A few Philly Disappointments

 

Backside of Independence Hall

   At the beginning of August Laurie and I went to Philly for what would be our third time. Philly is probably my favorite city to visit. Though it can be argued that Washington DC was way more museums and statues, I like going to Philadelphia. All the fun stuff to do is pretty much in two places. The historic stuff is in Old City. You can walk around Independence Hall, Congress Hall, and the other sites in the area of the Visitor Center. Most of the museums are on the Museum Mile. You need to take one of the buses to get to the museums from Old City but it really isn't a problem.

    I suggested a trip to Philly and we came up a way for it to work with our schedules. The plan ended up being we go from Thursday til Saturday. The first two days were hers in Philadelphia. Saturday we went to Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge. I wanted to go to Brig last year, but, well, Covid. So I was planning on a solo trip this year, but when Laurie wanted to go away and Brig is 90 minutes from Philly, it was a no brainer. 

   When there are a lot of attractions we usually put them in a list and each of us prioritize them. One being the thing we most want to do and the last number being the thing we want to do least.  We then add the scores and the things with the lowest number are things we try to do. Usually we are on the same page and want to see the same things. In our two days the things we most wanted to do/see were 

A tour of Independence Hall

See Washington's Tent in the American Revolutionary Museum

Barnes Foundation Museum

A tour of the Rare Books at the Philadelphia Library

A Murder Mystery Walk through Old City at dusk

  We had done Independence Hall a few times. However it is such a treat to stand where our Founding Fathers stood. It never gets old. Washington's tent is in a special room in the museum. Because it is so old it is kept in the dark. You can only see it during a presentation every hour. They light it up for a minute or so. The presentation will bring you to tears.

  The Barnes Foundation is an excellent museum. It is not as big as the Museum of Art but I've been there three times.  The Rare Book tour may sound boring, but the library has amazing artifacts. On the tour you will see Dicken's pet raven which is stuffed and at the library. Some of the rare books are actually from the middle ages and even older.

   Lastly, we had done both of Philly's ghost tours. The mystery tour takes place walking through town looking for clues. We were looking forward to it and thought it would be fun.

Our trip...

 

A portrait of Big George

    We left North Attleboro at the god forsaken hour of 4 am. Despite our early start the George Washington Bridge was not kind to us. We got stuck in NYC traffic for ninety minutes. We finally managed to get to the parking garage under the Independence Hall Visitor Center at 11 am.  Our first stop was the visitor center. Here we planned to pick up timed tickets for Independence Hall. 

   When we asked the ranger if any tickets were available he said they don't give out tickets anymore. They are only available online. Before you say "Duh, Covid", this change had only been made om August 1, 2021. Switching to only online tickets was not Covid related. Legitimately, they only switched to this system six days before our arrival! This was crushing to us. There are very few places more historic than where our Founding Fathers walked, debated, and argued. Even the floor is original, so you actually stand where Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin stood.

   Since we couldn't go to Independence Hall we skipped ahead to walking through the other parts of the historic district. Laurie had read the American Revolutionary War Museum was only open Fri-Sun so our plan was to go there Friday. This was going to make going to the museums in the morning tough and made planning a problem. However, when we walked by it looked open. I pulled on the door and it was unlocked. It turned out Laurie had read the winter hours. So we went in and saw the presentation for Washington's tent. We felt our luck had changed for the better.

 

   After going to the museum, we got a cheesesteak and went to the portrait gallery in the old bank. That pretty much ended our day.

   Friday morning we took a bus to the Museum Mile. We didn't think the bus would get us to the 10 am Rare Books Tour at the library. However, it dropped us off at 9:57. We ran up the library stairs and pulled on the door handle. Locked! I don't know why the library was closed. There wasn't anything on the website. So unfortunately, we could not go on the rare books tour. 

I wanted to get a photo of Rodin's "The Thinker" that actually didn't suck.  I partially succeeded in that quest.  Despite taking photos up close, further away, with people, without people, I didn't get any wallhangers. The white overcast sky was just too bright.

   From there we went into the Barnes Foundation Art Gallery. This place is awesome. In the early 1900s a rich doctor became obsessed with European Art and started a massive collection. Before he died he set up the museum to share it with the public. The collection is huge with many paintings from Van Goh, Picasso, Monet, and many others. Besides the artwork, there were short 20 minute lectures about some of the paintings. We sat in on them and learned a lot. 

After we left Barnes we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is the museum where Rocky ran up the steps. We pretty much hung out in the Monet area for an hour before catching a bus back to out motel. 

   When we got back, we got another cheesesteak from Sonny's then went to the motel. Laurie rented a motel with a rooftop pool and we had a blast swimming from the top of the world.

Van Gogh's "The Mailman"
at the Barnes Foundation

   You may be asking, what about the Murder Mystery walk. We tried to get reservations for the Friday tour on Thursday, but it was sold out. 

   Needless to say, our trip was filled with a few disappointments. Not going to Independence Hall, the rare book tour at the Library, and the Murder Mystery Walk did dampen the experience. Why did I write a post with so many disappointments? As I've stated before I want to write the truth. Not every trip is going to be an epic adventure. Sometimes there are disappointments. Also, if you ever go to Philly, you now know you need to buy your Independence Hall ticket online. Hopefully, this can save at least one person the crushing blow of going to Philly without going to Independence Hall.

   Saying all of that, the trip had many fun points. The post was an honest description of my trip. But it is not complaining, I'd still rather be disappointed on a short vacation to Philly than be at work! That is the most honest statement I can make!!!

I can thank William Penn for founding
a city I have visited three times and eaten
a dozen cheesesteaks in!