Trip to Lancaster

We had a pretty uneventful four hour drive to Lancaster, thank goodness for Mom's GPS.  Along the way we stopped to eat bacon cheeseburgers at Hardee's and saw the miniature Statue of Liberty.  We arrived at our hotel around 1:30, too soon for check in which wasn't until 3:00, so we visited the East Towne Center which was right beside it.  It wasn't much of a "mall"  with Kmart, Burlington Coat Factory, Staples, and Dollar Tree, but Ryan was excited to find that they had a Harbor Freight.  We made a quick trip into Kmart to use their bathroom and look around a little bit and then were off to Harbor Freight.  There we walked around the whole store without Ryan finding what he had seen in the catalog and he asked an associate for help finding it.  It turns out that the store only carries 40% of what is in the catalog so they didn't have it.   We took a stroll through Staples until it was finally time to check in at the hotel. 

The Howard Johnson, where we were staying, has an indoor waterpark attached to the hotel that guests can visit for $10 for each adult (we didn't check child prices since we don't have any).  There is also a Quizno's Sub to which they give us coupons, a Domino's Pizza, and some Korean food restaurant that we weren't interested in.  We were happy to find that our room was much cleaner than the one we'd had at the Ramada in Niagara Falls the week before, and the television remote worked.  There was just a small amount of mildew on the shower curtain, but the bathroom was a nice size.  The shampoo and lotion set out in the bathroom smells yummy, exactly like orange creamsicles.  After we got everything moved in Ryan decided to try out the free wireless internet on his laptop.  Unfortunately, this amenity is hit or miss.  He gets connected but keeps getting disconnected.  He tries putting the antenna on his head and the windowsill, but nothing helps and he gives up.  By now it's time for him to leave for Millersville University to get signed in and take the pre-test for the Governor's Institute classes he is taking this week.  I stay behind and hang out watching TV at the hotel.  The front desk calls to ask if everything is satisfactory, which I thought was nice.  I ask for extra pillows and they tell me to come to the front desk.  One of the pillows they gave me was even down, but I think it was in a smoking room before because it smells faintly of cigarettes.  Ryan returns with some subs he picked up on the way back from the University.  We eat, watch a little more TV, and turn in for the night.