6:30 PM: Depart Narberth for the bright lights of Cooksburg.
8:30 PM: Jonah’s awake. And crying. Clearly, the plan to leave around his bedtime ain’t working out so well.
9:30 PM: Sleeping baby!
10:45 PM: At a rest stop in middle of nowhere, PA. Damn, this is a big state.
11:52 PM: Still driving.
12:30 AM: Getting close. Punxsutawney’s only 16 miles away. Too tired to make any “Groundhog Dog” jokes. Okay, just one: “Ned! Ryerson!”
12:45 AM: Getting closer. Following instructions from woman at lodge. “Drive through two traffic lights, then go straight for 15 miles.”
1:02 AM: Nothing here but dark, dark, dark roads. And some d-bag behind us who won’t turn off his brights.
1:15 AM: Finally, pull into lodge parking lot. Walk up to office to get keys (which we were promised would be in an envelope outside the door. You see where this is going, right?).
1:16 AM: No. Keys. Feel like Clark Griswold at Wally World.
1:17 AM: No cell reception either. Can’t call hotel. Juliana turns to me and says, “we’re sleeping in the car tonight, aren’t we?”
1:35 AM: Pull into dive bar about five miles down the road. By “dive bar” I mean “shit box.”
1:36 AM: With Juliana and Jonah in car, I walk up to bar.
1:36:30 AM: I open the door and, on cue, the jukebox grinds to a halt and the bikers inside eagerly eye their first Jew.
1:37 AM: I ask to use the bar’s phone to call the lodge. Everybody finds this very funny. Well, everybody except the two bikers at the pool table who, guessing from their argument, are seconds away from beating each other’s brains in with pool cues.
1:38 AM: No dial tone. There’s another phone off the hook somewhere in the bar. Bartender has no idea where.
1:40 AM: I go outside to reassure Juliana and Jonah (who’s now awake and pretty damn pissed off) that everything’s under control.
1:41 AM: Go back into the bar and ask bartender if she found the phone. She has no idea who I am or what I’m talking about. I tell the story all over again and, again, everybody at the bar laughs.
1:42 AM: Bikers at pool table are now telling gay jokes.
1:43 AM: The phone’s working and I call the hotel. Five times. On the fifth time, the lodge’s inn keeper answered.
1:44 AM: Inn keeper can’t find our reservation. Bikers at pool table are yelling again.
1:50 AM: Inn keeper finds our reservation and tells me to meet her at the lodge.
1:50:30 AM: Walk back to the car. Delighted to see Juliana and Jonah haven’t been abducted by aliens or, worse, giant bats (which, I swear, are everywhere).
1:57 AM: Arrive at the lodge and get the keys but not an apology from inn keeper.
2:02 AM: Begin unloading bags from car while Juliana nurses Jonah upstairs.
2:04 AM: Yelp like a teenage girl as I get attacked by a bat.
2:04:14 AM: Realize it’s just a enormous moth. Still freaked out by the beast and rush inside.
2:17 AM: Bags inside? Check. Pack and Play assembled? Check. Jonah, belly full, clean PJs, clean diaper, wide awake and ready to hit the disco? Check.