5/25/18 Friday of Memorial Day Weekend: We had always planned to rent a car while in Delaware City, thinking we would go to Costco to buy oil for Island Girl. Hmmmm – she got her oil rejuvenated back in Solomons, so we don’t need to do that anymore. But – we could use more coffee, and nuts and other things that are less expensive at Costco than other places… including a restock of the liquor cabinet. We asked the Google if Costco sells liquor in Delaware, and – that is affirmative. We reserved a car with Enterprise, because they will pick you up and drop you off. That is, if they have the manpower. We reserved the car for 10:00. We’re leaving early tomorrow morning, so our 24 hour rental will actually end this evening after about 7 hours. They can’t come pick us up until 1:00. Really!? That makes our rental about 4 hours? There are some Ubers in the area, so that would get us started earlier. But – our most generous AGLCA Harbor Host, Foster, came and picked us up at 9:30. What a sweetheart! While on our 15 minute ride to the car rental store, we asked him what sights we should see. He highly recommended going to Philadelphia. It’s only a 45 minute drive or so. Cool! We had originally thrown around the idea of taking Island Girl up to Philly. But, the weather is looking like it might be favorable for an ocean adventure early next week, (more about that later), so we don’t want to take 3 days to cruise up the Delaware River and back. So lets drive up and see Philly. But uh-oh…. Navigator has not researched and made any sort of plan for going there. EEEK! It will be ‘Seat of pants adventure time’ – I’m not always very good at that!
We got our little Hyundai, and away we went. First order of business was a haircut for shaggy. (If I’m Scoobie, which I have been for 35 years, you know who Shaggy is.). That took a little longer than we anticipated, but his noggin is much happier now. I put into Gladys to take us to the Independence Hall Visitors Center Parking Garage. This is a National Historic Park. That should get us around the stuff that I think we might want to see. We were officially welcomed to Pennsylvania. Another state for us, but not for the boat.
As we were looking for our destination, we drove past a park that was having a Chinese Lantern Festival. This would have been beautiful to see, but it was not in the area that we were headed to.
We got ourselves parked in the $21 for 2-12 hours parking garage, and found our way to the visitors center. It was a bit overwhelming to figure out where to go or what to do, since there was what seemed like hundreds of loud school children everywhere. Oh my. We did discover that you can tour Independence Hall for free, but you need a ticket for a specified time. Unfortunately, all time slots were filled for today. Boo! Here is what the outside looks like! There are very nice large park areas all around, which is really nice. Independence Hall is considered the birthplace of our nation. This is where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated, drafted, and signed. It was built between 1732-1751, originally as the colonial legislature for the Province of Pennsylvania, and later as the Pennsylvania State House.
We went through complete airport type of security screening in order to see the Liberty Bell. I say it’s the for-real bell. Kenny teases me and says – ‘how do you KNOW?’ I don’t, but I can believe that it is. Philadelphia’s city bell had been used to alert the public to proclamations or civic danger since the city’s 1682 founding. The original bell hung from a tree behind the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall). In 1751, with a bell tower being built in the Pennsylvania State House, city authorities wanted a bell of better quality, which could be heard at a greater distance. There is a long story about how many bells had to be cast because they would break…. and then this one did too. It was hard to get a picture that showed the crack really good as well as all of the bell features, so you get two so-so pictures. We learned that the famous gap is actually the result of an attempt to fix a thin crack that ruined the tone of the bell’s ring. The repair work dates back to 1846, the repair failed and the crack reappeared and lengthened into the famous zigzag it has now. It was cast with the lettering “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof Lev. XXV. v X.” This is a Biblical reference from the Book of Leviticus (25:10).
Not knowing where else to go or what else to do, I found the City Tavern on the historical map. It’s hot outside – let’s go there! It originally opened in 1773, and the next year it was the ‘unofficial’ meeting place of the first Continental Congress, including George Washington and John Adams. I think a lot of important things and ideas were born, discussed and debated in taverns back in the 1700’s! In 1777, this was the official headquarters of the Continental Army. The building fell into disrepair, and was completely rebuilt to its original design in 1976.
They had a beer flight that Captain tried, with original 18th century beer recipies. They were ‘interesting’ he said. I had a Colonial Raspberry Shrub. HUH-what? A shrub is a sweetened fruit vinegar that can be mixed with water, with or without the addition of booze. The vinegar was a way to preserve the fruit or berries. So I tried it with rum. It was refreshing – not too sweet, not too sour. I believe the one I had was Martha Washington’s recipe!
This was the Merchant’s Exchange Building, near the Tavern. Apparently the City Tavern was getting too crowded, so a building suitable for the strengthening country’s commerce was needed. It was built in 1832 and was a brokerage house. It is the oldest existing stock exchange building in the U.S.
This is just a random street. There are so many buildings with these cellar doors on the sidewalk!
And then newer buildings just squeeze up to the old, with no concern for style or history. This was one thing that I found interesting, and somewhat disappointing. Philadelphia has been a city for hundreds of years, and the building up and progress continued throughout the generations. The historic buildings are just there among it all. I guess it’s kind of like you don’t know something has historical significance when it’s 20 years old. So buildings keep springing up and growing the city, the old gets torn down and replaced with new. Kind of like the junk in your basement or your grandma’s attic. When you go to clean it out after 20 years, it’s just junk. But if it’s still there when your great grandchildren come to clean it out, it has significance. Thankfully, some of the old was kept or restored. Just like the Liberty Bell. It could have been scraped as junk after it broke. But the cracked bell is what we all know as THE Liberty Bell.
We stopped at Benjamin Franklin’s Museum and Printing Office, and saw how an old printing press worked. This is the site where his home was and where he lived from 1763 until he died here in 1790. He had a printing office here, but there was only archaeological remnants were found, so all of the buildings have been rebuilt. The printing press was cool.
The sign for this building made me giggle. “A Man Full of Trouble Tavern” built in 1759. We learned back in Williamsburg that taverns generally had meeting space downstairs, and sleeping space upstairs.
Not knowing what else we could see, we walked down to Penn’s Landing at the river to see where we would have docked the boat. We found a Tall Ships event going on! There were a dozen or so tall sailing ships in town, so we wandered around and looked at them for awhile. There were different styles and ages. I like the old wooden ones.
We were really hungry, and I told Captain that we should find him a real authentic Philly Cheese Steak somewhere, but he declined the offer. I even found him a food truck. These had to be authentic – we’re in Philly, after all, right? He said no.
We headed out of town, since we still needed to do some shopping and get the car returned, yadda-yadda-yadda. I don’t think I’ll make Captain drive in a city again for awhile. Good golly miss molly – afternoon city traffic on a holiday Friday was a lot of stop and very little go for the whole 40 miles. Sorry Captain! But Costco made it up to him. We found that liquor at Costco in Delaware is the cheapest on the planet. Well, at least the parts of the planet that we have visited. Seriously – a 1.75L bottle of Makers Mark Bourbon is $46, and ….. NO tax?! Dude – that called for some serious shopping – scratch that – buying! We loaded up on some good stuff, then hit a grocery store for some more stuff, and went to the marina to unload. Then back to the car rental joint by about 7:30. Then we wrangled up an Uber driver to take us back. It was a spendy day, but we got to see a little bit of Philadelphia, and it was cheaper than taking the boat up there!