As you’ve now heard from my audioblog, Amy, Stephen and I went to Philly this weekend. I took off Friday so we could fly out there to Philadelphia, PA where Amy attended a surprise baby shower for one of her online friends. I think it’s safe to say that this is one of craziest surprise showers, since the girls live all over the country, and for the most part have never met. So it was a good chance for her to meet them, and for them to meet our son.

Stephen did a great job traveling. For those scoring at home, this is his second trip on an airplane. The first was a trip to FL for Christmas with the fam. This trip was a little longer; a three-hour trip once airborne each way. I don’t think he has a problem with flying except that he’s got so sit relatively still for that long. We just made sure that he was sucking on something during ascent and descent, so there were no ear problems either.

He had to skip a nap Friday morning, because he didn’t want to fall asleep in the car on the way up to the airport for some reason. He can usually fall asleep in the car. But he did get to sleep on the plane, so although he didn’t get a full nap, he was still okay for the rest of the day. On the plane, we had what I think was the best coach (I’ve never flown 1st class, so I don’t know how good the food is up there) meal I’ve ever had. We were on Continental, and they serve a meal for that flight. We got little personal pizzas, and although kind of awkward to eat on a plane, the pizza tasted really good. They were warm and soft with good, gooey cheese on top.

Stephen liked it too, since he got a few pieces of bread off of Amy’s crust. Unfortunately, he was eating one of those pieces of crust while sitting on my lap when he decided to squirm and rear his head back to look up at the lights and air vents above us. That caused him to start choking on the bread as it got caught in the back of his throat. Amy said that when he came back up and started coughing, she could see the bread in the back of his throat. Well it ended-up gagging him instead of him coughing it out, and before I knew it, there was half digested milk all over my lap. And this was about 1 hour into a 3-hr trip. Needless to say, there was a bit of a smell going on after that. That’s why I want to officially apologize to whoever had to sit in seat 21 A on the flight after ours.

We finally got to Philly, and by that time I was really ready to get out of those pants. But we had other things to worry about. Like how do we get to Exton PA from the airport? A simple click on MAPQUEST tells you what may be the shortest route, but by far not the best. We were directed to take all these winding roads where the typical speed limit was about 35 MPH. Although scenic, this was not what we wanted to be doing at this time, since we’re all just ready to be at the hotel.

We finally made it to Exton, and started looking for the hotel. In Exton, I started seeing all these “All Turns Right Lane” signs. As I was going along, I was thinking to myself “Duh – of course you have to turn from the right lane, if you’re making a right turn. You cannot make a right turn from an inside lane and cut across traffic. Duh!” What didn’t occur to me was that all means ALL, including left turns. And of course the hotel is on the left. Amy and I say “What do we do? Let’s go down to the next exit and turn around.” I took the next left, not knowing that the next left is the entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Now if you’re not familiar with the PA Turnpike, let me give you a little primer – it’s a long road with NO exits! As we exited Pottstown Pike into this Toll Plaza, I was thinking to myself “this isn’t good,” but figured we could get on the toll road and find a way to turn around so we could get back to the hotel in quick order. Turning around is apparently not allowed, even though it’s called a turnpike. It should be called a no-turnpike. The nearest exit was 13 mi away! So we go from passing up our hotel to being 20 minutes away from our hotel with no way to turn around. Amy said it right – “The turnpike is a great idea… if you know it’s there!”

We finally made it to the hotel. There are more stories, but this one is dragging on, so I’ll cut it short. Needless to say, be very careful when driving in PA!