Hopefully this will be the start of regular posting again. I took stock of my supply today and found that in the 2+ weeks that I was sick, I consumed approx 65 cups of tea during work hours. That would explain why I don't drink it on a regular basis. I end up od'ing on it when I'm ill and can't stand the taste of it any other time.
Anyway, back to the rest of the trip. Sunday afternoon we once again paid the "get out of New Jersey toll" and headed back into Philly for the Baby Pens/Phantoms game. I think this might have been the first time that I was rooting for the away team. Usually I'm in my home arena (or at least my team's home arena). Once we got settled in and took a few pictures for Gage's scrapbook, we realized that the majority of the Baby Pens fans were in a section on the other side of the arena. There were a few scattered here and there, but they were concentrated down by the North end of the arena. So, not only were we in a strange arena, we were in enemy territory. That helped us learn some covert things about what the competition thinks about our team. A father and son behind us were discussing the Penguins and the Baby Penguins during warm-ups. Specifically they were discussing Marc-Andre Fleury. They were contemplating the future of the Flyers against the Pens and the outlook (according to them, I swear) is bleak. At one point the only option would be to move the Penguins out of the Flyer's division. The man complained that they spent the last 20 years dealing with Brodeur and they'll spend the next 20 dealing with Fleury. I tried to smooth things over by saying it was payback for Ron Hextall. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we always managed to beat up on Hextall.
Anyway, the Baby Pens jumped out to a quick lead and managed to hang on til the middle of the last period when the Phantoms managed to tie it up with only 30 seconds left in the third period. Everyone in the arena (including me) thought we were headed to overtime. The Baby Pens won the face-off at center ice and drove down into the Phantoms zone. With 2.4 seconds left on the clock Shane Endicott put a beautiful goal into the Phantoms net to give the Baby Pens a 4-3 win.
I know I said before we left that the outcome of the game was secondary, but that didn't stop me from screaming myself hoarse during the course of the game. Just like their NHL counterparts, the Baby Pens didn't want to give me a relaxing game either.
After the game, we managed to extricate ourselves from traffic fairly quickly and head back to Tom's place. We packed some stuff up and settled down for our last night in the dead zone. Monday morning we headed out early (and though it was no longer the weekend, we still didn't see anyone on the streets). The drive back across the state was pretty uneventful. We stopped at my old office on the way back through so that everyone could see Gage again. Then it was on to the house and a rest after the long weekend.
So, there you have it. The full travelogue and I'm only a little under a month behind.