A Monday in July (In Philly)

I'm going to just ignore the heatwave (Yesterday's high in St. Louis? 104. Yowza McFuckBuckets!) and tell you more about our Philly trip, instead.

After spending a restful day moored to our Philly hotel on Sunday (watching cable TV, ordering in pizza and blissfully finding a gas station before E became unusable fumes in a strange city), HUBS and I took to the streets on July 4 to see what all the Philly fuss was about. Several guidebooks had warned us about driving into downtown and trying to park; spaces are limited, garages and meters are hella expensive and the rules of when you can park where and for how long tend to shift. Or, so we had read.









We were planning on taking the bus into downtown to avoid all the parking hubub, but on Monday morning HUBS just wanted to get going. He convinced me to drive into the city from our home away near the airport. After a couple turns around the waterfront area, we found a spot right across from many of the seafaring attractions. We got six hour parking for about eight bucks. Not too bad, and just good enough to keep us driving into the city for the rest of the week.


Independence Hall





Our sight seeing goals were Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and any other historical stuff we could cram in during a downtown visit. One of the greatest things about traveling is coming across awesome stuff by accident. Our walk to Independence Hall was more entertaining because of the July 4th parade that happened to follow the same route we were taking.




Franklin Court


Well, now.


You know what this is, right?

We crammed all our history in before the Liberty Bell closed for a special party at around 2 p.m. After doing downtown and heading to a posh restaurant on a sailing ship for lunch (you'll hear more about that later), we drove to Valley Forge.







HUBS then took over the driving and we headed back to our hotel room. We got a kitchenette so we could store leftovers and reheat them. Best idea ever! We had planned on going into downtown to locate some fireworks, but were too exhausted from the day to move out again. Luckily, we found the local July 4th celebration with three hour concert and mega fireworks display was being broadcast on TV.

Leftovers and colorful explosions in the comfort of a cool hotel room? Yes, please!