The Day Rite-Aid Saved My Life - Vacation Day 1

Dave and I flew into Sunny Philadelphia.  Actually, it was 11pm so there was no sun.  We stayed outside of Philly in a lovey town called Havertown.  His cousin graciously offered up his home even though they went to the Jersey Shore.  We already asked for autographs, videos, and reenactments.  They assured us that it was nothing like TV and sounded a bit offended that we were disappointed.

I had already decided that unlike previous beach vacations where we grab a book, trashy magazine, and towel and lay around all day, that we're going to site see and be tourists and do really fun stuff.  So that morning at 8am Eastern time I tried to wake up my husband who refused to get up.  At 10:30 we were finally ready to leave and be big kids and take the train to the 69th Street Station.  Havertown has their own station, which according to the cousin is less than a mile from where we stayed.  Instead of finding that station, Dave and I walked almost 3 miles directly to the 69th Street Station.  That was fun. And we were hungry and I thanked Jesus that I thought to not only pack tennis shoes, but actually put them on my feet that morning.

Once we caught the train we easily found the Independence Hall stop.  We saw history. We learned history.  We saw Benjamin Franklin's grave.  I thought it was creepy that people paid tickets to walk around a graveyard.  We did not do that. Instead, I stuck my arm through the fence and snapped the pictures.

After our site seeing we found a cute little bar and watched the Little League World Series (LLWS).  We decided to cheer on Ohio, mainly because their cute little 13 year old pitcher wasn't having a good pitching day and we really wanted to see a come back.  *Spoiler Alert* Ohio lost.  We left the bar.  It was around 8:30pm when left.

On our way home we decided that we were going to get off at the Havertown stop so that we didn't walk 3 miles in the dark in the outskirts of Philly.  On our way back both our phones ran out juice.  We felt like big kids, in a big city, taking a big train.  We exited our train at the Haverford stop.  One thing I forgot to mention is that we didn't actually know our stops name. We assumed that Haverford is directly related to Havertown and it must be close to where we're staying. WRONG!

Instead we wandered around suburbs for hours.  If this was a TV show and Dave and I were contestants, we would've been the couple arguing and snipping at each other about being lost.  Our relationship would've been on tabloids and we would've had to go on a talk show circuit to defend it.

One cute thing about Haverford is that they don't believe in sidewalks.  They also don't believe in putting a the train station near lights or stores.  So when we exited the train station and didn't have a working phone to use google maps or call someone, we just picked a direction.  We walked through neighborhoods without sidewalks.  We walked by Havertown College which gave me the false hope that we were going in the right direction.  We eventually found stop lights and businesses.  We walked into a gas station and they didn't have maps or phone chargers.  We couldn't get a cab because we didn't know where to tell them we needed to go.  Didn't have an address or phone number because they were in the phone. Side note: After telling this story to someone they asked why we didn't look up the cousin's name in a phone book. That never occurred to us.  We're too dependent on technology.   Same deal in the CVS.  Only several people were trying to help us, but since we couldn't give clear directions it was hard tell us anything than, no this isn't have Havertown.


We eventually found a Rite-Aid in Ardmore.  I love Rite-Aid.  It saved my life and marriage. They had maps and chargers!!  I went to the maps and Dave headed for the chargers.  I bought two chocolate bars and opened the map in the middle of Rite-Aid and sat on the floor to try to figure out where we were and where we need to be. Dave bought a battery powered iPod charger.  It was the only Apple charger they had.  It of course didn't work on Dave's phone. However, it did with mine.  Only you had to position the batteries just right in order for it charge the phone.

Here's a map.  I encourage you to pull up the larger version so you know how incredibly far off we truly were. 


View Larger Map

We finally got it juiced up enough so that it would turn on.  We called one of his cousins who lives next door to where we're staying.  He of course needed better location points than the Rite-Aid in Ardmore. So we left Rite-Aid and thanked them profusely for carrying maps and charges and chocolate.  We came to a nice little corner which was housing a homeless man.  Dave's cousin was on his way.  I was therefore in charge of holding the phone while it was charging. Turns out I suck at that job.  I dropped the phone along with the charger.  The phone immediately died and we couldn't get the charger to work with the phone again.  I was desperately hoping that Dave's cousin did not need more directions to find us.


He didn't. We survived and made it home at 11.  Thankfully, the Phillies were in the 16th inning and that's why his cousin was up late.  Otherwise, his phone would've been turned off and we would've lived in Rite-Aid to never blog again.