Getting out of Wilmington...

We got up at a fairly reasonable time this morning, trying to get an early start on the day so we could get to Philadelphia fairly early to keep ourselves on schedule. I went out to get some ice from the motel's ice machine for our cooler, but it turns out that the temperature got down cold enough that the ice machine itself was frozen. I tried pulling some of the solid frozen mass out of the way, but without much luck.

So I checked in the freezer section of their little mini-fridge for some ice cubes, and guess what was in there, frozen to the side? A bottle of Crown Royal. That wasn't exactly something that I expected, but it was a pleasant surprise, at least. I have no idea how long it was in there. The booze was obviously not frozen solid, but the bottle itself was frozen hard to the metal sides. I'm guessing it was probably there for a week or so, at least. Especially since it wasn't even a real freezer, but just one of those little tray things at the top.

Guess I'll have to be sure to check in the freezers of all the hotels we stay in from now on...

The continental breakfast wasn't a whole lot to speak of. They still had some cinnamon roll type things and a few bagels, but that's about it. And, of course, the obligatory cup of coffee. I think sugar, starch, and caffeine are pretty much the standard for continental breakfasts. I guess they just figure you need that jolt to get going in the mornings...

We're about to roll on to Philadelphia...

Safely (?) in Delaware...

We had little problem getting out of Baltimore. The light traffic is still holding up, and the fact that we were leaving at almost eight in the evening local time helped out quite a bit, I'm sure. Aside from having to pay a couple of hellacious tolls, including something like $6.00 just to cross the Susquehanna River, we didn't really have any problems on the drive. Unfortunately, with it being dark and because it came up on us fairly quickly, I wasn't able to get a good shot of the Welcome to Delaware sign:


It only took us about an hour to get from Baltimore to Wilmington. Because we were both pretty tired, we decided it was far enough for the night, and we headed off the freeway to find a place to sleep. Of course, the exit which we chose pretty much at random was right in the not-so-great part of town. We stopped alongside a street and while I was looking on the laptop for where the main motel zone was located, the girlfriend got a bit of alarm in her voice and said that some guy walking down the street had just turned around and was walking toward us. Considering that it looked like it wouldn't have been surprising to see drug deals going on within yards of us, we decided to head on and try to find something from a little nicer parking place. I kept looking as we drove down the road, and we found a little motel row off one of the other freeways through town.

We're now staying at the Rodeway Inn here on the south end of Wilmington. I think we're technically in another town, maybe New Castle, but I'm not positive. There are a ton of little notices in the lobby of the motel, for various different fees that they'll charge for different things like early check-in, late check-out, or even wanting to get towels after 2:00. And, if you don't report problems with your room within ten minutes of checking in, they say the sale is basically final and they won't do anything to fix it. Fortunately, things seem to be all right, so we're going to retire for the night...