Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Last Friday, we had a 6:00 a.m. flight to Philadelphia. Our phone alarms were set to go off at 3:30 (mine) and 4:00 (Mark's). For some unknown reason, my alarm "tone" was set to some silly song and I almost slept through it. Luckily, Mark was awake "anticipating" the travel day and he woke me. I showered, etc. and we finished packing and headed to the airport. It was still dark when we arrived. We always arrive very early for flights, but not this time. We got to our gate and took turns running to the bathroom and boarded the plane. We never sat down. Whew! It is a good thing we didn't miss the flight (more on that later).

We cannot take selfies.

While we were on the runway, the sun started peeking through the clouds. We took off and landed in Philadephia a couple of hours later. Mark's sister and her husband, Bob, picked us up. It was cloudy and overcast at this point so we did a quick driving tour of Philadelphia.

We saw the Rocky steps!

And we saw the statue of Rocky!

We saw the Washington Monument in Eakins Oval at the base of the Art Museum's steps (right across). I would love to have spent some time exploring all of this statue.

We saw where our nephew went to medical school and where he lived (at that time) and we saw all of the old government buildings.

We drove through China town.

We were waiting on one of our other nephew's flight to arrive and there wasn't really enough time to go to the hotel and back before his flight . . .or so we thought. We stopped at a WaWa (we don't have WaWa's here!!) to go to the potty and grab a snack. Oh my goodness. I need to go online to see if I can order a case of their big soft pretzels. It was so good. It was as good as the ones I had in Germany. After our WaWa stop, we headed to the cellphone lot at the airport. A HUGE thunderstorm hit us about the time Thomas's flight landed. They couldn't bring the airplane to the terminal due to lightning so we sat. . . and sat . . .and sat . . .until we had to do an airport drive through so we could all go to the bathroom again! haha! Finally, after a very long time, they were able to get the plane in and he was able to hop in the car. We headed Total Wine and that is Mark peering down the aisle of whiskeys and bourbon. Oh my goodness, we don't have Total Wine here either!

I'm not sure of the exact order, but we went to Total Wine, did the driving tour of their old neighborhood in Delaware, and had lunch. After doing all three, we checked into the Mendenhall Inn in Chadds Ford, PA.

photo is from their website

We had never been to Delaware or Pennsylvania before, and we were amazed by the beauty—the lush woods, towering trees, and rolling green fields. What a beautiful place!!

Around 7:00 p.m., we headed over to the bar of the hotel for a casual dinner. I've never had a Moscow Mule in a clear glass before. You can see Thomas in the background.

By this point in the trip, Mark's twin brother and his family were supposed to join us—but all remaining flights to Philadelphia had been cancelled. Meanwhile, our brother-in-law had to go to the hospital because his mother was admitted. Grace, our niece, was also supposed to have arrived by now, and her fiancé had already made it. Poor guy—he got the full experience of our family, all on his own. 

Mark, Paul (not the groom, but Grace's fiance, and Thomas)

The bride and groom joined us for dinner and I could have sworn that I took a photo of them but it is not on my camera!!! Susie had friends arriving for the wedding and they joined us for dinner, too. It was fun meeting her people!!

After dinner, we headed to our rooms for some much needed sleep. We had been up since 3:30 and it was a long day . . . plus I had taken several dramamine throughout the day. ZZZZZZ . . .