Philadelphia 4th of July

On July 3rd, late Saturday morning, we took the New Jersey Transit to Philadelphia for the Fourth of July weekend. The ride went quickly as we each read reading material we bring with us to keep us occupied. We arrived after 12:00 and excited to be here for the holiday weekend. We grabbed a sandwich at a deli inside the terminal and headed toward the Philadelphia Art Museum. This was a little trek, especially with us carrying our luggage. We bought tickets for the Renoir exhibit, which I was especially excited about since I love his work.

The museum gave us a specific time to see the exhibit later in the afternoon. We decided to find a nice place to have a picnic for lunch. We walked past Fairmont Park (it was closed off for the next day's fireworks) and stumbled across Lemon Hill, which was across the street and up a hill. We found a shady spot under a beautiful tree and spread out for a picnic. It was one of the most relaxing afternoons we've had for a while.

We enjoyed eating our sandwich while we looked out across the skyline. It was a beautiful day, a little warm but to be expected in July. We relaxed on our outstretched beach towel and enjoyed the scenery. Usually we would've tried to find something to do before the art exhibit, but today we wanted to take it slow and not try to cram so much in one day, so we leisurely read and rested; I enjoyed looking up through the tree and seeing the sun shine through the complicated limbs. We were able to sigh and catch our breath before the next activity.

It was time for the Art Exhibit, so we packed up camp and walked back to the Museum across the street. We had a little bit of time to look at other exhibits before our scheduled time for Renoir. The Museum has an incredible collection of Abstract Expressionists, one room after the other, we were awe strucken at the quantity of famous paintings. The Art Exhibit was amazing and surprisingly not crowded. It was fascinating to learn about Renoir's life. He was so dedicated to his painting that in his later years he developed a sever case of arthritis and had the choice of either walking or painting and he chose painting! He spent the last years of his life in a wheel chair but still painted every day. He was a family man and was married to the same woman all his life and raised three sons. I was so grateful for this experience of seeing such a collection of his works.

Being the walkers that we are (do we have a choice?) we walked to the hotel, which was quite the trek, at least a mile. By the time we got to the hotel I was ready to rest in cool air! We stayed at the Hyatt at the Bellvue on Broad St. It was a nice hotel with a beautiful lobby-a tremendous chandelier. We weren't real hungry yet but felt it was time to eat something; and I didn't want to do any more walking for the night, so we ate appetizers at the hotel restaurant, XIX. The food was excellent-better than we were expecting (since hotel food can be common and bland). We ordered the meat and cheese platter-goat cheese, mountaineer cheese and salami. Excellent. Flavorful. The platter had mango chutney and rasberry jam. Todd ordered the tun tar tar served with potato cakes. The tar tar was skillfully seasoned. He said it was some of the best tar tar he's tasted.

I guess in Philadelphia they want to do a trial run of the fireworks; there was going to be a display the night before at Penn's Landing. So being the type to not call it a night yet, we took the subway to Penn's Landing and walked a couple of blocks. We got there at the tail end of the display, but it was still a treat to get to see over the water with bridges in the background and hearing Gershwin playing. The patriotic spirit was definitely brewing. Ice cream was calling our name from a store down the street, but when we got there, there was a long line (I guess we didn't respond quick enough) so we decided to walk around in Old Town and come back.

We stumbled across Elfreth's Alley, an old cobblestone street. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited residential streets in the country, dating back to the early 1700s. We walked down the alley, the historical importance felt as we passed the Georgian and Federal style homes. Coming back to the ice cream shop, the line was still out to the street, we realized, sadly, it was not meant to be. I lied when I said we weren't going to walk anymore today.

We had just missed the bus and debated whether to wait for the next one. Impatience won out, so we (me begrudgingly) headed back to the hotel-which was about nine blocks away. This doesn't sound like very many, but when it's late at night and you've walked all day, one block would seem too far. Sunday we took the bus out to attend 2nd church, on School House Road. It was about a 40 minute bus ride. We had been to the other two churches in PA, so this was the last one to attend. It was a Frank Lloyd Wright kind of architecture; all white on the outside. It was plain inside the congregation also, all white walls with no writing inscribed. The service went well and I was grateful to have a church open for us to attend.

Guess what we did next? We WALKED to the next town (yes Todd, that was me exaggerating with typing in all CAPS). We walked to Mayunk. We passed an old stone bridge which set back from the road with trees growing up beside it. Very picturesque. On our way to Mayunk, I started questioning our wisdom of continuing our walk-the scenery was less than appealing to look at - abandoned stores and old abandoned warehouses. It was hot and I was ready to turn back. Todd said it wasn't over until the fat lady sings. I responded that the fat lady was going to start singing. He didn't think that was very funny.

We continued walking and lo and behold we did reach the town and it was worth the sweat. There were neat shops and unique restaurants. Our favorite type of town. One we had not found in PA until now. We walked through the whole town, which comprised of one several blocks on main st. The Bourbon Blue caught our eye for lunch. It was set back away from main street, on the corner of the next block. The food was pretty good; the atmosphere was plain without ambiance. I ordered the chicken po'boy and Todd had the alligator (yes, alligator) sausage quesadillas. We finally got our ice cream at Dairyland-we ordered the peanut butter sundae-vanilla ice cream with peanut butter sauce. Yum!

We took the commuter train back in to Philadelphia (thank goodness! I would've had to put my foot down if Todd had wanted to walk back to the hotel. I would've told him to have a nice walk and see you back at the hotel...) Out loud I said-"how nice, they have a commuter train"... We arrived at the Market Terminal and walked a couple blocks to China town. It was less crowded than we're used to in New York. Maybe it's the "hot" hand bags that draws people. Maybe I should suggest that...

We came across "Hutchinson" street, so we had to get a picture of it. We continued walking (yes this is our current past time of walking everywhere. You would think we would weigh 100 pounds by now). We strolled (I feel I might've used the verb walking too much...what do you think?) on to the Constitution Center, which was air conditioned, so we really liked this building. It was 4:30 and it closed at 5:00, so we had to add this to our list for next time we come back. We continued to the Visitor's Center and across the street of the Center was the Liberty Bell.

Took the subway back to the Benjamin Franklin parkway where there was a street fair. It was crowded and we were ready to find a place on the grass and plant ourselves. We had several hours before the music started playing and the headliner band-the Goo Goo Dolls would be performing (which I was excited about but I had to explain to Todd who they were and no they were not dolls made out of goo). We just listened to the music, laying down on our beach towel, hoping not to get stepped on. We were on our way to Lemon Hill to see the fireworks but they started before we could get there. We stood and still had a good view. The display was incredible-probably one of the best ones I've seen. There were unique ones-that looked like waterfalls in 3D coming out of the sky falling toward you. Amazing.

Monday, Todd had off from work. We took the train to Atlantic City for the day! We went to the White House Sub shop, which is well known in this area. I stood in a long line; the customers have to take a number. The sandwich was on a huge sub and we ordered only half! It was one of the best sub sandwiches we've had. We walked to the beach and enjoyed laying in the sand for a bit and riding the waves. We decided to grab dinner before we left at the Melting Pot-which was the place we had our second date in Kansas City, MO. We sat at the bar and ordered the fruit, bread and vegetable vondu and ordered a fabulous dessert. I also ordered a caramel rasberry ice tea which was delicious!

We caught the Greyhound bus back to New York. Another successful trip!