So far away, so close to home, tell them they're good to you, take them all along

Back to the hotel we went, correctly finding the rear entrance again, and we didn't do badly in finding the front desk either. We did fail to find who was the winner of a little pumpkin-carving contest which had been running at least that weekend, though. They still had leftover bowls of cheap chocolate, though, so we were well-set for that.

( This would be the hardest part of the night, the saying of goodbye. )

My father picked me up. To thank him for the expedition I'd stopped in the train station's Dunkin Donuts where I got a couple of ... something. They had reached that point in the night where all relationship between the labels and the donuts on display was lost, and the clerk working there was none too sure what any of this was either. My donut turned out to have an apple jelly filling, which wasn't a bad choice, whether I made it deliberately or not.

And that, too soon, was ... the end. The next day I'd be back to work, and the common time of life.

Trivia: Penn Central stock hit a low of $28.75 per share on 12 November 1969. Its high for the year had been $71.75. Source: The Wreck of The Penn Central: The Real Story Behind The Largest Bankruptcy In American History, Joseph R Daughen, Peter Binzen.

Currently Reading: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama.