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We made our way south on I-476 to Radnor. The whole time I am thinking to myself, what about the other 7 people on board? What if we fail on our mission to reach the city. I am hoping that not too many people decided to hit Bridgeport or Hughes Park to board the Route 100 line. We lucked out and parked in the Centacor lot on King of Prussia Rd. There were probably 30 people on the platform at most. The high point of the entertainment here would be the 4 or 5 young girls or wandered down the rails from Archbishop Carroll. They climbed up on the station to hear everyone tell stories of trains whizzing by and not even slowing. They decided to head back along the tracks towards the R5. All of a sudden we heard a loud horn and the girls bailing out to get down the hill. This wouldn't be the first time today we saw a close call along the rails. I am surprised with all of these first time mass transit users no one was killed. We did get some entertainment on the platform from a foursome of West Chester University students. The lovely ladies were trying to figure out how to get to the parade and were fielding calls from a bunch of people. They should have followed us. ;-) We also saw desperate people waiting on the northbound track just to get a seat on the trolley and ride back southbound when it turned in Norristown. Let's not forget one way Bainbridge who only brought a banana for himself. The third trolley (are they still called trolleys on there?) to come through stopped and we all piled on. There were a few younger folks standing near me, they look like they had been drinking for the last three days. I was thinking this could be a brutal ride. Fortunately when he started pulling beers out I asked him if I could buy one off of him. He turned and said, "Dude, you're cool. You can just have one." So I got to partake of a Budweiser can on the Route 100. Once off at 69th Street station it was hard to believe the crowd that was as large as it was and as patient and well behaved. Did find one lady painted up like a devil. She let me take her picture. =) The ride in on the El was just as annoying. People bumping into you and at every stop you were waiting for a fight to break out or even worse. Kids were trying to push their way on at each stop not realizing that there was absolutely no room on the train. We were up in the air on exactly where to watch the parade from and I was not in the mood to make another decision for the group. I thought my luck was going to run out. So we made a group decision to try and go up at City Hall. Not the brightest of ideas. When we went up top at City Hall the masses of people were more than I had even seen in my life. After about five minutes of fighting the crowd we opted to take the Broad Street Line. I wanted to be somewhere in the middle of Broad Street. So I suggested Tasker Street as a viewing spot. Back down in the subway was another crazy scene in which I was waiting for someone to fall onto the track and get crushed. Alcohol was flowing freely on the trains and the cars were packed in pretty tight. We actually became split up with our group and half of us got on the first available train. It was more like the second or third train through. The fun part of this train was yet to come. A bunch of drunk knuckleheads from Mayfair and Fox Chase got on and we swore they were going to fight amongst themselves, also with this lady who they named, "Miss Langhorne". Crazy stuff! More on the parade in Part 3 of "Going with the Flow" |
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