We just got back from a two week 2,300 mile road trip across the Eastern seaboard in order to visit family and take in some American history. My brother lives in New Jersey and my sister lives in Rhode Island. However, my sister (whose husband is in the Navy) is just weeks away from moving to Washington state so I knew we had to seize the opportunity to see her before she leaves. I had never been to Rhode Island before and I had been promising to come visit for the three years she's lived there. We finally snuck it in and I'm so glad we did. Rhode Island is absolutely gorgeous....but I'll get to that later.
The original plan had been to stop in DC for two or three days, but we had to scrap that idea when our plans changed and we had to push back our departure date. But that's okay, because DC is much easier for us to return to unlike Rhode Island which required two days of hard driving to reach. And as a former resident of our nation's capital, I know you can't do it justice in just a day or two. I'd really love to do a week-long trip to Virginia/DC when the kids are a little older and understand a little more of American history.
We left on Wednesday, June 20th. These photos are at our first rest stop in South Carolina. I didn't realize when we pulled over that it was right on a lake.
It made for our most scenic rest stop. We ate some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and got back on the road. We drove as long as we could and made it as far as Fredricksburg, Virginia before stopping at a hotel for the night. (We also stopped at a Chick-fil-A for dinner because those indoor play places are awesome after a long day in the car.) Thankfully, our kids really are fantastic road trippers. There was very little fighting or whining and NO accidents.
Since we made such good time our first day, we didn't have far to drive to reach my brother's house in New Jersey so we stopped in Philadelphia to spend a few hours exploring the historic sites.
We also grabbed some lunch while we were there, and I just have to shout out Zara who is generally a very doting and helpful big sister. (Sometimes a little too helpful, if you know what I mean.) But she helped Benjamin eat his lunch and generally helps me out a lot with her younger siblings which I really do appreciate.
We wandered around the historic center of Philadelphia after lunch. I wish Atlanta had more old buildings (thanks, Sherman) and Philadelphia's do not disappoint. We visited many of Benjamin Franklin's stomping grounds including this building which served as house, apartment building, and post office.
Look at the original cobblestone streets! (They are not stroller friendly though.)
Inside the tenement building, they have the walls stripped down so you can see the bricks underneath. Bricks contain a lot of clues and it's one of my favorite aspects of historic preservation that we can dig underneath the surface of a building to discover what secrets lie beneath. These bricks show us where the chimney, staircase, floor joists, and even boarded up doors used to be.
Brick patterns also convey a lot about the people who occupied a building. A lot of the buildings we visited in Philadelphia use what is called the Flemish bond brick pattern (like Ben Franklin's post office here). It is the strongest brick pattern there is--which is probably why these buildings have withstood so many years--but that's because it also requires the most number of bricks to produce. It's strong, but it also signals wealth. It's also why you might notice that a building may use one pattern in the front of the building, but use a cheaper, more common brick pattern in the back of the building.
We also went to pay our respects to the Liberty Bell.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to get tickets to visit Independence Hall (since those get snatched up rather quickly) but we did wander around the building and take a few photos to prove we were there.
On our way there, we noticed that Franklin Square had a Chinese lantern festival set up. Being a sucker for anything Asian, I insisted we walk over there to check them out before heading back to our car and on to New Jersey.
There's definitely more to see and do in Philadelphia and maybe someday we'll get a chance to really do the city right. But it was a nice beginning to what would be a series of visits to some of America's most enduring symbols of freedom.
