We all took our time getting up yesterday morning. The hotel had a nice breakfast and I think the Jr. High boys took advantage of it at least 3 times (their first breakfast was at 6am!). None of us figured out how to work the curtains in our room to block the sun, so Ra was blazing in before 6am. Needless to say, we were all early risers.
We hung out at the hotel until 11am, then checked out, loaded up and headed over to "The Mall" (that is what they call their mall in Frackville). And we hung out at the Mall for their entire business day. Yes, operating hours for Sunday were 11am-5pm. We are real winners. RABC Mall rats!
We all got lunch and then hit the movie theatre! It was very nice! Half went to see Harry Potter 6 (including me!) and half went to G-Force (FBI guinea pig movie). When we got out of the movie at 3pm, we had high hopes that the van would be fixed (that was the forecast yesterday) and we would be on the road to camp. Sadly, no dice. The guy had gotten the wrong part and had to drive 45 min one way to try and get the right part, drive back, and then start at 3 hour install. This news was a definite LOW point of the day.
So the cards came out and we played Nertz for the next 2 hours in The Mall until it closed at 5pm. Then the real adventure began--Limbo.
We had checked out of the hotel, The Mall was closed, the van may or may not get done tonight for us to drive up to MA so....we literally had no place to go. All were hungry so we began the search for an open semi-healthy restaurant. We were all sick of fast food (and The Mall).
So we drove to the friendly neighboring town of Pottsville, founded by Mr. Potts in 1809. He even had a white marble statue up on the mountain (either that or it was Mr Frack...). Well, Pottsville turned out to be not so friendly. Not only did they boast of their own castle prison right smack in the middle of town, but the food joints all decided to close at 2pm on Sunday.
Thankfully, a Pizza Hut was open!!!! Overjoyed, all 18 poured out of the 12 passenger van (insert circus music here) and stimulated the economy of Pottsville PA with our pizza purchasing. Since we had nowhere to go, we stayed a Pizza Hut for a good while. Our good waitress even provided coloring materials which most took full advantage of.
The dreaded call came: the van would not be ready tonight. Back to good ol' Frackville. (I think when we get back to the Burg, we are going to make t-shirts that state "I survived the Frackville experience" or something of that sort. The kids have a new found appreciation for "all" there is to do in Lynchburg). We checked in to the Holiday Inn again and settled in for the night. Some of the kids were pretty sad to be stuck here again. There were some tears.
But, the night was redeemed when at 9:30, the mechanic called and said the van was done and would be ready to be picked up at 8:30! SO......we are on our way this morning! Send up a prayer! We are headed to Passport this morning. Hopefully, we will get there before dinner tonight. It is about a 7 hour drive.
Goodbye Frackville. Goodbye Pottsville. It's been real....um...real long and boring. But.....memorable. :)
To be continued...
Is that a light at the end of the tunnel I see?!
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