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Sep. 28th, 2010 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
holytoastrBack from my trip! I am skipping work today because I woke up exhausted and with sore muscles. Plus it was pouring out. So it wasn't hard at all for me to curl back up in the blankets and sleep for a few more hours.
Anyway, the trip! That was almost doomed due to crazy car issues!
I got at a call at 10am that the car was ready and we were on the road by 11:30. We actually made it to Gettysburg! I was so excited! We got there just in time for a late lunch. I thought it was really neat that they sold civil war era foods in their food court. Ben got peanut soup with hard tack.
While he was eating it, he looked up and said, "I forgot my suit."
So that was the end of our trip to Gettysburg. Luckily ben realized all of this before we had paid admission. And we got to have an interesting lunch. Then we drove back home to grab the suit.
We got into Scranton pretty late that night. We checked in, found a nearby place for dinner, and then quickly collapsed into bed. The next day, we went to the Lackawanna County Coal Mine Tour.
I had a surprisingly good time on that tour.
The ride down into the mine was pretty spooky. Everyone sat in a big creaky mine car that slowly went down the steep ramp. As we got deeper into the mine, the air got cooler. And dustier. I was surprised a mine that had been out of operation for so long could have so much dust still.
Our guide was a former miner. And his grandpa had worked in that particular mine. He was a really informative tour guide.
We learned a lot of history of the mine and the awful conditions for miners. I nerded out a lot about rock formations. It was really a very good tour.
After the tour, we rushed back to the hotel to wash up for Allicia's wedding. They had a hot air balloon! Unfortunately it was too windy that day so they had to ground it pretty fast. But it was neat watching them blow it up.
Somehow we missed the wedding cake, so after we gave our well wishes to the bride and groom, we went out for pie and had our own little after-party. We went to Amanda's swanky hotel room and played a game Tara's friend taught us. Everyone wrote a sentence on a piece of paper, then handed it to the person next to them. That person would draw a picture of the sentence, then fold the paper so you could only see the picture - not the sentence. Then the paper was handed to the next person who wrote a sentence based on the picture. And so on until you got your original paper back.
I really liked that game. Some of the pictures and sentences were so funny, I cried.
The next day we drove to Philly.
We hit a little bit of construction traffic, but other than that, it was a smooth ride.
We arrived a bit too early to check in, so we had lunch at City Tavern, a colonial-themed restaurant that the founding fathers ate at back in the day. All of the waiters dressed up in colonial outfits and the menu was based on old traditional recipes. For a restaurant that caters to tourists, the food was really good!
Our table was set with metal goblets of water, and we were quickly served a bread platter with several popular colonial breads. I couldn't eat many or I'd fill up, but I had the brown one which was corn flour and molasses.
For lunch, I had turkey pot pie. It was tasty, but perhaps a bit too heavy for a midday meal. For my drink, I had a colonial shrub. That's fruit vinegar and sugar, mixed with liquor. I had to non-alcoholic version though, because I had a lot of touristing ahead of me that day. So mine had ginger ale in it instead.
Ben had braised rabbit, which he seemed to enjoy. He had a City Tavern Cooler to drink, which was three kinds of liquor available at that time, plus apple cider. I had a sip. The cider made it tasty, but I don't think I would have liked a full cup of the stuff.
After that, we met up with Tara and went on a tour of Independence Hall. The tour is much more organized than I remember as a child, when you would just walk into the building and a park service person would stand around and answer questions. Now they have a full spiel and everything where they tell you the significance of the room and point out the original pieces and whatnot.
The assembly room was where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed. It was all very historical!
The only original piece in the room is the chair up front, which was George Washington's chair. The other pieces in the room are original to the time period.
After the Declaration was read to the Philly crowds, a group of militia men ran into Independence Hall and rushed the court room where they tore down the king's symbol that was displayed above the judge. It was later replaced with a liberty and justice-focused one.
The pieces in this room were all original to the period, but not the events of the day.
Then we got to see a copy of the original printed Declaration. Obviously no cameras were allowed. By this point, I bet the paper is super super fragile. We left pretty quickly though, because we got yelled at by a park ranger for talking too loud. Poo!
We also took a tour of Congress Hall, which is where gov't took place until DC was built. My pictures didn't come out very well though. That was the building where George Washington handed over power to the next president, John Adams. Our guide said people from all over the world came to watch the inevitable riots after Washington killed Adams and became king of america. But as we know now, power was transfered peacefully and all those doubters went home disappointed.
We had just enough time to squeeze the Liberty Bell into our day before all the museums closed. (Yes, I know, this was supposed to be a relaxing vacation.)
When I was a kid, you'd walk into a big glass room, look at the bell, and leave. To this day, I am still unimpressed by the liberty bell. But the new museum was pretty good at explaining how different people in history incorporated the bell as a symbol of their own cause. And explained why it cracked. (Metal impurities.) I thought the museum had some pretty good posters too.
Once all the museums closed, we checked into our hotel room. Which was the tiniest hotel room I've ever stayed in. The bed was gloriously comfortable after a hard day of touristing though, so I will forgive them a little. (Our bed in scranton the previous night was awful.)
We rested our feet for about 15 minutes then headed out for dinner. Tara's friend had recommended a place called El Vez. It was definitely a good place to go with a group because two appetizers was enough for all four of us. We got Nachos (Nacho Mamma) and freshly made Guacamole. It was the perfect amount of food because we had just enough room for desserts.
Tara and her friend went home after dinner, and ben and I collapsed in our hotel bed. I had planned on doing some sort of nighttime tour, but I was unable to move anymore. Plus I think ben would have killed me.
The last day of our trip, I tried to take it easily and failed completely yet again. First we went to a little greasy spoon place for breakfast. They had U-counters like back in new orleans. The food wasn't great, but it certainly met my expectations so I was happy.
From there we went to the National Constitution Center. I was glad they had a buy one get one free deal that day, because it was a really small museum. We enjoyed it, but it was small.
After we bought our tickets, we were ushered into a theater where a mean with an extremely impressive theatrical voice gave us a speech about the Declaration and the Constitution. He was really quite good and I teared up a little. I wonder why he's working at a museum and not doing full time theater.
After the show, we entered a massive room that ringed the theater. The constitution was printed all along the walls above the exhibits. The exhibits discussed the creation of the constitution, and how it has been changed and adjusted over the centuries. My favorite part was the "Can you vote?" tests at each section. Being a woman, I couldn't vote until the very very end. Ben doesn't own property, so he couldn't vote at first either.
I also wore a supreme court justice robe, swore myself in as president, and took the citizenship test. I also filled a wall with my opinions on current events. I expressed disapproval towards AZ's immigration law, support for gay marriage, and a need for regulation and collaboration in the gulf oil spill. Ben said, "Melissa has opinions!" Yes, yes I do.
Once we made a full circle in the constitution room, we followed a sign towards a room filled with statues of the men who signed the constitution. I signed a copy too. Then posed with some of the statues because I am a weirdo like that.
Since the day was only halfway over, we decided to take a train to the Mutter Museum. Philly's train system is not new user friendly at all, but the employees were very helpful and told us exactly what we needed to do. We didn't have to wait long for a train at all after that. (And, believe it or not, the train never caught fire! Crazy unbelievable, I know!)
The mutter museum was super strict about photography, which is really disappointing because I don't think I can adequately describe the things that were in there. I saw a 40lb colon. And a gallery of wax eyes depicting all the possible infections and illnesses a person could have in them. (Including one where the eye falls out of its socket. *gag*) There were siamese twins of all ages. And a uterus that had absorbed the fetus, leaving its partially dissolved bones still stuck to the wall. Tumors bigger than a person's head. A human head sliced across like plates so you could see each layer of the brain. And a woman who's body fat had turned into a type of soap after she decomposed. (You can buy tiny soap ladies in the gift shop, of course.)
It was all amazingly gross and fascinating. I felt a bit sick to my stomach when I first started, but by the end I was bouncing around, shouting things like, "Hey ben! Check out this giant ovarian cyst!" and generally being an embarrassment.
That museum was also small, so we got through it in about 2 hours. We were pretty hungry by then, so we headed out for cheesesteaks and ice cream. The ice cream place, Franklin Fountain was awesome. It reminded me of my great grandma's old ice cream shop. They had marshmallow sauce, which I haven't had in at least a decade. And I bought a candy cigar! Great grandma would always let me take one when I visited. And Choward mints. I haaated those because they tasted the way perfume smells. *gag* But it was cool to see them selling them.
At that point we decided it was time to go home. We were full and happy and had a good day. The drive was mostly uneventful. My dog was super happy when I came home. I don't think her tail could wag any harder without falling off.
Our dog walker left notes on her adventures for the weekend, so it sounds like she had a good vacation too. She had lots of walks, met a new dog, and ate lots of cookies. Can't really get better than that if you are a little dog.
Once we had settled in a bit and said hello, I brought out the souvenir I bought for noname. We went to a store called Doggy Style that had only cats inside. How strange! Ben picked out a little black cat cookie for her, which I think she really liked.
Anyway, the trip! That was almost doomed due to crazy car issues!
I got at a call at 10am that the car was ready and we were on the road by 11:30. We actually made it to Gettysburg! I was so excited! We got there just in time for a late lunch. I thought it was really neat that they sold civil war era foods in their food court. Ben got peanut soup with hard tack.
While he was eating it, he looked up and said, "I forgot my suit."
So that was the end of our trip to Gettysburg. Luckily ben realized all of this before we had paid admission. And we got to have an interesting lunch. Then we drove back home to grab the suit.
We got into Scranton pretty late that night. We checked in, found a nearby place for dinner, and then quickly collapsed into bed. The next day, we went to the Lackawanna County Coal Mine Tour.
I had a surprisingly good time on that tour.
The ride down into the mine was pretty spooky. Everyone sat in a big creaky mine car that slowly went down the steep ramp. As we got deeper into the mine, the air got cooler. And dustier. I was surprised a mine that had been out of operation for so long could have so much dust still.
Our guide was a former miner. And his grandpa had worked in that particular mine. He was a really informative tour guide.
We learned a lot of history of the mine and the awful conditions for miners. I nerded out a lot about rock formations. It was really a very good tour.
After the tour, we rushed back to the hotel to wash up for Allicia's wedding. They had a hot air balloon! Unfortunately it was too windy that day so they had to ground it pretty fast. But it was neat watching them blow it up.
Somehow we missed the wedding cake, so after we gave our well wishes to the bride and groom, we went out for pie and had our own little after-party. We went to Amanda's swanky hotel room and played a game Tara's friend taught us. Everyone wrote a sentence on a piece of paper, then handed it to the person next to them. That person would draw a picture of the sentence, then fold the paper so you could only see the picture - not the sentence. Then the paper was handed to the next person who wrote a sentence based on the picture. And so on until you got your original paper back.
I really liked that game. Some of the pictures and sentences were so funny, I cried.
The next day we drove to Philly.
We hit a little bit of construction traffic, but other than that, it was a smooth ride.
We arrived a bit too early to check in, so we had lunch at City Tavern, a colonial-themed restaurant that the founding fathers ate at back in the day. All of the waiters dressed up in colonial outfits and the menu was based on old traditional recipes. For a restaurant that caters to tourists, the food was really good!
Our table was set with metal goblets of water, and we were quickly served a bread platter with several popular colonial breads. I couldn't eat many or I'd fill up, but I had the brown one which was corn flour and molasses.
For lunch, I had turkey pot pie. It was tasty, but perhaps a bit too heavy for a midday meal. For my drink, I had a colonial shrub. That's fruit vinegar and sugar, mixed with liquor. I had to non-alcoholic version though, because I had a lot of touristing ahead of me that day. So mine had ginger ale in it instead.
Ben had braised rabbit, which he seemed to enjoy. He had a City Tavern Cooler to drink, which was three kinds of liquor available at that time, plus apple cider. I had a sip. The cider made it tasty, but I don't think I would have liked a full cup of the stuff.
After that, we met up with Tara and went on a tour of Independence Hall. The tour is much more organized than I remember as a child, when you would just walk into the building and a park service person would stand around and answer questions. Now they have a full spiel and everything where they tell you the significance of the room and point out the original pieces and whatnot.
The assembly room was where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed. It was all very historical!
The only original piece in the room is the chair up front, which was George Washington's chair. The other pieces in the room are original to the time period.
After the Declaration was read to the Philly crowds, a group of militia men ran into Independence Hall and rushed the court room where they tore down the king's symbol that was displayed above the judge. It was later replaced with a liberty and justice-focused one.
The pieces in this room were all original to the period, but not the events of the day.
Then we got to see a copy of the original printed Declaration. Obviously no cameras were allowed. By this point, I bet the paper is super super fragile. We left pretty quickly though, because we got yelled at by a park ranger for talking too loud. Poo!
We also took a tour of Congress Hall, which is where gov't took place until DC was built. My pictures didn't come out very well though. That was the building where George Washington handed over power to the next president, John Adams. Our guide said people from all over the world came to watch the inevitable riots after Washington killed Adams and became king of america. But as we know now, power was transfered peacefully and all those doubters went home disappointed.
We had just enough time to squeeze the Liberty Bell into our day before all the museums closed. (Yes, I know, this was supposed to be a relaxing vacation.)
When I was a kid, you'd walk into a big glass room, look at the bell, and leave. To this day, I am still unimpressed by the liberty bell. But the new museum was pretty good at explaining how different people in history incorporated the bell as a symbol of their own cause. And explained why it cracked. (Metal impurities.) I thought the museum had some pretty good posters too.
Once all the museums closed, we checked into our hotel room. Which was the tiniest hotel room I've ever stayed in. The bed was gloriously comfortable after a hard day of touristing though, so I will forgive them a little. (Our bed in scranton the previous night was awful.)
We rested our feet for about 15 minutes then headed out for dinner. Tara's friend had recommended a place called El Vez. It was definitely a good place to go with a group because two appetizers was enough for all four of us. We got Nachos (Nacho Mamma) and freshly made Guacamole. It was the perfect amount of food because we had just enough room for desserts.
Tara and her friend went home after dinner, and ben and I collapsed in our hotel bed. I had planned on doing some sort of nighttime tour, but I was unable to move anymore. Plus I think ben would have killed me.
The last day of our trip, I tried to take it easily and failed completely yet again. First we went to a little greasy spoon place for breakfast. They had U-counters like back in new orleans. The food wasn't great, but it certainly met my expectations so I was happy.
From there we went to the National Constitution Center. I was glad they had a buy one get one free deal that day, because it was a really small museum. We enjoyed it, but it was small.
After we bought our tickets, we were ushered into a theater where a mean with an extremely impressive theatrical voice gave us a speech about the Declaration and the Constitution. He was really quite good and I teared up a little. I wonder why he's working at a museum and not doing full time theater.
After the show, we entered a massive room that ringed the theater. The constitution was printed all along the walls above the exhibits. The exhibits discussed the creation of the constitution, and how it has been changed and adjusted over the centuries. My favorite part was the "Can you vote?" tests at each section. Being a woman, I couldn't vote until the very very end. Ben doesn't own property, so he couldn't vote at first either.
I also wore a supreme court justice robe, swore myself in as president, and took the citizenship test. I also filled a wall with my opinions on current events. I expressed disapproval towards AZ's immigration law, support for gay marriage, and a need for regulation and collaboration in the gulf oil spill. Ben said, "Melissa has opinions!" Yes, yes I do.
Once we made a full circle in the constitution room, we followed a sign towards a room filled with statues of the men who signed the constitution. I signed a copy too. Then posed with some of the statues because I am a weirdo like that.
Since the day was only halfway over, we decided to take a train to the Mutter Museum. Philly's train system is not new user friendly at all, but the employees were very helpful and told us exactly what we needed to do. We didn't have to wait long for a train at all after that. (And, believe it or not, the train never caught fire! Crazy unbelievable, I know!)
The mutter museum was super strict about photography, which is really disappointing because I don't think I can adequately describe the things that were in there. I saw a 40lb colon. And a gallery of wax eyes depicting all the possible infections and illnesses a person could have in them. (Including one where the eye falls out of its socket. *gag*) There were siamese twins of all ages. And a uterus that had absorbed the fetus, leaving its partially dissolved bones still stuck to the wall. Tumors bigger than a person's head. A human head sliced across like plates so you could see each layer of the brain. And a woman who's body fat had turned into a type of soap after she decomposed. (You can buy tiny soap ladies in the gift shop, of course.)
It was all amazingly gross and fascinating. I felt a bit sick to my stomach when I first started, but by the end I was bouncing around, shouting things like, "Hey ben! Check out this giant ovarian cyst!" and generally being an embarrassment.
That museum was also small, so we got through it in about 2 hours. We were pretty hungry by then, so we headed out for cheesesteaks and ice cream. The ice cream place, Franklin Fountain was awesome. It reminded me of my great grandma's old ice cream shop. They had marshmallow sauce, which I haven't had in at least a decade. And I bought a candy cigar! Great grandma would always let me take one when I visited. And Choward mints. I haaated those because they tasted the way perfume smells. *gag* But it was cool to see them selling them.
At that point we decided it was time to go home. We were full and happy and had a good day. The drive was mostly uneventful. My dog was super happy when I came home. I don't think her tail could wag any harder without falling off.
Our dog walker left notes on her adventures for the weekend, so it sounds like she had a good vacation too. She had lots of walks, met a new dog, and ate lots of cookies. Can't really get better than that if you are a little dog.
Once we had settled in a bit and said hello, I brought out the souvenir I bought for noname. We went to a store called Doggy Style that had only cats inside. How strange! Ben picked out a little black cat cookie for her, which I think she really liked.
