Memorial Day in Philly

Tommy and I decided to take advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend and headed to Philadelphia on Monday. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive to Philly, but we decided to start the day a little outside the city at the Valley Forge National Historical Park. Seems appropriate for Memorial Day, right? In case you are not familiar with it,Valley Forge was the site of the camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 in the American Revolutionary War. No battles were fought, although many American soldiers died in the harsh winter. The rangers at the park stress that the poor conditions at Valley Forge were greatly exaggerated and that, more than anything, Valley Forge offered the Continental Army the opportunity to mature, train, and come together as an army that would eventually defeat the British.

We took a 90 minute guided bus tour around the park. These cabins are models of the ones in which the soldiers would have stayed:

Here is one of the Park Rangers giving us a musket firing demonstration. I never realized how many steps were involved just to fire one shot!

The famous Valley Forge National Memorial Arch:

From there, we headed into Philadelphia. We were a little early for our 3:30 tour of Independence Hall, so we stopped by a cute restaurant in Old Town for lunch and then headed over to Independence Hall. The tour was fairly short, only 2 rooms, but it was amazing to think that we were standing in the room where our founding fathers met, debated, and eventually signed 2 of the most important documents in our nations history, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Here we are in front of Independence Hall:

The room where the Consitution and Declaration of Independence were signed:

From there, we headed over to take a look at the Liberty Bell:

After that, we wandered around Old Town Philly a little bit more, being sure to stop for some ice cream at the Franklin Fountain, an old-time soda shop. Strangely enough, we both ordered cherry vanilla on a sugar cone - YUM!


By this time, the wimpy pregnant lady was getting pretty tired, so we decided to head home. We couldn't leave Philly, though, without stopping for a cheesesteak. This time we tried Jim's Steaks - another fairly famous and well-established steak place. Maybe we were too full from lunch and ice cream, but this cheesesteak was not our favorite. The meat was dry, there was too little cheese whiz and it was on the bottom of the sandwich - not a winning combination. The very first cheesesteak we tried on our first trip to Philly, Pat's King of Steaks, is still the winner in our book!