We woke up to a pleasant Sunday morning. The breakfast at the hotel was great home style food, with pancakes, sausage and the works. After filling up we took a quick drive over to the Jersey Shore. Doug and I got out quick and took a couple pictures of the boardwalk...it was early so everything was closed but there were some joggers out.
It looked like a fun place to spend more time if we could have. But we wanted to get to Philadelphia. So we hopped back into the car and drove across New Jersey. We had been watching the news reports about the Pope being Philadelphia, he had visited Independence Park while we were in NYC. So we thought that the security would be relaxed a little bit in that part of the city....boy were we wrong.
We arrived in Philadelphia:
The streets were eerily empty...we had to come in from north because the Benjamin Bridge was closed. And as we tried to get south to Independence Park we were met with road block after road block. And with not police... but the National Guardsmen....it was INSANE....The Pope was still in the city but nowhere near the Park. It was open but we couldn't drive anywhere near it. Here are some pictures of what we were seeing:
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| Inside the road blocks....crazy empty streets |
So we parked the car about ten blocks out....and walked in. There were a lot of people at the park and everything was open...it was just weird not seeing cars. In the park is a really different looking sculpture. Its of Benjamin Franklin's kite.
We stopped at the visitor center first. And got some pictures with Ben and Rocky...and even saw the Pope.
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| Well maybe just his cardboard cut out... |
Then we went and saw the Liberty Bell...it was pretty cool but about a million people were trying to get a selfie with it so I just stood back and zoomed in with my camera:
After getting our chance with the bell we headed over to Independence Hall. They didn't require tickets for the tours so we just went over and got in line.
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| Independence Hall |
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| Where they signed the Declaration of Independence |
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| Court Room |
Then we walked over to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that was behind the Hall. It was pretty cool. The trees in the park where huge.
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| Tiny Doug |
About this point we were getting a little discouraged because everything else in Philadelphia we wanted to see was a really far walk or was where the Pope was going to have his Sunday Mass....soooo we walked back to the car and headed out of Philly....We decided to head on to Baltimore and stop at Ft McHenry.
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| Bye Bye Philly...maybe next time we will get to explore more of you |
We crossed into Delaware for a short time and then onto Maryland...crossing over the Susquehanna River.
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| Its bigger than I thought... |
We got to Baltimore in no time...well a couple hours later...and drove into another tunnel to get to Ft McHenry. It was kind of in the middle of the city, just off the freeway.
We didn't take the tour but we walked around it and got some pictures of the Bay. This was the Fort that inspired the writing of our National Anthem "The Star Spangled Banner".
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| There's that Star Spangled Banner |
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| Doug looking for four leaf clovers |
Then we got back into the car and headed onward to Washington, DC. I've never been to our nations capitol so I really didn't know what to except...we stopped first at the DC Temple...I was surprised to see so many trees and hills around it. The temple has a pretty big visitor center so we stopped in and said hi to the Sister Missionaries. Nicole's brother Josh was expecting his mission call so it was fun for him to talk with them.
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| It was so tall, Josh had to lay down to get the whole building in one shot. |
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| The carvings on the doors show the Plan of Salvation |
It was a nice way to end our Sunday of travels...we headed out to our hotel and unloaded. Then we went out to dinner and then went back to our room and planned our next adventures in DC.
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