End of Summer 08 - Part Two

On Thursday we hung around close to home finishing up some odds and ends around the house and recovering from a day at the shore. I managed to get in a run in the morning too.

On Friday we decided to be tourists in Philadelphia. Dave had never done the Independence Hall tour. We were able to secure tickets online at Recreation.gov and intersting site where you can secure tickets for campgrounds and sitest that require timed ticketing. We had to pay a $3 service charge for the tickets (which are normally free) but since last time we tried to do this they had assigned all the tickets before we got there we decided it was worth $3.

We took the train to Market East and walked over to the vistors center to pick up our tickets. You have to pick them up at least one hour before your tour time or they release them. We toured the visitor center gift shop. Dave bought a book titled "Fart Proudly" by Carl Japikse. The subtitle is "Writings of Benjamin Franklin you Never Read in School". Dave stuck it in his pants side pocket. Later in the day I had to get him to turn it around as only one word was showing and it was just too weird to leave it be!

We visited the Liberty Bell. The new pavillion is nice. Lots of history reading panes but they all kind of say the same thing (At least I thought so.) I have seen the liberty bell in three locations now. I wonder if it will stay put this time! Now I have to tell you what the liberty bell does for me. Most people say it symbolizes freedom, liberty, yadda yadda.... and that's cool... but for me (and seriously folks there is no pun intended here it is purely coincidental) the liberty bell symbolizes the fact that "Perfection is not all it's cracked up to be". Something I've told my children many times and try to live by myself as well. Look at this bell. It cracked almost on it's first use and yet it is famous beyond words. Think about it!

The Independence Hall tour was good. Our guide was a woman ranger from Louisiana. She seemed knoweldgeable and I think she got most of it right from what I remember anyway. From the history books!!! No, I wasn't alive then - I know there is at least one person out there thinking that. Before the tour, still passing our hour to wait, we walked around the Bourse Building and then bought soft pretzels from a street vendor outside. This bird - and several others - were just waiting for us to drop something. (We didn't).

After the Independence Hall tour we went in search of a duck boat tour. These are cool and worth the price of admission. Our guide was not quite as accurate as the Ranger at Independence Hall but his errors won't cause another revolution. The ride in the water was really neat. If you've never been on of these (this

was my first time) the duck tour rides the city streets like a bus and then goes into the Delaware River like a boat. It was neat to see Penn's Landing from the other side! The battleship, The Bradley, was cruising up the river as we were out there. It stayed the weekend in Penn's Landing for tours. The duck boat operator, Tony, took us up on Market street to get a better view. By that time to ship was almost docked and these poor sailors I'm sure were ready to jump! That's a long time to be standing still like that. Tony (the tour operator) is a DJ wannabe for sure. He played good music in between his messages about the city. Some of his jokes were lame but he did make it a fun trip. The pictures are fuzzy I know. I'm not a very good photographer (yet) and it was a bit cloudy all day.

We ate at Downey's for lunch/dinner and then walked down South Street. We hoped to pop in and say hi to Jimmy but he was not working at Steaks on South today. Around 5:30 we were on the train back to Media. It was a great day. Fantastic weather, good food and company and a lot of fun.