The Fam Bam Goes to A-Town

 DCI Allentown Trip

Travel and Free Days

July 30-31, 2025

It's been a crazy schedule in July, so why not end it with yet another trip?  Bro was having some issues when he was trying to buy our DCI Finals tickets for this year, so he decided that we were going to go to Allentown instead, and that we'd make a family trip out of it.  So this year, it's his whole family plus me.

I went to Bro's house the night before our flight, because I needed someone to wake me up early in case I slept through my alarm.  I was still awake late, so I decided to pull an all-nighter and sleep on the plane instead.  The nephew told me that it wouldn't be considered an "all nighter" unless I was awake for at least 24 hours.  Challenge accepted.  Bro drove us to the airport at 4:00 a.m.  The last time that I was in the Tom Bradley terminal at LAX, I had passed a cool display of the previous uniforms of some of the airlines, and regretted later that I hadn't taken photos of them.  So here they are this time.

Braniff International Airlines
1965-1967

Western Airlines
1974-1978

Pacific Southwest Airlines
1973-1978

Continental Airlines 1963

Pan American Airlines
1975-1980

I got breakfast at a little bakery near the gates, and the line was really slow because the gal working it was told to go there and set up even though that wasn't her normal place.  I got a spinach and feta croissant that I ate later on the plane, and it was tasty.  I did end up being awake for at least 24 hours, so I officially pulled an all-nighter.  Congratulations to me?  I watched Disney's "Snow White" on the plane and took a bit of a nap, and then we landed in Philadelphia.

Love sitting with the niblings

Bro had some kind of special status with the rental car company, so he got to choose whatever car was at his level, and got a Kia SUV.  Brady wondered why they just left the keys in the cars available for people to take, and V showed him the huge metal barrier you need to pass when checking out the car at the gate.  It took a while to get out of Philadelphia proper due to traffic, and we made our way toward Bethlehem, PA.  We stopped at an Applebee's for a late lunch, making a small donation for a charity and entered a raffle for gift cards so that we don't need to return to pick them up.  My food was healthy and boring so I didn't take a picture of it.  We went to Wal-Mart to pick up some water and snacks for our supplies.

They just happened to seat us 
at this picture of a marching band!

We arrived at the Hampton Inn and Suites, and they had cookies at the front desk!  So we got cookies for the family and we all went up to our nice suite on the 2nd floor.  I'm using the sofa bed in the living room so that I can do all of my blogging late at night while the others are sleeping.  It's nice that there is a door to their bedroom so that they can close it and not have to hear me doing my stuff.  We even have a fireplace!  Kinda weird that we were using it when it was still really hot outside, but the air conditioner was on and it was cold.  So we were creating our own micro-climate in the room and Bro said we were making the air conditioner work harder, so we stopped with the fireplace.  But it's so nice!

It's 95 degrees outside.

I finally got sleepy, and was the last one to wake up in the morning, only getting out of bed because breakfast was going to end in 40 minutes.  Need to take advantage of the free breakfast, especially when waffles are involved!  I made a chocolate waffle, which was meant to be for s'mores, but I opted for a healthier (?) option of peanut butter and bananas for my toppings.  V thought of getting a couple of extra things at the last minute, and didn't like the fact that they closed the breakfast food area at 9:58 instead of 10:00.  Well, at least she got what she wanted right before they closed the door!

Stalker Picture of the Boys

V and I finished getting ready, and we went to Lost River Caverns for a tour.  There were some references to dinosaurs inside and outside, but I'm not sure why.  Still, at least it gave them an excuse to introduce us to Sweetums.

My Cave Family

Dino Skeleton sculptures at the entrance

Bat Bell

Hello, My Name is Sweetums

Missing Pet
If found, do not pet or
make fun of arms!

Tour Guide Mattie was fun and informative, and I liked seeing all of the formations, especially the little stalactite straws, which she said you could actually use for drinking if broken off due to their being hollow inside.  But then you'd be ruining hundreds of years of nature's work, and why would you want to do that to something so cool?  

Popcorn

I like the different colors in here

Remnant of when they used to
hold weddings in the caverns.

Straws

View from under the big
 ear of corn stalactite

Surprisingly, I wasn't that cold in the 52-degree cavern, maybe because I was still hot from being outside, and I was wearing full-length leggings while my companions wore shorts.  The cavers are so named because they actually don't know where the river near the bottom of the tour led to, despite different ways of trying to figure it out, short of bringing in an expensive electronic system to figure it out. 

There were no bats inside, but I got a magnet of the place with bats on it anyway.  Then I joined the nephew and Bro outside on the nature hike.  This beauty was just sitting there, and Brady said, "so chill!" when I realized that it was real because its ears finally moved.  Also, it had an itch to scratch.

Immediately report all dino sightings

How is that real?

I got an itch on my face.

The hike was an easy one, which was good for me because I'm not one to hike steep trails.  

In the Woods

V and the niece were busy shopping, and the deer had left before they took the trail themselves.  V didn't think that the nephew's picture of the deer was real, and said it was AI until I showed her mine because it was doing something other than looking like a gorgeous statue.

We were hungry after all of the walking, and after Bro's phone disappointed him by naming a pizza place after he had asked it to find "a restaurant that doesn't serve pizza", he decided on Thai food, and we ate at La Kang Thai Noodles Bar.  We didn't sit at the bar, but at least one of us had noodles.  I liked the artistry of Bro's dish and wanted to take a photo of it, but he insisted on being in the photo because it was his food and not mine.

Grilled Shrimp Mango Salad.  And Bro.

My plate of food was also pretty, and quite tasty.  Good choice, Bro!

Lunch Special: Basil Fried Rice with chicken,
Veggie Spring Rolls, Salad, and Soup

The Niece and Me

The Bench we sat on for the selfie

Bro drove us through a few country highways to get to Zionsville Antique Mall, which had a wide variety of stuff for sale by a lot of sellers.  I found a nice sterling silver sapphire ring that fit me, as well as a copy of an old Christmas caroling book from which I used to sing in a couple of different choirs. 

I love the arrangements in this book.

Sparkly!

I figured we needed dessert after that, and we went to Ice Cream World.  They had a lot of different flavors of ice cream, which made it more difficult for the niece and me to decide which one to order.  She got two flavors, and I somehow controlled myself and only ordered one scoop of chocolate peanut butter cookie dough ice cream in a waffle cup.  It was yummy!  As we ate our ice cream, we watched people go on a water slide across the street at Dorney Park.  V wanted to play a pinball machine, and was one of the high scorers.  I played Galaga and got the top score, so I decided that not a lot of people play that video game here.  Not that I'm terrible at the game, but I'm out of practice.

This is ice cream

Spectators

The Waterslide

Yeah, that's me with my high score.

Yeah, that's V with her high score.

We went back to the hotel to rest for the night.  They all went to Wegman's to get dinner to go for all of us to eat in our little dining room.  The niece went for a swim, and I waited for her to eat dinner because I had just eaten a snack before they had gone to the store.  I enjoyed my salmon sushi California roll with brown rice, and it went well with the wasabi seaweed snack that the niece shared with me.  We ended the evening by chillaxing and watching TV.

The weather has been humid at times, a little rainy at times, but never cold.  We keep hoping that it won't rain on us for drum corps time tomorrow and Saturday.  Fingers crossed!

Next up:  Allentown Day 1 (please!)