Hayley and Kate Minter

We got up to a fine Deacle breakfast Tuesday morning. Scott and Sarah fixed us waffles (real ones, on a real waffle iron), and they were good. Reggie thought so, too.

Hayley and Reggie had a good time playing together. She would run from one room to the next, and Reggie would chase right after her. As we were getting our stuff ready to go, Sarah got out some pens so that Hayley could draw. We tried to get a picture of Hayley with Scott and Sarah, but she was having none of it. So we had to settle on getting them in kind of the same space at the same time.

The Deacles gave us directions into Philly, and we bade them farewell. The directions they gave us took us along this very pretty drive beside the river, past the boathouses and the art museum (of “Rocky” fame) into downtown. It was pretty easy to find the historic area, and we parked in a garage a few blocks away. We brought the stroller, though Hayley wasn’t really having much to do with it. Our first stop was the Liberty Bell. After making it through airport-grade security, including putting the stroller through the X-Ray machine, we were into the building that houses the bell. It’s not in Independence Hall, but rather in a new building on the lawn of the Hall. We saw the bell, it was large and cracked, and then we left.

As we were leaving the bell center, we saw a guy hawking horse-drawn carriage rides for $20. Since we wanted to see some of the sights, and knew that Hayley wouldn’t sit in her stroller, we took him up on the offer. Hayley got to feed the horse (“Caesar”) a carrot, and we began our trip.

The tour was decent – we went around about a 6-8 block area of the historic part of town. We saw sights like the old bank, tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Philadelphia hospital, jewler’s row, and more. I think it was worth the money, and Hayley was pretty good for the trip, eating and then standing in the floor of the carriage.

We went back to the car and left for Delaware. On the way out, though, we wanted to try one of the “famous Philly cheesesteaks” from either Pat’s or Geno’s. When I worked in Philly, I got my cheesesteak fix from random food carts on the street, so I’d never eaten there. Of course, before we left, we didn’t get directions, so we were wandering the streets of South Philly, Hayley asleep in the back, trying to find these places. We finally asked for directions and got them, along with the recommendation to “Go to Geno’s – they’re better.” Cheesesteaks are religion to Philly folk. We found the shops and got our food. The steaks were good, but I think the ones from the cart were better.

Our bellies full of steak, we got back on 95 South toward the Delaware/Maryland border area. Our destination was the home slash office of one John Skilton. I’ve been doing consulting work for his company, SkilTech, since 1997 or 1998, running the systems he uses. We don’t get a chance to meet face-to-face very often, though, so I wanted to make sure to stop by and see him.

We got to SkilTech World Headquarters in Elkton, Maryland, and John immediately put me to work. So while I used his wireless network to get a few things done, Holly and Hayley watched TV and played with his dogs, Buster and Max.

This was probably Hayley’s worst mood of the trip – I don’t know if she had gotten so over-tired that she snapped, or what, but she was just inconsolable most of the afternoon. She napped for a bit, but the dog’s barking woke her up. At one point, she was having a fit so bad that she slammed the back of her head into Holly’s face, cutting Holly’s lip. Yikes.

We eventually calmed down enough to go to dinner. John took us to a new place in the Newark, DE, suburbia called Red Robin. It’s a 50’s-themed burger place, and it was hoppin’. There was a 20-minute wait to get in, and we were fairly late getting there, so it was getting late in the evening before we sat down. Then it happened.

I was trying to get Hayley into her high chair, and she was facing me, so she didn’t notice the Red Robin mascot coming up behind her. So when she turned around to find Holly, she instead found herself nose-to-beak with a six-foot-tall anthromorphic bird, its wide staring eyes and yellow-beaked grin right next to her. She literally jumped from the high chair into my arms and grabbed on tight. She didn’t cry – she didn’t do anything. She was just comatose hanging onto my shirt. I could have stood up without touching her and she wouldn’t have moved.

The bird quickly moved away and didn’t come back, but Hayley didn’t leave that spot for at least a half-hour. She didn’t want to go to Holly, either, which is rare. She just clung to me. Part of the problem may have been that, in the line of sight from the way she was clinging, there was a 3-foot-tall statue of the same mascot. I don’t think she wanted to move for fear of it coming to life. We finally, as we were finishing our food, got her to loosen up enough to turn around in my lap and eat a few french fries, but that was it. I’ve never seen that reaction from her before but, when I think about it, if I saw a red creature three times my size coming at me, I’d probably be startled, too.

After the dinner adventure, John took us to the hotel room he’d booked for us. It was a Knight’s Inn right off of I-95. We got panhandled right at the motel office, which was kind of sketchy, but the room was fine. Except for the bathroom, which had a bottle opener attached to the inside of the door frame, at the proper level to be used while sitting on the toilet. A bottle opener? In the bathroom? At john-level? Who are these people’s clientele?

Since we were in the room with Hayley with nowhere else to go, we went to sleep pretty soon after Hayley did.

So ended Day 4.