Days Seventeen through Twenty-Two

Okay, I've gotten so far behind that I'll never catch up so I'm going to combine a number of days here. Debbie is taking classes on line now and had to do school work in the evenings.  That limited my computer access somewhat, plus we started running into terrible WiFi connections.  I know you don't want to read more about laundry, cooking, watching the rain, etc., so I'm going to condense that part of our trip.

Philadelphia
One of the things John and I had discussed early in the planning of this trip was taking the train on the east coast. John didn't really care what the destination was as long as we rode one.  I had originally planned stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore at RV parks near them, but we changed our plans and traveled from the New York City park to the one near Washington, DC.  It was actually between Baltimore and DC, due west of Annapolis.  This would prove to be a great location as we could move in whatever direction we wanted to, depending on plans for the day. 

I had made reservations on the Northeast Amtrak train leaving from DC and going to Philadelphia. The train left from Union Station in DC at 8:30 am, so we had to leave the RV park at 6:30 am in order to find the station, park the truck, and print our tickets before it was time to board the train.  Getting all of us out the door at that time of day was a real treat considering we'd been sleeping a bit late every day.  This was another challenge for the GPS which John had now named "Penelope."  I didn't ask!

We didn't realize that the station had parking, so we wound up parking a couple of blocks away and walking to the station - uphill. We made it on time and were expecting to have to go through some security to get on the train. There wasn't any at all!  Simply amazing.  We got in line to go to the track for our train, down the escalator, and out onto the platform.  I can remember riding the train from Idaho to Utah to visit my grandparents.  This was a very different experience, yet I felt a bit of deja vu.  We climbed aboard, found our seats, and we were off.  The ride was very smooth, the seats are plush, and the countryside a bit different from the sights we had become used to from the seat of the truck. 

Once we arrived in Philadelphia, we hailed a taxi to take us to the Independence National Historical Park. This is where the Liberty Bell Center is located.  The park is part of the National Park system, and they offer a lot of information about the surrounding buildings, and tickets for various theaters and venues there.  We were particularly interested in the Liberty Bell, so that was to be our first stop.

At the time of day we got there (close to 10:00), there was a line to go in to see the bell about a block long.  We decided to take a carriage tour around the area that would provide us with some history of the buildings and statues in the area.  Emma was our horse and Janet was our driver and provided some of the dialogue. She's a trainee and is ready to get her own horse and buggy to become a solo guide.

We learned that many of the houses surrounding the center are original structures. They are designated with a plaque on their outside walls.  Another plaque on some of the buildings had a fire station number on it.  The occupants of the buildings were approached to purchase "fire insurance" for the year. If they agreed, this plaque was put on their house. If a house caught on fire that hadn't purchased this insurance and didn't have a plaque, the fire department would arrive on the scene and "negotiate" with the occupants to purchase insurance. Once they came to an agreement, the fire department would put out the fire. 

We arrived back at the Liberty Bell Center after about 45 minutes of touring, and were pleased to see that the line was no longer there - we could go right in.  The center is very interesting.  The building is open year round, though hours vary by season. The Center has a video presentation and exhibits about the Liberty Bell, focusing on its origins and its modern day role as an international icon of freedom. The Liberty Bell itself is displayed in a magnificent glass chamber with Independence Hall in the background.

We learned that a bell for the Pennsylvania State House was cast in London, England, however, it cracked soon after it arrived in Philadelphia. Local craftsmen John Pass and John Stow cast a new bell in 1753, using metal from the English bell. Their names appear on the front of the bell, along with the city and the date. By 1846 a thin crack began to affect the sound of the bell. The bell was repaired that year and rang for a George Washington birthday celebration, but the bell cracked again and has not been rung since. No one knows why the bell cracked either time.

The bell weighs about 2000 pounds. It is made of 70 percent copper, 25 percent tin, and small amounts of lead, zinc, arsenic, gold, and silver. It hangs from what is believed to be its original yoke, made from American elm, also known as slippery elm.

After viewing all of the exhibits and taking our photos in front of the bell, it was time for lunch.  When in Philadelphia, you must have a Philly cheese steak, right?  We went in search of a place near the Center where we could have lunch.  We were hot and tired as we'd done a lot of walking and looking and learning.  We found a great little restaurant and ordered our sandwiches.  It was great to sit there in the air conditioning cooling off and talking about what we'd seen.  Then, it was back to the train station for the trip back to DC.

Of course, we can't go anywhere without searching for just the right remembrance of that location. I just had to share this photo with you. Doesn't Josh look great in his new hat that he just had to have.  It is a rare moment, too, when you can catch him reading a book instead of playing a game on his phone. Of course, there wasn't much to do in the Amtrak station while we were waiting for them to call our train.

Little did we know that the train would be delayed due to a problem with the switching equipment.  We sat in the station for about an hour, then got in line for our train.  Once aboard, we waited in the station for another 30 minutes, then finally started south.  We got to wait at the first stop again for about 30 minutes, and were finally cleared to DC. YEAH!  We were tired and looking forward to a quiet evening planning our next sight seeing trip.

Since we got back so late, we decided we’d go to a restaurant on the way back to the TT so we didn’t have to cook. A Mexican restaurant was chosen. The food was pretty good and the best thing was I didn’t have to cook it or clean up.

Annapolis

The RV park where we were staying was due west of Annapolis.  I really wanted to see the Naval Academy, so we drove over the next afternoon.  It is another beautiful town with lots of really narrow streets, houses built in the 1700s and 1800s, and LOTS of tourists.

Annapolis is the capital Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River. The city was the temporary capital of the United States in 1783 – 1784 and the site of the Annapolis Peace Conference, held in November 2007, at the United States Naval Academy. St. John’s College is also in Annapolis. The United States Naval Academy was founded in 1845 on the site of Fort Severn, and now occupies an area of land reclaimed from the Severn River next to the Chesapeake Bay.

We drove down to the waterfront and around the center of town, then up and down a number of the streets. One interesting thing I've never seen before is a bank in the middle of the residential section with the drive through where the driveway to the garage is. That's taking neighborhood banking to the extreme!

Washington, DC

Debbie and John decided that my foot wasn't in good enough shape after all of the walking I had done to be a good candidate to walk around Washington, DC, so they made arrangements to rent a wheel chair for the day. So our first stop was at a medical supply store close to the campground to pick up the chair. Then it was off to Washington.

We drove to the National Mall, then started looking for a parking place.  LOL!  Not only is DC a tourist mecca, but the week and weekend before July 4th is not the time to be planning to find a parking anywhere close.  So, we decided to drive into the business district, find a parking garage, and take a taxi back to the National Mall.  This would make it a lot easier to get back, too.  This plan worked pretty well! 

Debbie really wanted to see the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, but didn't particularly want Josh to see it just yet.  John had promised to take him to the Air and Space Museum, so we had the taxi drop them there.

John and Josh spent the morning at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum where they went through a number of the exhibits. I know that because Josh filled up the entire memory card on the camera!  What he didn't take any pictures of was the look on John's face when they were in the simulator and Josh had them upside down. I'd have paid a good bit of money to see that!

Debbie and I went on to the Holocaust Museum. This museum is quite a different museum.  They limit the number of people who can go to the floors above the main two levels in the museum.  While the museum is free, you have to have tickets that allow you to go to the above floors at a certain time. Debbie got ours and we had an hour and a half wait.  In the meantime, we toured the areas on the main and lower levels. 

One of the exhibits is called "Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story."  This exhibit doesn't require a pass, so we went through it first. This exhibit opened at the Museum in 1993. It presents the history of the Holocaust in ways that children can understand and is the main program for elementary and middle school children at the Museum. Professionals in all fields of child development assisted in and reviewed the making of Daniel’s Story. It is the story of the holocaust told from a child's perspective - what his life was like in his family before the war, what changes were made by the Nazis that gradually led to his family being split up when they were interred in one of the concentration camps. 

We also viewed the Children's Tile Wall located in the lower level. Dedicated by the Remember the Children Committee in April 1993, the Children’s Tile Wall memorializes the children murdered in the Holocaust. A quotation from Yitzhak Katzenelson appears above the tiles: “The first to perish were the children...From these a new dawn might have risen.” American schoolchildren painted the more than 3,000 tiles, many of which call for peace, hope, remembrance, and freedom.

One of the things we noticed was the hushed reverence that everyone displayed in this museum.  The main waiting area of the museum was full of people both standing and sitting, waiting for their turn to go to the exhibits on the upper floors. There were many adults and children there, and it was amazing that even the smallest children were being very quiet.

After Debbie and I viewed a number of the other exhibits, we left the museum and went across the National Mall to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.  John and Josh met us there for lunch. John said when he looked at the map, the two museums looked pretty close together.  HOWEVER, they really are a couple of long blocks apart and on opposite sides of the National Mall. They both were huffing and puffing by the time they got there. The museum has two restaurants in the lower levels.  We enjoyed a light lunch in the lowest level where we could look out on the sculpture garden that is below street level.  We talked about what we wanted to look at next. Josh and John wanted to go to the National Aquarium, so we split up again. 

Debbie and I had looked at the list of exhibits in the museum and narrowed it down to the sections we particularly wanted to see.  We started with the Abraham Lincoln section where we saw artifacts and memorabilia from his life.  Included were Mary Todd Lincoln's dresses, purses, shoes and other personal possessions.

We then moved to view the Star Spangled Banner. I had seen this exhibit a few years ago when they were working to preserve the flag. It is now in its new home in a special environmentally controlled chamber. This is the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor during the naval portion of the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. Seeing the flag during the battle inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry," which, retitled with the flag's name of the closing lines of the first stanza and set to the tune "Anacreon in Heav'n," would later become the national anthem of the United States.

The flag originally measured 30 feet by 42 feet and was sewn from a combination of cotton and dyed English wool bunting. Each of the fifteen stripes are two feet wide, and each of the stars measure about two feet in diameter. After the battle, pieces of the flag were occasionally given away as souvenirs and gifts; this cutting, along with deterioration from continued use, removed several feet of fabric from the flag's fly end, and it now measures 30 feet by 34 feet. The flag currently has only fourteen stars—the fifteenth star was similarly given as a gift, but its recipient and current whereabouts are unknown. Experts at the museum undertook an eight-year conservation treatment. The flag is now on display in a special exhibit that allows it to lie at a 10 degree angle in dim light following the reopening of the National Museum of American History on November 21, 2008. Everyone is cautioned that no cameras are allowed, and it is a low light area. Of course, every group has someone who thinks the rules don't apply to them, so one man whipped out his camera and took a flash picture. The museum staff took him aside and escorted him out of the area.

We also toured Julia Child's kitchen and marveled at how small it is.  It is all behind glass with glassed-in indentions where the cameras were located that also allow visitors to see more of the inside.  The kitchen has the entire contents of her kitchen - everything down to the gadgets she kept in the drawers and cabinets, as well as her copper pots and pans, appliances - even the kitchen sink!

Then we went to the "Within These Walls" exhibit. They have an actual house that was lived in by five families over a period of 200 years in Ipswich, Massachusetts. It was home to a laundress, a slave, an abolitionist, and a soldier. They have opened walls to allow us to see methods of 18th century house construction and have provided home furnishings from the various periods along with discussions and displays. As you walked around the outside of the house, the different eras were revealed, from changed wall paper to floor coverings in addition to the furnishings. 

And finally, we made our way to the museum gift shop where we helped the museum along with their fund raising by purchasing items to carry home.  It was also time for me to renew my membership in the museum so I could continue to receive the outstanding magazines they produce.  If you haven't seen one of them, ask me for a copy.  They are packed full of information.

By now, it is getting late in the day and time to seek out our vehicle for the trip home.  I was keeper of the parking ticket, so gave the taxi driver the address and off we went.  As we drove down H street, John decided that we had arrived at our destination because he "recognized" the front of the building where we parked the car.  We all piled out and waved goodby to the taxi driver when I noticed that the address was incorrect.  We were four blocks from the building where we were actually parked.  What a day!