Philadelphia was so awesome. I feel inspired to re-take American History after visiting Philly. There is so much to see there, so much to learn. We drove there Tuesday morning...
I love bridges so here is the George Washington Bridge as we went through New York
…and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge as we were coming into Philly.
We weren’t sure where we were going or where we should go to park. We drove in circles a little bit and found a parking garage with an all-day rate. We were hoping we could just leave the car there and then walk or take the subway anywhere else we wanted to go. The nice people at the Starbucks by the parking garage pointed us in the direction of the historical area we wanted to see and we were off.
Once again the weather cooperated and it was a beautiful day. We ended up on a double decker bus (on the top of course!! What’s the point of sitting on the bottom of a double decker bus?) getting a view of all of Philly. Here’s an artistic shot I took of Kris and me on the bus…
…and this is the piece of art we were reflected in.
There was an entertaining guide who gave us so much information and trivia about everything that we passed. We went all over the place…here are a few of the highlights.
When we got off the bus we went over to see the Liberty Bell. It’s pretty amazing to see it in person.
I saw National Treasure on TV when I got back and I kept looking over at my boyfriend and saying, “I was there. I was right there!”
Sister Hazel was the whole reason we were in Philly to begin with and pretty soon it was time to head back to the car to get ready for the concert. The club was on Walnut Street and we were parked just a couple blocks away from Walnut but we knew it was still quite a hike from there…not a problem on any other day. However, this day we had done a LOT of walking already and we knew we were going to be standing for several hours during the concert so we were hoping the subway might get us a little closer. We had parked the car on the very top level of the garage so on the elevator down, we discussed exactly how far away we might be. A guy got on the elevator about that time so I asked him if he knew where the club was, “Yes,” he said. I asked him if we were close. “No,” he said. The elevator doors dinged open and he walked away. My goodness, the New York cabby was friendlier. We got to the subway stop, walked down the stairs and stared at the map that shows the routes…and stared at it some more, it just didn’t make sense at all. We weren’t sure where we were on the map, much less where we needed to go. We talked to a very nice employee of the transit system and he didn’t know how to get us where we were going either. We should have taken that as a sign, walked back up to street level and waved down a cab but since I’m not very good at “sign” language, we made a go of it on our own. He called someone who told us what train to get on, said we’d need to change trains but I think something might have gotten lost in translation because when we got to the next platform, we were confused again. So we stopped to talk to a ticket lady in her booth with the microphone that worked only occasionally. She told us we’d have to go back where we started, take the train somewhere else and then transfer to another train. So, we did all that, got off where we thought she said, walked up to the street, and be still my beating heart, we were one block from…
Where. We. Started. I freaked out just a little bit and Cranky Drea made a frightful appearance. “We’re right where we started!” I cried to Kris. “No, we’re not,” she said. “Yes, we are, our car is a few blocks that way and we got on the subway right over there!” I exclaimed shrilly. She’s looking around thoughtfully, clearly not understanding the gravity of our situation. We’d been fighting the trains for 45 minutes and the concert was starting even as we stood there, dumbfounded. Suddenly she looks at me and says, “Oh my gosh, we’re right where we started!” And I said, “THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU!!” We hailed a cab, which it turns out I’m really good at doing, and we made it down Walnut in just a few minutes. There was another band opening up for Sister Hazel so we didn’t miss anything. We got a drink and listened to the other band play…they were pretty good…and I had mellowed out again by the time my guys came onstage. The show was awesome, I loved every minute of it and Kris did too! We WALKED back to the car, which gave me ample time to apologize to Kris for my meltdown then we drove to the hotel and collapsed.
We drove back the next day to do a little more sight seeing. We walked around some, found Walnut Street again, ah memories.
We walked through Betsy Ross’s house. What an amazing woman she was, and it’s amazing what she had been through by the time she was in her early 30’s. I cannot imagine being widowed twice with three children to raise at my age.
We tried to leave Philly early enough that we wouldn’t have to fight the rush hour traffic leaving New York but we still got slowed down quite a bit. It took almost twice as long to get home as it did to get there.
We saw the Tappan Zee Bridge coming home.
It was Kris’s birthday that day so we went out for dinner with her parents and had a great evening.
I flew home the next day. It was an amazing trip and we had so much fun. I can’t thank Kris and her parents enough for everything. And truth be told, we could have stayed home the whole time and played Yahtzee and it still would have been a blast. But then I wouldn’t have gotten the yummy yarn!
