Philadelphia Freedom!

To celebrate our anniversary, the hubs and I decided we need to go on a little getaway. Deciding where to get away to, though, was not an easy task. I thought about going to the Poconos. I had been there with my ex and would like to go back and create new memories with Dave, but I’m not 100% sure that it will be Dave’s cup of tea.
After MUCH deliberation, we decided on Philly. It’s only a 3 hour drive from home and there’s no shortage of things to do.

It would be our first weekend away from Victoria. I had been away from her for a weekend a couple of weeks prior while I went to the scrapbook retreat. I was nervous, but I knew Daddy was with her all weekend. This time we were both going to be away from her. She spent the weekend with my parents. Obviously, Grandma and Pappy successfully raised 3 children, so I wasn’t too worried, but still… it was our first overnight excursion without the bean, how could I not be a little on edge?!

We took Friday off so we could get packed up, drop the little one off with the grandparents and head out on our way. As usual with us, we left later than I would’ve liked (you know the saying “He’ll be late to his own funeral”?- that is the definition of us…).
Of course, we got stuck in some traffic trying to head into the city. I had hoped that we would spend a weekend at a bed and breakfast, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find one that had rooms available. We found a decent hotel at a good price, so that’s what we ended up doing. Our hotel was just outside of the city, by the airport, which at first, made me hopeful that we would not encounter traffic. I should’ve known better. We checked in around 7, found a place to eat after driving around aimlessly for almost an hour, and then went back to the room to decide what we would do the next day. We decided that we would do a bus tour of the city. It was a pass that allowed us to hop on and off at various locations throughout the city.

We grabbed a quick breakfast and headed downtown. We parked near the Reading Terminal Market and bought our tickets for the bus. We waited a few minutes for the bus to show up, and when it did, we immediately went to the top of the double decker bus. Luckily, even though it was mid-November, it was a beautiful day!

It was definitely a bit on the chilly side when the bus was in motion, but it was manageable.

The tour was interesting and we got to learn a lot about the city. We got to see a lot of cool sites:

City Hall

Eastern State Penitentiary

View of Philly from across the river

a Civil War monument

The Please Touch Museum (can’t wait to take Tori there some day!!)

Many different murals- which we learned that Philly is the city of murals because (according to our tour guide) whenever someone is caught spraying graffiti somewhere, they have a choice of either doing prison time or helping to paint a mural to beautify the city.

One of the first US hospitals- did you know that surgeries were performed in the atrium during the day because (due to lack of electricity) surgeons needed to use sunlight to see? Neat… and a little scary!

One of my favorite photos- close up of City Hall

Us with City Hall in the background

After touring around awhile, we got off at South Street. We were hoping to go to a place that a friend recommended to get a cheesesteak… however, the line was out the door and around the corner. We walked down to South Street a bit.

We decided to walk back up towards Independence Hall. It was under a bit of construction though:

We were incredibly hungry at this point so we hiked over to the Reading Terminal Market. Honestly, I wish we had spent more time here. There was so much to see in this market area!

Dave and I are fans of Man vs. Food, and there was a place that was visited on the show that has a stand in the RTM.

DiNic’s had a yummy pork sandwich that was featured on Man vs. Food, and we waited in a LONG line to obtain one of these.

It was roast pork with provolone and broccoli- it was very good, but could’ve used just a hint of salt (I think because the broccoli was bit on the bitter side). We got a treat for dessert and explored the Reading Terminal Market a little more.

Holding up his favorite kind of lollipop

Happiness.

We walked around City Hall, towards Love Park, when we stumbled on a fun area, filled with giant gaming pieces:

Dave holding up a giant domino- so strong!!

aaaaahhhh!

Sorry!

My Knight.

Dave and the iron.

Dave and I in Love Park…. awww…

One last work of art:

a giant clothespin, by Claes Oldenburg

Finally, we made our way to dinner, though we honestly weren’t super hungry because we had just eaten lunch 3hrs before hand. But we had reservations at the Melting Pot, so we went and still managed to eat more than we should’ve!

Cheese Fondue- SOOOOO good!!

We headed back to the car and then to our hotel. I was utterly exhausted!! We wish we would’ve tried to tour more things, instead of just doing an over view… but Philly isn’t too far away so I imagine we will go back again some day soon!

Sorry this wasn’t a terribly exciting post, but we had a fun weekend together, just the two of us, which probably won’t be a regular occurrence. I sure did miss the little one though and was SO happy to see her (and I think the feeling was mutual).
I do plan to make a scrapbook for this trip. It will probably just be a small 8″x8″ one, but I have some creative ideas for it. I haven’t really been able to do any scrapping since the retreat. I’m hoping that I can change that soon. I will have 11 days off from work during the holiday break (YAY!!) so I am crossing my fingers that I can make at least ONE day a scrapbook extravaganza!