King's take:
We went to the Pizzaria and Pub, then we went to the UPS store to run an errand for mom. We used the key--turned the key--to open the box for 215 to get the mail.
We went to Queen City Cupcake and bought the last two cupcakes. Now we will go exploring.
The cupcake was messy, but yummy.
Then we went to walk on Elm Street, but it was raining. We went to the Manchester Public Library. We looked at a lot of books. I looked at the audiobooks. Then I helped Miaka check out some books. Then we waited for Mom to pick us up.
Next week is gonna be funky. So we're gonna be in Nashua?
Miaka's take:
Today was a 'lunch date' again, partly because there hasn't been a tour open at the Van Otis chocolate factory. We're still waiting on a chance to go there, it sounds like a lot of fun. (Not to mention yummy!)
We started the afternoon by slightly confusing Patch, who vehemently doesn't know Manchester. (Apparently 'down near the hotel' doesn't tell him much about Elm Street, which is odd because there's only one hotel I could possibly mean and he knows full well that it's next to Granite Street.) He seemed a bit miffed at my inability to give him a more exact description of where Portland Pie Co. is, and the fact that I wasn't paying attention to the surroundings the moment we got to Elm Street, while we were still north of Bridge St. I paid attention once we got closer, though, around the time we were passing Ben & Jerry's I started looking at the shops. The one we were headed to is on the corner of Elm and Merrimack, but I hadn't caught the name of the side-street until Patch dropped us off today. Giving directions doesn't come easily to me, and I tend to work best off landmarks, rather than street-names. This generally works out well, as Archi also tends to operate more on landmarks than street names. Patch, however, prefers street names.
At any rate, we got safely to Portland Pie Co. (Pizzaria and Pub). It's a very nice place, with a distict 'pub' feel to it. Thick wooden tables and sturdy chairs that aren't too heavy or anything. There's one area with 'normal-height' tables, and an area with a bar and high tables. King requested seats at one of the lower tables. An ad-stand (what are those things called?) on the table suggested 'Captain Eli's Root Beer'; I flipped through the rest of the little ad-cards while King was looking at the menu, but I don't remember the other cards, only that the root beer sounded good. King decided to go with Sierra Mist, and I asked for Captain Eli's Root Beer, already thinking to myself that I must bring Archi here sometime. The root beer was 'on draft', the waitress explained when she brought it. King got a regular cup with ice and soda and a straw, while mine was in a chilled glass (no straw) and she brought a cup of ice for me. I ended up not needing the ice, though, as the root beer was at the perfect temperature.
King and I both decided on steak-and-cheese sandwitches, though he got a wrap and no onions, and I got a baguette (light onions) and some soup instead of chips. Everything was VERY good. King seemed to enjoy his a lot, though he doesn't talk as much about what's yummy as I do. The soup was eggplant and zucchini, and very tasty.
After lunch, we decided to run the errand Mom asked us to do for her before getting dessert. The UPS store was a short walk down the street, maybe as much as a block or so, with no cross-streets in the way. I pulled out the key Mom had sent along, and asked King to find box 215. It took him a bit, but he found it. I gave him the key to try and fit in, but it wasn't going in the way he was trying to put it in. To save a little time, I stuck the key in the lock for him (he'd been holding upside-down) but I made him turn it. This turned out to be a little funny. He kept grabbing and turning the key ring, rather than the key itself. Turning the key ring, of course, didn't affect the lock at all. "It's like a knob," I explained. "You grab the key part here," I tapped the metal circle sticking out of the lock mechanism, "and you turn it like a knob or a dial." A few tries later, he managed to grab the right part of it and twist enough for the little door to pop open, allowing him to grab the mail from inside. Once we got the door closed again (another slight trick, as the lock mechanism had to be turned correctly to close the door, and again to lock it and pull the key out), we went to the counter in order to renew the box. This being more of a me-errand than a King-errand, he chatted with the gentleman behind the counter while I fished around in my purse for the card I needed. Errands discharged (get mail and renew mailbox for one year), we headed back the way we'd come, to the little shop next door to the pizzaria and pub.
Queen City Cupcake is a very cute little shop, done in pretty pastels, with cupcake prints and cupcake-pans on the walls. It's a lovely blend of cozy and modern, and a fairly new addition to Elm St. The sign on the door states that the close "when we run out of cupcakes". King and I were lucky, we got the last two cupcakes of the day. I don't remember what the flavor was called, but they were chocolate cake with almond frosting and slivered almonds sprinkled atop the frosting, the whole then drizzled lightly with more chocolate. The cupcakes were devine. King enjoyed his messily, chucking quietly as I enjoyed my cupcake. The frosting tasted like ammaretto minus the alchohol--sweet and almond and delicious. The chocolate cake was perfectly soft and springy and tasted just as devine as the frosting. Well worth the $3.50ea price tag, and large enough that they could be split. (Not with a hungry growing boy, though. Possibly with Archi, but King was more than able to demolish one on his own.) I decided that I simply must share this with Archi, as there was about half of mine left when King finished eating.
Sweet cravings appeased, we headed back out to explore more of Elm Street, only to discover that it was raining, or at least thinking about it. The drizzle got a little stronger as we went, though it was certainly not pouring or anything at any point during the trip. We stopped in the 'Brady Sullivan Plaza' (which used to be the 'Hampshire Plaza Mall' but they seem to have changed the name) to try looking around there. However, we discovered that it's a half-empty mall-ish place with no public bathrooms. (How odd, no public bathrooms.) There's a Post Office location there, but nothing that really seemed to be of interest to us, so we headed back out to the street. Glancing about, I realzied we weren't far from the library, so I suggested trekking over there. King agreed that the library sounded like a great idea.
The Manchester Public Library isn't on Elm Street, it's on Pine Street, but that's only a couple blocks east. A couple blocks isn't far, and the library is a place I'm familiar with anyhow, so getting there wasn't a problem. I called Mom to let her know of the minor change in plans--from 'explore Elm St' to 'visit library'--and she said 'OK, that sounds good... text me the library's address'. This confused me for a moment--I had no idea what the library's address was, I've never mailed them anything. I wasn't sure how the address would help her, either; it isn't like she has a GPS, or operates off street-names like Patch.
The trip up the couple blocks to the library involved 4 street crossings, since we were on the wrong side of Elm, and then the wrong side of Concord St. I think the rain and his hood were making it hard for King to see, because it took a while for him to recognize the library after I started pointing out to him. I didn't think he was seeing it when I first pointed it out, so I asked him what colour the doors were. He started guessing. "Red?" "Green?" "White?" Once we were on the way up the path through the park that let out right at the crosswalk which lead to the bottom of the library's granite steps, he could finally see where we were headed, and at last correctly identified that the library doors were "Brown." The doors are a natural-wood brown and quite heavy, probably soild oak. The building itself is a lovely old structure, constructed of white stone, which I think is marble. It's a magestic building, in a quiet sort of way, very well suited to a library. Brass handrails line the granite steps, one on each side and another in the middle. The tops of the rails are smooth, polished by hundreds of hands. Of course, the rain and the gloom of late afternoon in winter stole away a good part of their shine. We hurried up the stairs to get out of the rain and away from the ciggarette smoke. Fortunately, someone else was at the doors at about the same time we were, and helped push them open--they're quite heavy and harder to pull than to push, which oddly enough makes getting into the library more difficult than getting out, at least as far as the doors are concerned.
We went up to the desk and asked for the address of the library, which I quickly texted to mom, then went to go look at books. Well, King was acctually more interested in the audiobooks, but he seemed pleased enough to look through those while I looked through the nearby stacks for a while. We spent most of our time in the YA section, though I brought King over to look at the rest of the audiobooks as well. He opted not to get anything, apparently deciding that he had enough books and audiobooks at home. He sounded more interested in the DVDs available, but as they have only a 7-day loan, I suggested that he get DVDs from his town library, which is closer to him. I did find a few books to check out myself, so once we knew mom was on her way we headed over to check them out, then sat near the lobby and worked on this 'journal' for a bit, until mom called and said she'd gotten confused. King double-checked that his coat was all zipped up while I talked mom through where the library was and picked up my things, then we headed out the door as she passed the park across the street, and met her at the bottom of the stairs.
All in all, today was quite a fun adventure! Yes, as King pointed out, next week will be a trick. We'll be in Nashua instead of Manchester, working around other schedualed events for the day.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Elm Street Explorations
King's take:
Mom dropped us off to go to Greg's Place. I got a cheeseburger, you got a turkey sub. I had some ginger ale, you had some water.
After Greg's Place, we went to Ben & Jerry's. I had a Brownie Special, you had a hot float. The Brownie Special was good; it was kinda messy too.
"I've heard of Bill of Rights, but Bill of Ice Cream Rights?"
"Sorry about the chocolate beard."
We're going to explore the music shop.
(King wasn't all that interested in 'talking to the journal' today.)
Miaka's take:
Today's plan was to do a little bit of exploring in downtown, since it's a touch warmer than it has been--at least according to Mom. This is not to say it wasn't still chilly, but it wasn't as bitingly cold as it usually tends to be at this time of year. (We've had an oddly mild winter, actually.)
It was very quiet in Greg's Place, being between rushes. We had our pick of any seat in the place. The food there is quite good, and not terribly expensive. It's primarily a bar, though.
Once we'd finished lunch, we headed out for the walk up Elm St (quite a ways, actually) to Ben & Jerry's for ice cream. It was still a bit too cold for ice cream in my opinion, but at least there's an inside to the shop, where you can sit down. They also have something called a 'hot float', which involves dropping a scoop of ice cream into a traditional winter hot drink. I opted for hot chocolate with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream, topped off with whipped cream. King went for the brownie sundae, a big brownie topped with a scoop of Chocolate Therapy ice cream, with whipped cream and hot fudge to top it all off. We both very much enjoyed our treats, though King had more of a mess. (Mine being contained in a cup, it was a touch easier to keep neat.) We both laughed over his 'chocolate beard' (spilled chocolate dribbling down his chin until it almost looked as though he'd grown a dark brown beard). Cleanup didn't take too long, though.
Ice creams finished, we decided to go check out the nearby music shop for a little while, to explore some and kill a little extra time.
We mostly looked at songbooks in the music shop. Pick one up, open it, and try to sing whatever songs were in it, when we'd grabbed one that actually had a vocal part (there were at least a few that contained the scores to games or movies that don't have sung music, or not much). King can't really read the music, so he was silly if I didn't set the tune for him first. Once he had my voice to follow, though, we sang a pretty decent two-level melody. Except, of course, when my unprepared voice didn't make quite the right sounds. I would've sung better if I'd thought to warm up first, before trying to launch right into, say, music from Phantom of the Opera.
King eventually opted to go ahead and get the first thing he'd spotted upon walking in--a Harry Potter songbook and recorder set. Dad met us on the street between the ice cream place and the music shop, and we headed home.
Perhaps next week will bring more exploring, perhaps something entirely different. The weather will have a hand in which gets chosen.
Mom dropped us off to go to Greg's Place. I got a cheeseburger, you got a turkey sub. I had some ginger ale, you had some water.
After Greg's Place, we went to Ben & Jerry's. I had a Brownie Special, you had a hot float. The Brownie Special was good; it was kinda messy too.
"I've heard of Bill of Rights, but Bill of Ice Cream Rights?"
"Sorry about the chocolate beard."
We're going to explore the music shop.
(King wasn't all that interested in 'talking to the journal' today.)
Miaka's take:
Today's plan was to do a little bit of exploring in downtown, since it's a touch warmer than it has been--at least according to Mom. This is not to say it wasn't still chilly, but it wasn't as bitingly cold as it usually tends to be at this time of year. (We've had an oddly mild winter, actually.)
It was very quiet in Greg's Place, being between rushes. We had our pick of any seat in the place. The food there is quite good, and not terribly expensive. It's primarily a bar, though.
Once we'd finished lunch, we headed out for the walk up Elm St (quite a ways, actually) to Ben & Jerry's for ice cream. It was still a bit too cold for ice cream in my opinion, but at least there's an inside to the shop, where you can sit down. They also have something called a 'hot float', which involves dropping a scoop of ice cream into a traditional winter hot drink. I opted for hot chocolate with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream, topped off with whipped cream. King went for the brownie sundae, a big brownie topped with a scoop of Chocolate Therapy ice cream, with whipped cream and hot fudge to top it all off. We both very much enjoyed our treats, though King had more of a mess. (Mine being contained in a cup, it was a touch easier to keep neat.) We both laughed over his 'chocolate beard' (spilled chocolate dribbling down his chin until it almost looked as though he'd grown a dark brown beard). Cleanup didn't take too long, though.
Ice creams finished, we decided to go check out the nearby music shop for a little while, to explore some and kill a little extra time.
We mostly looked at songbooks in the music shop. Pick one up, open it, and try to sing whatever songs were in it, when we'd grabbed one that actually had a vocal part (there were at least a few that contained the scores to games or movies that don't have sung music, or not much). King can't really read the music, so he was silly if I didn't set the tune for him first. Once he had my voice to follow, though, we sang a pretty decent two-level melody. Except, of course, when my unprepared voice didn't make quite the right sounds. I would've sung better if I'd thought to warm up first, before trying to launch right into, say, music from Phantom of the Opera.
King eventually opted to go ahead and get the first thing he'd spotted upon walking in--a Harry Potter songbook and recorder set. Dad met us on the street between the ice cream place and the music shop, and we headed home.
Perhaps next week will bring more exploring, perhaps something entirely different. The weather will have a hand in which gets chosen.
February 2nd: Another day at the mall
King's Take:
Today was good.
We took the Manchester bus to get to the Mall of New Hampshire, then went to Best Buy to get a music CD. We got a Beatles CD of all their greatest hits.
We went to look for something for Mom, but I don't know. Miaka what were we looking for again? I'm not sure what it was.
Then we went to American Greetings to get a Valentine's card. Then we went to Bertucci's and got a Ultimate Bertucci pizza.
We looked for hats at Olympic Sports. But the hats were 20 or 30 or 10 dollars, which were too expensive for us, so we decided to do it later.
We're going to get a five-layer chocolate cake for dessert and then go home.
I'm sorry that we can't go to your apartment this time. Maybe next week.
We will box up leftovers and share a five-layer chocolate cake for dessert.
Miaka's take:
Woah, I totally forgot to write this up on Thursday when I was supposed to. *wince* I got distracted, sorry.
Mom dropped us off at the place where the buses all come, just before one of the buses that stops by the mall (three routes include a stop at the mall) was due to take off. We hurried a little, though it turned out we didn't really need to, we were in plenty of time for the bus (I think we were looking at a faster clock). The bus fare is $1.50 each direction, and is of course per-person. With a little encouragement, and using my hand as a table, King pulled out 3 one-dollar bills, enough for two fares. Of course, these had to go into the fare box.
The fare box 'eats' dollars the same way your average soda machine does, but of course this part is pointed at the side where the door is, making it harder to reach if you're not standing on that side of it. Not a problem, generally, but this bus was designed to carry more wheelchairs than a normal bus can (not that I have any idea how a wheelchair-bound person is supposed to stick a dollar in the machine that's up next to the driver). The particular setup of this bus, with the location of the fare box, a couple half-wall partition-thingies (no idea what those are called, sorry) made it very difficult to access the dollar feed part of the fare box. If King had all quarters, we would've had no problem, as the coin-drop part was easier to reach. We had to deal with what we had, though, so dollars it was. Now, he has no trouble at all dealing with a soda machine, so it wasn't the feeder itself that was the issue. (He also had no trouble with the same feeder on a different bus later on.) It was all the angle. It's a lot harder to feed a dollar into the machine when you're standing on the side of it, than it is when you're standing directly in front of the feeder. Attempting to get him to step into the 'in front of it' position wasn't working, and the partition kept me from getting to an angle where I could show him what I wanted him to do (he didn't seem to understand my directions to 'step up in front of it... no, that way, around the side'). I ended up reaching around him to get the bills started into the feeder, once he got them in close to the right spot. (Those dollar-feeder things are finicky at the best of times.)
Once we dealt with the fare box, finding a seat was actually pretty easy, and we spent the roughly half-hour ride looking out the window and talking. Every so often I would ask him what he saw out the window--he doesn't interpret the world the same way Archi or I do, so he tends to notice different things. It was almost a game, asking what he saw and then looking to find what he was reading off. (King reads signs and always has. These days he says something about the sign right away, while there's still a chance for someone else to read the same sign; quite the improvement over a time when he was little, when Mom remembers spending weeks trying to figure out what sign said 'No Trucks' after he asked about it.)
Once the bus dropped us at the mall, we headed straight for Best Buy to look at the CDs. King and I have (I think) very different tastes in music, so I don't think I was really much help. He ended up choosing a Beatles CD, as he mentioned. I did glance at the CDs myself, but I already knew I was unlikely to find anything to my taste.
CD in hand, we went over to the cell phone kiosk section of the store to do a little research for Mom. There were a number of blue-shirted employees there, so we got the attention of one of them and asked about a Bluetooth headset that didn't go in the ear. He was able to show us one immediately, and I took a picture of it with my phone (King does not have a cell phone of his own yet) and sent it off to Mom with the info. We thanked the employee for his help and headed out to the cash register to buy the CD.
Our next stop was a greeting-card store about halfway across the mall or so. I had mentioned to King that Valentines is coming up, and he decided that, yes, it would be a good idea to get a card for a close female friend of his. (She isn't his girlfriend, just a girl who is a friend.) We looked at perhaps 10 cards or so, and he chose an appropriate (and very cute!) card. I made sure he had the right envelope to put the card in, and we checked out.
Next stop: sport shop. King has taken up snowshoeing, and Mom wanted us to look for a hat and a 'turtle fur'. We found both hats and 'turtle furs' (though not the Turtle Fur brand), but we ended up not getting any. The good hats were around $30 and they didn't have any bright-yellow turtle furs. Turtle fur looks like good practice for someone (me) starting out with sewing, so I figure if I go buy some nice bright-yellow polar-fleece, I cane make one for him, and it'll be all the more warm and special for being handmade.
At that point we decided that both of us were getting hungry, so lunchtime was in order. Bertucci's wasn't busy at all, since it was between the average lunch and dinner hours, though late enough that we were restricted to the dinner menu. I think King's comments cover that part pretty well.
Once we finished eating and paid the bill, we realized that it was after 5pm, getting close on the last run of buses back to downtown. We hurried back to the food court, near where the buses drop off and pick up. It didn't take as long as I'd thought to get there, so we grabbed a table and I pulled out my bus schedule to check it again, wanting to make sure we didn't miss the last bus. I've had the unfortunate luck of getting stuck at that mall before due to missing the last bus of the day. Checking revealed that we still had a good bit of time before the very last bus of the day would come by, so, at King's request, we went to look in the Disney Store.
'Looking' at the Disney store turned out to consist of walking past the first two or three displays to stand in roughly the middle of the front section of the store, gazing around at the things on the walls and shelves for a few minutes. I tugged King over to one wall for a moment to get a closer look at a display of dolls; from halfway across the room it was hard to tell if a particular doll was Rapunzel or Aurora (upon closer inspection it was Aurora). Then we went to look at a display of Cars things, though it was all stuff for a boy of about five to ten years. I told King, "I think it's a little small for you." After that, he was thanking me for letting him look and suggesting we go catch the bus.
We made it onto the 5:30 bus, the first of the last round of buses. Paying the bus fare was a lot easier this time, partly because we were lined up correctly for the dollar feeder from the start, and partly because we dropped $2 in quarters into the change-eating part, which went a lot faster. The change collector is rather more forgiving, being somewhat funnel-like. Once again, there were plenty of seats, and we spent the ride watching out the window and chatting about all manner of things. When the bus let us off at Veteran's park, we made our way across the street to wait in front of the Raddisson for Dad to pick us up, only we forgot to tell him exactly where we'd be. We waited out near the street, and he thought we'd gone into the lobby (where we would have been out of the cold). We were, however, able to connect readily enough, and thus ended the adventure comfortably.
Today was good.
We took the Manchester bus to get to the Mall of New Hampshire, then went to Best Buy to get a music CD. We got a Beatles CD of all their greatest hits.
We went to look for something for Mom, but I don't know. Miaka what were we looking for again? I'm not sure what it was.
Then we went to American Greetings to get a Valentine's card. Then we went to Bertucci's and got a Ultimate Bertucci pizza.
We looked for hats at Olympic Sports. But the hats were 20 or 30 or 10 dollars, which were too expensive for us, so we decided to do it later.
We're going to get a five-layer chocolate cake for dessert and then go home.
I'm sorry that we can't go to your apartment this time. Maybe next week.
We will box up leftovers and share a five-layer chocolate cake for dessert.
Miaka's take:
Woah, I totally forgot to write this up on Thursday when I was supposed to. *wince* I got distracted, sorry.
Mom dropped us off at the place where the buses all come, just before one of the buses that stops by the mall (three routes include a stop at the mall) was due to take off. We hurried a little, though it turned out we didn't really need to, we were in plenty of time for the bus (I think we were looking at a faster clock). The bus fare is $1.50 each direction, and is of course per-person. With a little encouragement, and using my hand as a table, King pulled out 3 one-dollar bills, enough for two fares. Of course, these had to go into the fare box.
The fare box 'eats' dollars the same way your average soda machine does, but of course this part is pointed at the side where the door is, making it harder to reach if you're not standing on that side of it. Not a problem, generally, but this bus was designed to carry more wheelchairs than a normal bus can (not that I have any idea how a wheelchair-bound person is supposed to stick a dollar in the machine that's up next to the driver). The particular setup of this bus, with the location of the fare box, a couple half-wall partition-thingies (no idea what those are called, sorry) made it very difficult to access the dollar feed part of the fare box. If King had all quarters, we would've had no problem, as the coin-drop part was easier to reach. We had to deal with what we had, though, so dollars it was. Now, he has no trouble at all dealing with a soda machine, so it wasn't the feeder itself that was the issue. (He also had no trouble with the same feeder on a different bus later on.) It was all the angle. It's a lot harder to feed a dollar into the machine when you're standing on the side of it, than it is when you're standing directly in front of the feeder. Attempting to get him to step into the 'in front of it' position wasn't working, and the partition kept me from getting to an angle where I could show him what I wanted him to do (he didn't seem to understand my directions to 'step up in front of it... no, that way, around the side'). I ended up reaching around him to get the bills started into the feeder, once he got them in close to the right spot. (Those dollar-feeder things are finicky at the best of times.)
Once we dealt with the fare box, finding a seat was actually pretty easy, and we spent the roughly half-hour ride looking out the window and talking. Every so often I would ask him what he saw out the window--he doesn't interpret the world the same way Archi or I do, so he tends to notice different things. It was almost a game, asking what he saw and then looking to find what he was reading off. (King reads signs and always has. These days he says something about the sign right away, while there's still a chance for someone else to read the same sign; quite the improvement over a time when he was little, when Mom remembers spending weeks trying to figure out what sign said 'No Trucks' after he asked about it.)
Once the bus dropped us at the mall, we headed straight for Best Buy to look at the CDs. King and I have (I think) very different tastes in music, so I don't think I was really much help. He ended up choosing a Beatles CD, as he mentioned. I did glance at the CDs myself, but I already knew I was unlikely to find anything to my taste.
CD in hand, we went over to the cell phone kiosk section of the store to do a little research for Mom. There were a number of blue-shirted employees there, so we got the attention of one of them and asked about a Bluetooth headset that didn't go in the ear. He was able to show us one immediately, and I took a picture of it with my phone (King does not have a cell phone of his own yet) and sent it off to Mom with the info. We thanked the employee for his help and headed out to the cash register to buy the CD.
Our next stop was a greeting-card store about halfway across the mall or so. I had mentioned to King that Valentines is coming up, and he decided that, yes, it would be a good idea to get a card for a close female friend of his. (She isn't his girlfriend, just a girl who is a friend.) We looked at perhaps 10 cards or so, and he chose an appropriate (and very cute!) card. I made sure he had the right envelope to put the card in, and we checked out.
Next stop: sport shop. King has taken up snowshoeing, and Mom wanted us to look for a hat and a 'turtle fur'. We found both hats and 'turtle furs' (though not the Turtle Fur brand), but we ended up not getting any. The good hats were around $30 and they didn't have any bright-yellow turtle furs. Turtle fur looks like good practice for someone (me) starting out with sewing, so I figure if I go buy some nice bright-yellow polar-fleece, I cane make one for him, and it'll be all the more warm and special for being handmade.
At that point we decided that both of us were getting hungry, so lunchtime was in order. Bertucci's wasn't busy at all, since it was between the average lunch and dinner hours, though late enough that we were restricted to the dinner menu. I think King's comments cover that part pretty well.
Once we finished eating and paid the bill, we realized that it was after 5pm, getting close on the last run of buses back to downtown. We hurried back to the food court, near where the buses drop off and pick up. It didn't take as long as I'd thought to get there, so we grabbed a table and I pulled out my bus schedule to check it again, wanting to make sure we didn't miss the last bus. I've had the unfortunate luck of getting stuck at that mall before due to missing the last bus of the day. Checking revealed that we still had a good bit of time before the very last bus of the day would come by, so, at King's request, we went to look in the Disney Store.
'Looking' at the Disney store turned out to consist of walking past the first two or three displays to stand in roughly the middle of the front section of the store, gazing around at the things on the walls and shelves for a few minutes. I tugged King over to one wall for a moment to get a closer look at a display of dolls; from halfway across the room it was hard to tell if a particular doll was Rapunzel or Aurora (upon closer inspection it was Aurora). Then we went to look at a display of Cars things, though it was all stuff for a boy of about five to ten years. I told King, "I think it's a little small for you." After that, he was thanking me for letting him look and suggesting we go catch the bus.
We made it onto the 5:30 bus, the first of the last round of buses. Paying the bus fare was a lot easier this time, partly because we were lined up correctly for the dollar feeder from the start, and partly because we dropped $2 in quarters into the change-eating part, which went a lot faster. The change collector is rather more forgiving, being somewhat funnel-like. Once again, there were plenty of seats, and we spent the ride watching out the window and chatting about all manner of things. When the bus let us off at Veteran's park, we made our way across the street to wait in front of the Raddisson for Dad to pick us up, only we forgot to tell him exactly where we'd be. We waited out near the street, and he thought we'd gone into the lobby (where we would have been out of the cold). We were, however, able to connect readily enough, and thus ended the adventure comfortably.
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