What a gas

Well, we're safely home from Harrisburg, and after spending yesterday mainly in the car it has been nice to do not much today.  Right now I am banished to the front porch with this computer while some mysterious (belated birthday-related?) activities take place in the kitchen.  Occasional questions and reports are lobbed my way, such as "Baking powder is not the same as bicarb, is it?"  "Is this a tablespoon?" and "Everything's fine - no need to be alarmed!"  It's a little perturbing.

So what best-of-the-rest stories from our Pennsylvania trip would you like to hear?  I know!  How about "Guests Evacuated In Hotel Gas Leak Disaster"?

Yup.  Our hotel.  

The leak was caused just seconds before we pulled up in the parking lot at 9pm.  Rather impressively, another guest had managed to drive her car through a shrubbery and into the hotel laundry room, knocking over a sign along the way and hitting a gas meter.  I was shooed away from the check-in desk as gas started to pervade the lobby.

To the Man's disappointment, I suggested we should drive away for the time being, so we didn't get to enjoy the full glory of a dozen emergency vehicles arriving.  We drove around aimlessly for a while, and when we tried to return we found the road to the hotel blocked off.  Not knowing when it was all going to end, we checked into another hotel for the night.  Meanwhile the first hotel got fixed, and we moved in there the next morning. So all was well, but it did make for an exciting, and rather exhausting, start to our visit.