Thanksgiving Philadelphia Getaway

For the last few years we have spent Thanksgiving with Aimee’s sister Stacie and their family.  When they moved down to Florida this year we thought that would be a great place to go in late November (both to see them and for the warm weather).  Unfortunately, flights for the days we needed turned out to be ridiculously expensive.  We also found out Stacie and her family are coming to Utah for Christmas, so we will see them soon. 

So instead we decided to take a post-thanksgiving trip to Philadelphia with our friends Eric and Stephanie Maughan.  Aimee and I went to Philadelphia a year ago February and nearly froze to death.  It was still cold this year, but not as bad as last time.   We had a lot of fun and were able to see a lot of really cool things.

Independence Hall – this is the actual room where the Constitution was debated and signed.  The Park Ranger who gave the tour was amazing.  He really knew his history.  

We next went to see the Liberty Bell.  It was cold and as we were approaching the line we noticed it was really long.  Aimee remembered that she had seen a street vender selling $1 hot chocolate a couple blocks back and managed to talk me into getting her one.   Almost as soon as I got back with the hot chocolate the line started moving really quickly and by the time we reached the door she had only taken one sip (which had burned her tongue).  We then proceeded the back of the line as I laughed about how the hot chocolate turned out to be a bad deal.  Aimee was not amused.

You can see the hot chocolate in the hand that is not trying to block the shot. 

We also went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and saw the Rocky Statute and steps.  This was our favorite part of the trip.  It was really fun to race up the steps and once we got to the top we had a great view of the downtown skyline.  We arrived right at at sunset so we took a lot pictures.  Here are a few of the best ones. 

All four of us at the Rocky Statute. 

Aimee at the top of the Rocky Steps.

Downtown Philadelphia at sunset.

After it got dark we went to a great restaurant (Ralph’s Italian Restaurant) and had amazing pastries at a local shop.

We also went to Lancaster County to discover the Amish ways of life.  The Amish live interesting lives, forgoing many of the modern conveniences.  However, we were a little disappointed in this part of our trip.  The area has become really commercialized and a lot of non-Amish people seem to be making money off of the Amish.  For example, an “Amish” gift shop had plates with clever saying on the them that were made in China.  The Amish themselves were different than we expected.  The ones we saw had the traditional looking clothing and hats, but when we drove around looking at the farms we discovered that many of the homes have electricity and some have tractors next to the horses and buggies.  It all seemed somewhat inconsistent.   It was fun to see the countryside though and we found a few fun things to do in the small towns of Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand.

We visited a pretzel factory and actually got to make pretzels. 

And we toured the countryside.

Today I found a program that combines regular pictures into panoramic ones.  I had to try a couple programs to find a good one.  The first few didn’t do a very good job, but Auto Stitch seemed much better.  Below is a panoramic view of the skyline from our balcony. I think it turned out really well.