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Published: March 16th 2007
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PHILADELPHIA
ONE OF THE MANY STATUES OF BEN FRANKLIN. Destination:Philadelphia, PA:March 16-17
After seeing grandma Susan off to the airport to catch her flight home to Colorado, Ty went to get us our final minivan rental as I finalized our packing. Yesterday was cold and rainy, today was suppose to bring snow and havoc to the city, so we thought it best to make our way to Washington DC.
Another fine minivan held all of our luggage, all 6 of us and came nicely equipped with a navigational system. It took us quite a while just to get out of the city. As we drove through a small portion of New Jersey the weather continued to get worse which slowed traffic way down. Lola our navigational system had us going in the right direction. It was now sleeting heavily and the roads were very slick. We saw many cars spin off the highway, way to many accidents, so we decided to get off just as we pulled into Pennsylvania to a reststop information area. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, some directions to Philadelphia and slowly creeped into the Liberty Bell City. It was about 4:30 when we decided the safest thing would be to get
PHILADELPHIA
ONE OF THE MANY BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS. a hotel room and wait out the storm. We found a nice room at Loew's Hotel right in the heart of Philadelphia. The wind was wipping and it was freezing. The city was busy with many people just like us. Ty was dying for a famous Philly Steak Sandwich, so he thought we should try to find one. After looking out the window, 5 of us decided to stay put indoors. Ty would go it alone. We wished him luck.
Jessica and Tanner did school work, while Lilly and Emma played My Little Ponies as I relaxed with all of them. Ty returned with chicken dinner and was glad we didn't make the brutal walk with him. When we first got to the hotel room, I could smell smoke, as if someone had smoked in our room before us. When Ty got back he could really smell it, his allergies were acting up, so we thought it best to get a different room. We were upgraded to a bigger room, but discovered the heater didn't work, had to switch to yet another room. Once we were all settled, we rented the movie Happy Feet and fell soundly asleep.
PHILDADELPHIA
THE LIBERTY BELL. We woke up to a beautiful, crisp, blue sky and snow covered morning. Walked the short distance to Reading Terminal Market for some breakfast at the Down Home Diner and browsing at the various shops and food places in this cool indoor market. Philadelphia was once our nations capitol and was the birthplace of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is a beautiful city rich in history, we were only here for the day, so we had to pick what to do and see. We hailed a taxi and made our way to the Liberty Bell. It is now hung in a museum for all to see. On July 8, 1776 it rung for the first reading of the Declaration of Independence by John Nixon and was used for many years to summon people together for special events. We found it odd how the word Pensylvania is spelled wrong. It is thought that at the time the word was not universally adopted. Today we know that it is spelled with 2 n's. Every 4th of July at 2pm children who are descendants of signers of the Declaration of Independence tap on it 13 times in honor of the
PHILDADELPHIA
THE LIBERTY BELL. 13 original states. It was truly and honor for all of us to see this American Icon. We continued to walk around for a while longer and discovered that there are many statues of Ben Franklin, this was his home too.
By the way Grandma Susan never made it out of NYC, due to the weather, so she stayed in the city and is in route, via bus to Washington DC right now to hang out with us for a couple more days.
We decided we had to have one of this city's famous philly steak sanis, so we were pointed in the right direction of where the best was and made our way in that direction. We hit the jackpot of philly steak sanis at not 1, but 2 awesome places. One called Pat's and one called Gino's. It was funny how these 2 restaurants are across the street from one another and both were packed on this cold day with hungry people. We tried both places and liked them both, although the first plain steak and cheese whiz sani we got from Pat's was my favorite.
What a nice, unexpected treat it was for us
PHILDADELPHIA
THE LIBERTY BELL. to get to stay in beautiful Philadelphia, home of brotherly love. We wish we had more time to see the Betsy Ross House and many other historical sites, but we didn't want to keep Grandma Susan waiting, so we thought it best to get on the road for our drive into Washington DC.
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