In continuing with our tour of Early America, we're here in Philadelphia for a couple of days. We don't have a lot of things planned here, but we'll be taking a trip into town tomorrow to visit Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, as well as Betsey Ross's house and the area surrounding both.

Thursday Update:

Today was a good day spent in Philadelphia seeing the sights. We weren't in a hurry so we slept in a bit and didn't get in a big hurry to get downtown. We started off at Independence Hall and visited the building where the first Continental Congress met and the Constitution was debated over and signed. This was a short 30 minute tour, but it was really interesting to see where Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and others had lengthy discussions that led to the structure of our country.

We took a walk and visited Christ Church's cemetery, where Benjamin Franklin is buried, as well as other signers of the Declaration of Independence. It's a neat old cemetery. We also visited the home of Betsy Ross (the woman who sewed the first American Flags). Michelle and the girls went inside, so they'll provide more details on that, Peanut and I hung out in the courtyard and played with acorns.

When you're in Philly, you have to have a Philly Cheese steak. We did just that for lunch, and were not disappointed by the combo at Sonny's.

After lunch, we headed back to the historic district and took turns (we had Peanut with us) visiting the Liberty Bell. It was smaller than Kenzie and I expected, but it was really cool to see such a living piece of our country's history up close and personal.

Tomorrow will be a sort of day off, we'll hang out here in Philly until mid morning, then head to Croton-on-Hudson, NW of New York City, which will be our home base for our NYC stop.

Michelle's blog:
Just wanted to give a little info on the Betsy Ross house. It was really neat to go inside this little house in the middle of this big city and see what Betsy Ross' home was like. It had very thin, winding stair cases. We saw her original furniture in her upstairs bedroom and the original upholstery shop she ran from the ground level. We also learned that she never actually owned this house, it was rented. Her grave sets outside of the house in the courtyard. In this courtyard there are also people dressed up like Betsy and other Revolutionary people who will answer questions and show you how Betsy appliquéd the 26 stars on the first flag (there were 26 because there were 13 on each side of the flag!)

Faith's blog:
Yesterday we went to Pennsylvania. We saw Independence Hall. That’s where the Declaration of Independence was signed. We also got to see the Liberty Bell. It was small though, but still cool. I liked Philadelphia.

Kenzie's blog:
We got to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. It was cool. We also got to see Besty Ross’ house and Ben Franklin’s grave. Have you ever seen National Treasure? Except for Besty Ross’ home, all of these places were in this movie. My favorite part was getting a Philly cheesesteak. It was GOOD!

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Philadelphia, PA

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