I made it back to the Shore House after 5 days in Philadelphia. The trip was amazing, the people were amazing and I had a great time. There was so much that went on this weekend that I had to take down notes while I was on the train yesterday just to hopefully get all the highlights in. I can now say that I am completely comfortable with the train systems and pretty confident that I can get where I am trying to go without many problems. I started this weekend early Thursday morning with the train from Atlantic City to Philadelphia then from the station there to the airport. There was a little confusion meeting up with the trip leader but we got it figured out and had no issues with a gate pass to pick up our first traveler. That night was pretty relaxed with only 3 travelers. Once all travelers arrived Friday morning it was off to the zoo. I had a nice little battle with one of the seat belts in the van. For all this new technology a middle seat belt should not be all that difficult, coming from the ceiling to clip in to go across and clip again...ugh. I felt like an idiot. But, I finally won and we were off.
Apparently the Philly zoo was the first zoo in the US. But for that status I was kinda disappointed. There were a lot of monkeys, a rhino and a couple of zebras. They had the same kinds of animals in different places throughout the zoo so there were not really very many there. They did have this cool hot air balloon thing that would have been neat but they said it was too windy to go up that day. For the record, and maybe just from being used to the wind, but there was very little wind that day. All of the travelers were exhausted by the time we left and I was kinda worried how they would make it through everything else for the weekend. But some dinner at the diner and to bed relatively early they were good to go.
Saturday we were set to get on a trolley at 9am to take us downtown for a tour of the city on a double decker bus. We knew we were in trouble for the day when we didn't get on the trolley until almost 10am. Then we had to go to a bunch of different hotels to pick up other people. It was very unorganized and the little guy didn't know how many people he was picking up where and we had to go back and get people that he left. The seats were very slick and with every turn I was trying to stay in my seat and keep travelers in theirs. We finally got downtown around 11am and got onto the bus. That tour was really cool. I know I am getting old because that was my favorite part of the whole weekend. All the history facts and the art were amazing. I did not realize how much art there was in Philly. They have a program that they offer people who have been arrested for graffiti to go through a program to get a certification to do murals throughout the city. There were a lot of interesting things on the outsides of the homes. Some had plaques with a flag above it. Depending on what plaque was on the outside of your building used to determine which fire station would service you. If you didn't have the right plaque then certain fire stations would not help. There were a lot of shutters on the buildings and this was due to the city used to tax by the number of windows that you had so people started covering them up when the tax man came around, so they switched to taxing by the number of stairs you had. Any renovation that have been done in these areas had to be back to original so all these cool things are still there. The bus took about an hour and a half. There was a time in the last half hour when we kept hearing a siren. It was everywhere we went. Even the tour guide guy was trying to figure out. It turns out is was one of my guys making the noise. You couldn't tell by looking at him that he was doing it and it was very realistic but it took a good 5 min for me to figure it out. It was all pretty funny.
After the downtown trip we went to a Philly Union soccer game. We did not have a handicap sticker since we were in a rental van but there was no way our travelers would have been able to walk from the main parking to the entrance of the game. The trip leader had no issues telling the parking attendants where we were going to park and did not care what they thought we should do. It was awesome. Even though they said there was no extra parking in the preferred area we did anyway. There were a lot of booths outside the game and everyone had fun winning free stuff. When it was time to sing the national anthem they had to show the words on the big screen. Really? Is it that bad that people don't know the words anymore? I was blown away! Then I almost had to give a middle aged jerk a piece of my mind. He decided that him and his daughter needed to get up during the middle of the game to go get ice cream. One of my girls couldn't get out of the way fast enough for him so he started grumbling and making statements about "these people need to be kept at home" and "people like this shouldn't be allowed in public" I was so pissed! A million different things went through my mind to say to him when he came back. Fortunately her decided he needed to go a couple rows up to get around us and I was proud of his daughter when she refused to avoid our travelers. This dude should be learning things from his teenage daughter. Some people really irritate me! After the game we went and had dessert at Denny's and our poor waiter was beyond stressed. You would have thought he was running the whole place by himself...very dramatic. It was after 11pm by the time we got back to the hotel and got everyone to bed. It was an extremely long day and everyone, including me, was exhausted.
Sunday was the day everyone had been waiting for...Dorney Park. Some of the faces the travelers made on rides was hilarious. I couldn't even think about the ride we were on from laughing so hard at their reactions. Most everyone was very excited to be at the amusement park and I rode most everything with them.. Even this biggest roller coaster in the park. It was terrible...but fun. The traveler that I was riding with on that one of course chose for us to sit in the very front. At the end of the ride he was hiding his face and asking why he couldn't just ride with a normal roller coaster rider...lol. I guess all my screaming was embarrassing for him which made it all the better. We got stuck in a line while they decided they needed to put a new car on the roller coaster. Then we got stuck in the line with the staff that were too busy flirting around with each other to let people in. Which was the same ride that the car in front of us stopped on the track and the staff did not know how to start it and we had to wait forever while she attempted to push this car by herself. Luckily the other staff finally realized that everyone was backed up on the track. After 8hrs of amusement park fun we headed back to the hotel.
Monday morning was a trip to the aquarium. There was a really neat hippo exhibit and we were there in time to see them eat and swim. They were pretty amazing. The same area had really neat jellyfish and sharks but once we got out of that area the rest of the aquarium was disappointing. There were these people with cameras that kept stopping us everywhere for group photos. The first one or two were ok but getting everyone together for group photos every few minutes got old. After the aquarium it was time for the trip to end. Everyone went home and I was finally on the train back to the Shore House. The weekend was full of excitement and it was like taking 5 grown kids under the mental age of 10yrs old to every kind of attraction possible. But I would not have traded it for anything. I have had the most amazing opportunity to be doing the most amazing thing for the summer and I am just trying to take everything in as it happens.
I made it back to the Shoe House in time to meet the group that has arrived for this week. Was off on Tuesday and started to write my blog but there was too much to go in it so it has taken me two days. I caught up on sleep and laid out in the sun. We went and had a nice dinner last night and hung out on the boardwalk. Today was a morning of playing games and lunch at The Hard Rock, a little bit of time at the casino, then a trip back to Philly for me. I am only here for the night and will be helping with the drop off for the Hawaii trip that leaves early in the morning. Unfortunately, I will be having to be up by 3:30am to get everyone ready to be at the airport no later than 5am. So it will be no sleep for me tonight and a long day tomorrow. I will update my blog as much as possible but I think finding the time will be difficult. I attempted to upload a bunch of pics here but was having issues so everyone can find them on my Facebook in the Summer 2012 album.
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