Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love.
Philadelphia Skyline
We popped in for the day to visit a friend, which is the best kind of trip. It also meant we didn't spend the day doing normal tourist stuff. What a shame?
Lunch with our friend was early afternoon so we spent the morning driving coddiwomple around Philly. In doing so we saw beautiful old buildings, were completely surprised at how much wilderness is inside the city, stumbled onto a suspicious group of young men, and trekked to a cave built by mystics in the 1690s.
The Cave of Kelpius was a quarter mile hike from where we parked. Engulfed by trees and diverging paths as we trotted downhill on a somewhat maintained rock and dirt trail, if we hadn't just driven through a neighborhood and down a narrow paved road, I wouldn't have guessed we were inside a city at all.
The cave seems to be fairly popular, or maybe it's just the woods that are and the cave itself is merely another sight along the way. The "cave" itself isn't much, although being associated with a Transylvania scholar and his followers who are believed to be America's first doomsday cult is pretty interesting.
Near the cave when we arrived were several Jewish men milling about. Two of them were having quite the conversation while pointing at the granite monolith standing sentry next to the entrance.
"It clearly says Cod loving" the younger man was teasing his elder who was refuting his junior's wit. "Look," the young man continued pointing to one of the images engraved on the stone "there's the skillet where the cod is cooked."
Joining in for a few moments of fun, I took the Cod loving side before we departed. Who doesn't love a fish fry?
Next we found Strawberry Manor, one of the historic homes in the area.
Lacking the time to experience the tour we walked around the outside and over to the ruins of an old rest stop nearby.
As we rounded the building to check out the front side, music started blasting so loudly you would think the young men just hanging out around their cars in the parking lot on the front side were deaf.
The men did not look like the kind who appreciated others hovering around, so we left. As soon as we were on the backside of the building, the music stopped. We watched another couple wander to the front of the rest stop and wouldn't you know it, the music blasted again, receding when they left.
Hmmmm...nothing suspicious about that. At least the music was something easy to listen to despite the volume. I imagine there would be a lot more complaints from those nearby if metal or rap had been chosen to shoo people away.
Our friend had chosen a delicious Thai restaurant for lunch. Sadly under used the food was amazing and the company even better. We spent a couple of hours catching up with her new life here. It sounds fantastic! I'm so happy for her. We could have easily spent more time together but it was getting to be late afternoon and I wanted to see the Liberty Bell before heading home as who knows when we'll be back in this area.
We arrived at Independence Mall an hour before closing time. Just enough time to pick up a souvenir, get those very important National Parks passport stamps, and see the Liberty Bell.
Much like Mount Rushmore, it's smaller than you expect from pictures. By itself it looks like a really large bell, but when you stand next to it....
...still large but not as much as I expected it to be.
We finished off the day by wandering around this part of the downtown (there are so many districts in this city!), strolling to the riverfront and just enjoying being immersed not only in history but what has turned out to be a quirky big city.
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