Saturday, October 11, 2008

October 6-11 - Pennsylvania & New Jersey

We stopped near Easton, PA to visit Barb's friend Sandra & her husband Curt. Barb & Sandra worked together years ago & it's always fun to catch up. Curt & Sandra moved to Pennsylvania in February & seem very happy in their beautiful home. We went to dinner at a Portugese restaurant, which we'd never had but it was really good. After our nice visit, we moved to a park in New Jersey that is just 10 miles from Philadelphia. We took a double decker bus tour to get an overview & re-learn some history. Philadelphia is a beautiful old city but we were told most of the skyscrapers were built during a 1980's boom & they are quite bland. After the bus tour, we walked around our favorite neighborhoods. We loved seeing the townhouses in Society Hill & Elfreth's Alley. Elfreth's Alley has been a residential neighborhood for over 300 years & has just a carriage road running through it. Very beautiful & peaceful. We had Philly cheesesteaks for lunch in the building where Larry of the Three Stooges was born. Don't fear; it has since been converted to a restaurant. Philadelphia sightseeing highlights included Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin's grave, an open air market & the Rocky statue. We didn't run up the steps of the art museum, nor do we feel guilty after learning that Sylvester Stallone only ran up 3 steps while his stunt double ran the other 69! Oh...Barb got the senior rate on her bus tour ticket. Hopefully the ticket seller was just being a nice guy & passing along the $2 savings. Alas, that was not the only irritation of the day. Barb remembers seeing Pod restaurant on TV years & years ago. She thought at the time she'd definitely go there if she was ever in Philadelphia & was thrilled to learn it is still in business. It has all-white round booth-rooms with colored lighting that the occupants can change. Seems like a must-see, right? Well, we were there early in the evening & the bratty hostess would not allow us to even have a quick drink in a pod since you "must" have a party of 6. The place was nearly empty! Guess we should have either recruited everyone there to sit with us or bribed her. Despite all this trauma, we still had a fun day. Our trip to Atlantic City let us know that we don't need to return to Atlantic City. It was fun to see & Dennis enjoyed reminiscing about his family trip to the Democratic National Convention there when he was 14 years old. We donated a little to Mr. Trump, had a corn dog on the boardwalk & Dennis dropped Barb off at the outlet mall while he circled the block. Luckily, Barb was only interested in running into H&M where she scored a very cute top. If you've been reading the blog, you may remember the H&M obsession from the Chicago leg of the trip. We're sure she'll lose interest once they finally come to Phoenix.

No comments: