Philadelphia, PA

Have you ever eaten a Philly Cheesesteak from a place underneath a viaduct? Tony Luke's was really good. I had mine with American, peppers and onions and Jeff had his with red sauce (basically pizza sauce). The bread is what makes it so good. It was the perfect combination of bread to meat. I hate it when there is so much bread that you choke it down. This place was a little tricky to find. My blood sugar was really low and I had just gotten us lost in Camden, NJ, in rush hour traffic. Yeah, if you're doing some geography, you will notice that Camden is a little overshot for Penn's Landing. I was wishing that my GPS on the Palm was operating in "real" time. I was making all sorts of mental notes about how I will never be the navigator should we ever be on "The Amazing Race". I wouldn't want the whole world to know how bad my language becomes when I am hungry and lost and relying on Palm to map our ride.
This was our view from a crappy Comfort Inn. Hotwire you still suck, but I will give it up for this view. I get a little misty-eyed when I look at this picture of the kids. We arrived at dusk and they were so excited to look out the window and watch the boats on the river. It's all they wanted to do in that room. There were some pretty neat fireworks that night on the other side of the river. We let Lachlan get out of bed and watch them with us. She is still talking about it. Can you believe that I took this picture out of a closed window??
We started the next day at Franklin Park. We knew that it was going to be a hot day so we decided to start slow and look for ways to keep the kids from having a complete meltdown. I love big city parks. I love that they take the time to put in quality play equipment and rubber mats. We have a couple of good parks in our town, but they are always really crowded. This park was virtually empty. Yeah!



Practicing more photography techniques. These aren't perfect, but they are pretty fun to look at...
Jack was soooo happy to be riding this "winged horse"...he would have ridden it all day long!
We have seen the Liberty Bell. Can you guess how much fun it was for everyone?

A picture is worth a thousand words. To say that the kids would rather ride through hell on a razorback than walk through that exhibit hall again...well, that's an understatement.
We went directly for more cheesesteaks. The Balm of Gilead.

Don't worry. I was taking blood pressure medication by this point and following every meal with a chaser of baby aspirin.

This is the best sandwich I have ever eaten. Period. And yes, that's cheese whiz. This is how they should always be prepared. Forget having it any other way. I could eat one of these every day.

Before I forget, I do have to mention that there was one place in Phily that Jeff wanted to eat, but it was just a little too authentic for me. Chinatown. Phily's Chinatown is a lot like a real China town. To give you a little perspective, NYC's Chinatown was like eating on the clean streets of SLC... I just couldn't get past the smell of hot garbage. I don't even think that it was the heat and the humidity--I just kept thinking, "is this a place that Anthony Bourdain would look for food, or Andrew Zimmerman" and I think that P-town Chinatown belongs in the Zimmerman category.

Chinatown. You are exciting but I am going to pass on your Dim Sum. For those of you who want to know what it feels like to walk down the sidewalks and have this experience...melt a Popsicle on the ground and then step around on it with your flip flops until you almost rip them from your feet. Now put your head inside your outdoor garbage can at high noon and then honk your car horn 10 times. Rub your hands in your arm pits and now think to yourself, "want to have a little snack in the bathroom?" And THAT is why I just didn't want to eat with you Zimmerman.

We rounded out the whole experience by touring Independence Hall. The kids are standing in the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed. You can see George Washington's chair in the back of the room. I had to laugh a little at our tour guide. He kept repeating the same lines over and over again. I kept wondering whether he was new or whether he had just done the same tour so many times during the day that he couldn't remember what he said, and when he said it. I laughed with sympathy because I've had to teach the same class more than once and it is easy to get confused from one session to the next. I'm also just noticing that Jack doesn't have any shoes on. Whoa. I don't have any idea where his shoes are...or how long we were sporting the ghetto look.
Shoes recovered.

Did I mention how much I love free public transportation? I swear that Lachlan must have been born on a bus. That kid would take bus to the moon if it were offered to her. I wish that I would have taken some pictures of their happy faces as we rode around town. We were finally able to convince them (after several days) that all the yellow cars were taxis (not policemen).