly not to stay for 5 days and 4 nights, right?

It still cracks us up that we enjoy Las Vegas. It's so not us in our real life, but I guess that's what makes it interesting. Steve said the other day, until 2 years ago, he couldn't imagine himself ever going to Vegas, let alone enjoying it and going multiple times. (It was his idea to go 2 years ago, just to see, I was fairly skeptical - but we're both on the same page now!)

Last time we went in April and it was in the 80s but very comfortable. So it won't exactly be outdoor pool weather when we're there but we thought we might rent a car this time and explore the area, like Red Rock Canyon.

Vacation Wrap-Up

.

One of our days in Maine, we bought breakfast at a fast food place and found a place by the ocean to eat. It was raining so we ate in the car. The first family of ducks we saw had 4 parents and at least 2 dozen or more ducklings. There seemed to be such an unusually high number of ducklings that I said to Steve those adults must be running an orphanage.

Then we saw one lone duckling swim by. I couldn't look! I was afraid he was a straggler from the first group and they didn't know he was missing. Steve kept talking about him until I got him to understand, I was serious - I don't want to know about the duckling, stop giving me a play-by-play!

Then this second group swam by - with newborns! Turns out the straggler was more likely a scout for this second group. (It's hard to tell their size in the ocean unless there's another duck for reference.) That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Can you imagine how hard these little dudes have to paddle to get anywhere in the ocean current? I was so afraid the waves would wash them ashore and bash their little heads on the rocks but they were in control somehow. (I know, I'm hot & cold with visuals. Sorry.)

~ ~ ~

We ended up coming home from Maine a couple of days early. We felt we'd had all the fun we wanted to in Maine and Boston and the idea of a 4-day weekend at home was very appealing. It was definitely the right thing to do - it's been fantastic. It's days like these that always heighten my desire to retire. Now. But alas.

Simon's girlfriend is on vacation with her family for a week. He's been so bored he's hanging out with me, I guess. He went grocery shopping with me the other day and managed to help me keep things within budget for a change. (His going with me usually has the opposite effect, as other parents can attest to, I'm sure.) We saw prepared chicken kabobs but he noted they were pretty expensive, "I bet we could make those ourselves." I assured him we could. He's a pretty good cook in the kitchen and loves to grill. He cut up the chicken and marinated it. I cut the veggies and we assembled them together and he manned the grill. We had to buy skewers because I didn't have enough left for some reason from back in the day - that's how long it's been since I made these.

I'll have to find other ways to capitalize on Simon's boredom this week. He already installed a new flag pole for me on the front of the house. Now, where's my list . . .

.

Doing Up Boston

.

We spent Monday in Boston, doing all the touristy things. I told Steve there was a time in my life where I abhorred doing the tourist thing - too cliche or something. Over the years I've come to realize, it's the best way to see the interesting stuff. Duh. I realized that economies depend on tourists and recently I've also seen the light - that while saving is important, stimulating the economy is a necessary and good thing too. (Seriously, I thought saving money was 100% good and spending was 100% bad.)

We bought the boat/trolley tour package. That would be the Boston skyline from the boat, above. The boat tour is about 45 minutes long. You can get on and off the trolley all day long so we took our sweet time on that part. I highly recommend both. One surprising thing - the trolley drivers are very funny! I always think it takes a lot to make me laugh but our first guy was so funny I really didn't want to get off for fear of missing "the show". Our next guy was pretty funny and the 3rd guy just thought he was funny. All very entertaining stuff though and you really get to see a lot that you'd never get to see negotiating traffic on your own.

Photo from scottcabal at Trip Advisor.

We spent some time at the USS Constitution area. It's still a fully commissioned ship but it's open to the public, and it's closed on Mondays.

Photo from Wikipedia.

But we did tour the USS Cassin Young. This stuff is lost on me but it made Steve happy to see.

Photo from Stephco Cleaning website.

I loved this dramatic bridge every time we saw it and loved it even more when I learned from one of our trolley drivers that it's the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge and that Lenny Zakim was a civil rights leader. I took some photos but not as nice as this one. I did a little research on Lenny and the bridge and learned it was built as part of the Boston's Big Dig and it's the worlds widest cable-stayed bridge.

This was another of our favorite landmarks, the TD Northbank Garden. I'd forgotten until then that I'd watched a good number of Celtics games on TV with Dad during the Larry Bird years, played on the parquet floor of the old Boston Garden. And in more current news, I see my friend Bruce Springsteen played there this past April.

Other than Old Ironsides referenced earlier, the only other stop where we got off the trolley was at Quincy Market. It was lots of fun. I was relieved that Steve wanted to go here as much as I did. Besides the carts and kiosks seen here, there are brick & mortar stores and restaurants around the perimeter - we only went in a few. My heart was pounding throughout the Crate & Barrel store but I thought it would explode out of my chest when we happened upon a section displaying all things lime green. Wow. Nope, didn't buy a thing, though I considered a set of boxes - 3 shades of lime green, sort of a lacquer finish. I can't find them online unfortunately, to show you.

We had some lemonade and later stopped for ice cream - my first Death by Chocolate in quite a while, it was outstanding. We watched some street performers, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After we watched a 3-sibling circus type act, complete with a very believable "plant" in the audience, I asked Steve for a dollar to put in the hat because I only had big bills. He kind of rolled his eyes at me, I think.

Funny thing though - by the time we got to the naked silver lady, he seemed to be all on board with supporting street performers! Of his own volition, I saw him head over to her bowl to drop in some money. (She's not really naked, I just said that for effect.) When he dropped the money in, she broke her pose and did a bunch of cool robotic moves. When he got back to where I was standing, I was taking pictures and she kept motioning to Steve to come back so I could take a photo of him with her but he wouldn't budge. She looked sad.

Behind her a guy was playing drums on a bunch of overturned buckets and other plastic and metal containers. He took a break shortly after we arrived, which disappointed me. I wanted to watch more of him.

It was a long, full day - perfect weather - lots of fun!

.

Stuffed French Toast

.

Intriguing entry title, yes? There's a food photo coming but first, here are a couple of shots from our walk on the beach yesterday afternoon. We ate breakfast at The Egg & I, then spent the morning driving and walking around Ogunquit a bit. It was expectantly crowded for a Saturday 4th of July. A nice thunderstorm came through in the afternoon (we were hanging out in our motel room) and I said to Steve I would love to see an aerial shot of the crowds leaving the beach. Gradually, as dark clouds approached? Holding out until the last minute, getting soaked? Like little ants diving for cover?

This beach is right across the street from our hotel, so after dinner we walked along the sidewalk, amazed by the high tide. (This picture is also from our afternoon stroll, not high tide.) The tides are intriguing us so I'll have to do a bit more research on that. I found a schedule online that tells when high and low tides are each day. Interesting stuff.

We ate dinner last night at Ruby's Wood Grill. I had one of my favorite summer sandwiches, a BLT - but man, there was nothing dainty or light about this sandwich. I've never seen this much bacon on a BLT before. It was a bit fatty for this turkey bacon girl, but once I got rid of most of that and was just left with the thick cut smoky bacon on the sandwich, it was perfect. I couldn't eat all the fries, nor could Steve eat all his Buffalo fries with his burger. We skipped dessert and headed to the beach to walk off our dinner.

But this morning - here's the Stuffed French Toast I had that was To Die For. We headed out to a bagel place we'd seen listed on a map, but the line was out the door so we kept driving. We happened upon The Firefly Diner, which just opened 1 week ago yesterday. The Stuffed French Toast was their breakfast special, choice of strawberries, blueberries or blackberries. I had strawberry and Steve ordered the blueberry version. The waitress took our order then shortly thereafter we heard her tell her co-workers she had to go home and get (something) they were out of. It turns out it was her homemade fresh strawberry preserves that they put on this dish, along with cream cheese. It wasn't much of a wait, but even if it was, it was so worth it.

Unfortunately no one saw me take this photograph, thereby I didn't get to embarrass Steve, so that was a little disappointing. But I had not even tasted the food at this point - little did I know how outstanding the taste was going to be. When the waitress came over to check on us, I was gushing on about how fantastic this was, pointing out I usually finish eating before Steve but I purposely ate slowly because I didn't want it to end.

She brought out a jar of jelly she made to show me - it was kiwi with rum and bourbon (I think?) in it. It looked gorgeous, all green with black seeds. Now there's a PB & J that could kick your butt, huh?

She then sent the owner over so I could tell her how great the dish was. The family next to us turned around to see what we had eaten (too late!) that could be so good. She and I talked about our favorite cooking shows on The Food Network. I returned to going on and on about how great the food was and the family turned around again. I swear I could see their thought balloons, "Geez Louise, lady, we get it - you liked it. Simmer down."

The first time I had Stuffed French Toast was at an IHOP a year or two ago. Now I never pass it up given the opportunity. This homemade version was the best ever. As much as I like it, it never occurred to me until right now, that I could make this at home! Duh!

.

Boston

.

We stayed at the Hilton in the Financial District. Sounds perfect for an accounting person :-), but really, it was to be near the harbor. Isn't this headboard spectacular for stitching at night?? The story is a little different when I laid down to read, accidentally glancing straight up, "My retinas! My retinas!"


We ate dinner Thursday night in one of the few restaurants in the Financial District open for dinner, Mr. Dooley's Boston Tavern. It's a nice Irish pub, where I had Mexican quesadillas. Delish.


We had breakfast at Panera's and this was the view from our window seat. We walked over to the harbor right after breakfast.

I just had to take another photograph from the other side - that flag was huge!

We wandered around looking at stuff. I picked up a bunch of brochures that we can peruse and plan for another day in Boston during the week. It's only an hour away from York Beach, Maine, where we're staying.

We checked out the private yachts. I can't remember if it was this one or another one that was from The Caymans. La-de-dah.

And we ogled how the rich people live, pulling their boats (yachts?) right up to the door of their luxury condominiums. (Wikipedia tells me that yachts are typically 40' and larger.)

We will definitely hit up the Aquarium on our day in Boston.

I was impressed with how nice the walk is along the Harbor and now nice the seating is! I mean, maybe not super comfy but definitely durable and impressive.

The architecture is so amazing! This is where I always do what I like to call my Slack-Jawed Yokel impression for Steve, "Go-oolly, Vern - look at all them tall buildings they got around here." Nope, that never gets old.

We headed back to the hotel for one last pee break (TMI?) and checked out at noon. We then hit the road for Maine.

Note to my family: Driving from Boston to Maine, then back to a store at night, I was prompted to sing the State Line Song NINE times in one day. C'mon, that has to be a record, right? And I'm proud to report that Steve sings along now too. He doesn't punch the Hey quite properly but we can work on that.

.

Philadelphia

..

I found the above picture on my camera. I took it in the gift shop at the museum where I bought my lamp. The stars were very cool too - 5 pointed and 8 pointed.

We got a fairly early start to Philadelphia from Virginia Beach. Good thing because there were major delays in Delaware due to - I guess we're not sure what because the actual cause took place in a different direction from where we finally got to go. But it easily added an hour or more to our trip. We arrived in Philadelphia around 4:00, by the time we got to our room at the Marriott. And look! Triple towel origami!

We walked down to the Reading Terminal Market just to get the lay of the land, because it closed at 6:00. Very cool place - a big ol' hustly bustly farmers market. The majority of vendors were food vendors. Based on what I'd read about it, I was hoping for more craft type vendors but I still enjoyed it.

We then went to the Field House for a refreshing beverage. That would be cranberry juice for me and light beer for Steve. We're wild like that.

We intended to go back there for dinner but after vegetating in our room for a bit, decided to eat dinner downstairs in the hotel restaurant. We just wanted to be still and relax.

We each ordered the classic Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich. When in Philly, right? I even took a photo of mine with my camera phone but I'm such a doofus, I rarely use the thing, so I neglected to save it. Duh. So this one is courtesy Google Images. (Our sandwiches weren't as big as this one appears to be!) I also took a photo of the little tiny tray of little tiny hermetically sealed condiments. Two each: ketchup, mayo and Grey Poupon. Perhaps not the best idea, environmentally speaking (too much packaging), but really, cute as hell. (Again, didn't save the photo.)

Our room was fantastic in this grand old hotel. Mom asked me recently if I really liked staying in hotels. Absolutely! And I really like staying in nice hotels, historic if possible.

These photos were taken through our window so they are really quite crummy but maybe you can see some of the architecture of some of these buildings. Great stuff!

We woke up around 7:00, showered, got dressed and packed and hit the road. Our original intention was to go back to the Reading Terminal Market to spend more time there but it didn't open until 9:00. I decided that I'd seen enough yesterday to satisfy my curiosity. Besides the Pennsylvania Dutch wouldn't be there on Sunday and if anything, I wanted to buy some of their baked goods, for our breakfast maybe. We were both eager to get home to our furry friends so like I said, we hit the road. We arrived home today around 2:00.

If you can take your eyes off those glaringly white gams for a while (yes, I just spent a week at a beach, yay for sunscreen) - please note 2 cats and a dog, all sitting near me on the couch.
Yeah, they missed us.

.