Today we slept in a bit. Traci hit the gym, and Kylie and I hit the pool. Once we got packed up, we had lunch at the nearby Chili’s. They have a new Chipotle Chicken Crisper entrée. It’s pretty good. Kylie was a handful. She tried eating the crayons, licking the salt shaker… she couldn’t sit still, until we locked her into her high-chair. Sadly, she hasn’t been napping well the last few days of our trip. After lunch we headed to the “National Civil War Musuem.” It’s a fairly new museum, built in 2000. Very nice. Lot’s of civil war relics, and as they describe in the brochure, it tastefully handles the central issue of slavery in the war that nearly divided a nation.
Kylie was starting to show her tired signs (read: Cranky, whiney behavior), so we hurried up during the last part of the museum, and started to head out. We plugged in direction for the Hershey Museum, but before we even got back on the freeway (like 5 minutes in the car), Kylie was out. So for the sake of Kylie getting a decent nap, we bypassed Hershey and just headed for our hotel in Philadelphia, the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel. It is nearly a 2 hour drive from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. And as we neared the city we started to hit traffic. We saw the tune to 1640AM warning and learned of a freeway closure that was impacting traffic on I-76. Fortunately we didn’t have to take that freeway, we just experienced some of the traffic leading into the city during rush-hour. Traci and I are so very glad that we don’t have the kind of commute that would force us to sit in that kind of traffic.
I made my first driving error that sent us over the Ben Franklin bridge into Camden, NJ. Fortunately, we were able to get off the freeway and make a 180 back over the Ben Franklin Bridge. I’m very glad that our rental car came with an EZ-Pass. We’ll see how the rental car company bills us for all the tolls?
We checked into the hotel. I’m glad I changed our reservation to the Society Hill location when we were planning this trip. It is just a block or two away from all the historical landmarks of Philadelphia. It’s located on a cobblestone street. A great location. We got upgraded to a club-level room. Now I know the benefits of the Club lounge. Free food, drinks, and even the bottled water is free. That’s a Starwood benefit worth writing about!
After getting settled into our room, we walked around a bit. We found the Korean War Memorial, and the Vietnam War Memorial. They are nice. We also walked over to the Delaware River and checked out some of the ships docked there from the land. They’ve got a clipper ship and a submarine, and a floating restaurant. We walked around some of the historic area at night, but there’ll be much more to see tomorrow.
Later in the evening we went to the pool as a family and met a very nice family visiting from Delaware, as well as the spouse of an American Idol contestant (Kovie from Memphis, TN). They are apparently good friends with Phil Stacy from 2 seasons ago. We’ll be watching for Kovie this fall.
This is Kylie listening to some Civil War Era music and instruments at the National Civil War Musuem.
Welcome to Philadelphia! We hit Rush Hour Traffic, so it took a little more than the expected 2 Hours.
Walking along the waterfront at Penn's Landing. I'm told that the boat behind us was used in the Godfather.
Some photos at the Philadelphia Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.
Kylie set herself up for this photo-op. She saw the flags and the flowers, and plaque, and decided to sit on the plaque and smell the flowers.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment