Philadelphia

We had another absolutely awesome day! We got up early and met my brother and his family. They just moved out here a week or so ago from Iowa and we haven't seen them for quite a while. We met for breakfast and then we all headed into downtown Philadelphia to see the sights.

Liberty Bell is behind us.

It was pretty hard for us to park in the city. Our van is too tall for all the parking garages, but we finally found a pay lot (it ended up costing us $23 for a few hours...what a racket!). We walked to the Visitors' Center and met up with my brother. After we looked around in there and got tickets for Independence Hall, we walked over to the Liberty Bell. The line was at least an hour wait, maybe longer. We decided to content ourselves with seeing it through the glass windows from about 20 feet away.

King of Shebia!

Not using this privy!

We walked across the street to Independence Hall. First we toured Congress Hall. We got about halfway through the speech when the fire alarm went off. We were evacuated and had to wait outside for a few minutes before they let us back in. We hadn't been in there for five minutes when the alarm went off again! Once more we were evacuated. It was a little crazy and there was never any fire, thank goodness.

Baby Doll trying to stay cool.

We then got to go into Independence Hall. It was just like I've seen it in the movies. It really made me want to watch 1776 again. After that we walked toward Christ Church. We found a little cart on the way that sold Philly Cheese Steak. The price was pretty reasonable and we all had lunch.







We stopped in a little t-shirt shop and bought all the kids shirts with Philadelphia on them. That is the first and last souvenir they are likely to get and they were only five bucks each. Christ Church was nice but not as cool as they made it sound.



We said goodbye to my brother's family (not before Curly asked me if it was OK to marry your cousin...) and we climbed back in the van. After a quick stop at the hotel for swimming suits, we hopped on the freeway headed for Atlantic City.

The kids had never seen the Atlantic Ocean before and they loved the beach! We spent an hour playing in the surf and picking up shells. Then we walked down the boardwalk for a while and bought some funnel cakes.

I'm sure the hotel staff was not happy about all the sand we managed to drag back into our room, but it was definitely worth it. We finished the day with dinner in our room and showers for everyone.  Tomorrow will be crazy and I may not get a chance to post. But if I don't, I'll catch you up on Wednesday.