My five (at least) steps...

1. Finding nothing that interested me (that wasn't a dead end) in the paper, I went to www.philly.com

2. After browsing through many headlines that didn't catch my imagination, I was caught off guard by the ridiculous headline "George Clooney hopes government shutdown ends soon" 

3. From that absolutely ridiculous article, I looked around the website at other articles pertaining to the recent government shutdown. I found this one "Merchants near Independence Hall worry about shutdown"

4. From there, I started doing some "googling" about the merchants near independence hall, and the whole Historic Philly area. 

5. I read about Pumpkin Fest, http://historicphiladelphia.org/franklin-square/pumpkin-fest-2013/ which sounds super fun! but which is a little more pricey than I'd intended to go. 

6. Continuing my search, I read about Franklin Fountain, which a few people have already recomended to me (this is their website) http://www.franklinfountain.com/

It sounds very fun, delicious and easily accesible from the Septa. I'm thinking of going into the city early noonish on Saturday, exploring the area (maybe circumnavigating the pumpkin fest, just to see what's going on), and eating delicious homemade ice cream from the franklin fountain! I have a club meeting back here at 4, so I would have to leave the city aroung 3:20 I think.