:)

Today was a really nice day. The vast majority of it was, anyway. Joe M, John R and I took a casino bus from Philly to Atlantic City. None of us could be considered a gambler, but the weather's been nice and we hadn't taken a day trip to AC in a long, long time.

Even though this morning we had light rain in Philly, the weather was mostly cloudy with no rain in AC. The temperature was great -- nice and cool, and I wish we could have this temperature range all year.

We had a nice lunch at the buffet in the casino where our bus took us, and we took a pretty long walk on the boardwalk. All in all, as I said, a very pleasant day.

However, the agita we went through in trying to get home was enough to convince us to take the NJ Transit train to AC from here on out. Depending on whom you ask, the 5:15PM bus that returned to Philly either never showed up, or was 45 minutes late. All I know is that we were in line, along with a whole lot of other people, prior to 5:00 PM in order to get a seat on a bus that we expected to pull into the berth very soon. Ha -- no such luck. Two Philadelphia-bound buses arrived at once at about 5:40, and pulled into adjacent berths. We got into the one that pulled into the berth we were expecting the 5:15 bus to pull into. Therefore, we thought that we were ON the bus that was supposed to arrive at that time.

Long story less long: after the casino stop, the bus we were on made one other stop at the AC Bus Station before departing for Philadelphia. Hence, we didn't actually get onto the road for Philly until 6:00, 45 minutes after we'd expected to be en route for home.

When we arrived, Joe said something to the bus driver, because there had been neither an explanation nor an apology for the lengthy delay. The driver said he was on time, so I asked, "Isn't this the 5:15 bus?" He denied that it was.

So either our bus driver was trying to save face, or perhaps the bus that pulled into the adjacent berth within moments of the bus we took home was the excessively-late 5:15 bus. Or maybe the 5:15 just plain never freaking showed up.

Whatever the problem was, the solution is going to be that we'll take the NJ Transit train from Philly to AC from now on. No fuss, no muss, no standing in bus garages, for the better part of an hour, while being suffocated by diesel exhaust and smoke from nicotine-addicted passengers waiting in line.

OTHER than the trip home, however, I'd love to have a whole bunch more days like this one. :) It was nice to be with friends and get out walking around in nice weather.

(My knee feels the after-effects now, but oh well. The exercise was good for me and it was worth it.)