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Susan signing the declaration Day 9 – July 6 – Princeton, NJ to Dover, DE (147 miles)
In order to possibly get a chance at tickets to Independence Hall today, we had to leave the hotel early and go to Philly to stand in a long line and hope for the best. So, on the road early, we got into Philadelphia, the city of brotherly (and sisterly) love, and waited and waited and waited. Finally, when we made it to the ticket desk and felt lucky to get some tickets for 1:00 pm. However, that meant we had all morning in Philadelphia before the tour.
Susan had on her thinking cap and told us to head for the Liberty Bell right away before the heat of the day set in and everybody and their mother got there. It was still a long wait in the sun, but later in the day, the line was at least twice as long and there were sweltering temps. We learned a couple of things we didn’t know. People all over the world (not just the US) hold the Liberty Bell as a symbol of freedom. And, did you know that there was once a Women’s Liberty Bell?
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Liberty Bell It was made much later to promote women’s rights. With time to kill, we walked all over the historical area through shady courtyards and gardens (Susan gave us a botany lesson on Lamb’s Ears), saw the 1
st Bank, Carpenter’s Hall (where the 1
st Continental Congress met), Robert Morris’ statue (known as the financier of the revolution), and lots of homes and buildings used back in the 1700’s.
A dark parking garage didn’t give us much of a view with our lunch, but all the parking spaces were filling up and we certainly didn’t want to move the van. While we were underground eating, apparently a violent storm came through because everything was drenched when we came back up. We waited a little while longer and then went to sit on a damp bench near Independence Hall until it was time to line up for the tour. We saw where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Continental Congress was held. We had a great tour guide, Larry (not the luggage cart from the other day), who brought the story to life of our country’s founding fathers (or forefathers as Claire likes to call them and Pam and Susan
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Independence Hall joke about having 4 fathers).
We drove around Philly to make our typical silly pictures of things (big clothespins and such) and finished the tour with a stop to visit the steps that Rocky ran up in the movie. Of course, we had to get out and do it, too. Sadly, we were held back by our attire and our bodies. Pam ran the last two sets of stairs in her thin sneakers then proceeded to step on a loose stone that squirted dirty water all over her legs and shoes. Yuck! On the way out of town, we passed the Eagles stadium and remembered reading from yesterday that the biggest city in 1776 was Philadelphia. Today, you could fit two of those old Philadelphia’s into the current Eagles stadium. Then it started to pour the rain.
In Delaware, we stopped in Wilmington at the Kalmar Nyckel, a ship that brought the first Swedish settlers. For the last few days we’ve been talking about how hard it would have been to survive, but after seeing this ship, we would have never even made it to the new land to worry about surviving here. From there we traveled to
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First Bank of USA New Castle, the oldest town in the oldest state. Miraculously we made it to the Visitor’s Center with 5 mins to spare to get a map. The map allowed us to take a walking tour all over town. It reminded us of a larger version of Old Salem.
Our travels led us into Dover, a very old, but tiny capital city. After taking pictures of their quaint Capitol building and replica of the Liberty Bell, we discovered their town planner must have been drunk when he designed the parking places. They were completely backwards to the “One Way” roads there. In order to park, you had to swing out and around almost 180 degrees to end up facing backwards??? And, the same thing when you backed out. Luckily there was no traffic then, but we’re sure it would be a mess when the legislatures get there on a workday. Dover has preserved many of its old buildings. As we drove around to see it all, it felt like we stepped back in time. We had a good supper in Dover before we set up camp for the night in a Fairfield Inn and Suites. Our idea of roughing it.
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