I'd rather be in Philadelphia

Since the distance from Merrick to downtown Philadelphia is only about Foe
miles, we opted to leave late morning - set out after New York rush hour and get there before Philadelphia rush hour. For the most part it worked. The weather was good, traffic was moving. When we got off the Jersey Turnpike, we stopped to take advantage of the cheapest gas in America - under $3. I'm not sure why New Jersey cannot just build one road from the Turnpike to the Ben Franklin bridge to save the driver from changing highways four times in 10 miles, but this does not seem to have occurred to them. Add to that the fact that I caught every single NJ traffic light on red and I was fairly frazzled by the time I hit Philadelphia. Finding the hotel wasn't too bad.
The room was decent enough and on the 4th floor, which was a blessing given that our dog Yuji was with us. Hotel rooms these days are a wonder. Most of us out on the streets of America have long since switched to LCD flat screen televisions, but I haven't yet stayed at a hotel that provided one. Maybe in my lifetime hotels will catch up. Yuji made us very nervous because he loves going places but hates being left in a hotel room. He gets panicky and lets his distress be kinown far and wide. This time, when we left for lunch, he was good as gold. Good omen to begin the trip. We headed for the Convention Center (just a 5 blcok walk), found the Registration Desk and found the traffic to be uncannily light. It was that way because it would not open until the next morning.

' Making the most of it, we walked next door to the Reading Market and had a fabulous lunch of a Philly Cheese steak with the works. Donna had a babganoush plate, which was also a treat. The Market it hard to walk through because there are so many wonderful things to eat that it's overwhelming.

That night in my hotel room I was troubled. What to name this series of blogs? Something from Rocky? Nothing was working. We were watching Keith Olbermann's Countdowm and, synchronistically, he mentioned that W.C. Fields asked that his tombstone read: "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. That's it! Thanks, Keith. Here we go..