The Events of Friday, November 12, 2010

          Screech, bump, vroom, creak, crash, vroom, vroom. These are the sounds of Harvey the Aardvark, our RV making its way across the bumpy brick, cobblestone and potholed streets of Philadelphia, PA. Last night I fell asleep to these sounds, and then woke up to these again this morning. My first thought was that we had spent the whole night driving, but logic soon proved that wrong. My parents got up at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning, rather early considering our late night at the symphony last night, and drove through ghastly Philadelphia morning traffic to get us to the free parking spot that we had yesterday. We arrived there, woke up the heavy sleepers, and got breakfast ready. Our wonderful Daddy had gotten us croissants for breakfast, which we love, and we joyfully ate this delicious breakfast. Towards the end of breakfast, a policewoman told us that we couldn’t park there. Our big RV was making it difficult for trucks making deliveries to a nearby hospital to back into the loading dock. There had been some cones there, but someone had moved them to the sidewalk in the night. So this very kind traffic officer found and directed us to a parking spot behind our present one, which, she assured us, was perfectly legal.

          Now that that was settled, we left our parking spot, and began the second day of our tour of Philadelphia. We walked to the visitor center, which we saw yesterday, and used the restroom. Then we walked through a pretty courtyard to the U.S. Mint. Just to clarify things, mints make only coins, not paper money. That took me a while to understand. After going through security, we rode up the escalator and walked through a long exhibit that displayed many coins and honor medals that had been made at this mint. Then windows and signs guided us through the factory. From above through a series of windows, we could see the metal sheets being cut, cleaned, and then the blank coins being sent over to the stamping machines. After our overview of the factory, there was a brief exhibit about a U.S. Marine Corp Flag. To show their support of our troops, the mint displays, in addition to the American flag, all the flags of the different departments of the army. A few years ago, they lent their Marine Corp flag to a sergeant in the Marine Corp, on the condition that he would return it in person. He carried it throughout his adventures in Iraq, and then returned it, now a battered, dirty, and torn flag. We read some more about the mint and then headed to the gift shop, restroom, and then back to the cobblestone streets of Philly.

          We walked to the complex made up of Old City Hall, Independence Hall, and Congress Hall. Yesterday we had seen Independence Hall, but today we were able to see the others. After going through security, we went into Old City Hall. This great hall had the first Supreme Court chambers, before it was moved to Independence Hall. Then we walked over to Congress Hall. We learned that the next tour would be in ten minutes, so we went to the Great Essentials exhibit. This exhibit displays an original print copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution in addition to the silver ink stand used to sign the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We read all about these and then went back to Congress Hall for our tour. Our tour guide took us through Congress Hall, which housed the House of Representatives and U.S. senate during the years following the Revolutionary War.

          We then walked a short distance to Franklin Court, the site of Benjamin Franklin’s home. The land now accommodates the Franklin Museum, which we would tour later. Our first priority was lunch, and we had a great lunch to go with this great day. After lunch, we walked around the courtyard and we able to see plaques indicating where their ice house, their privy, their kitchen and foundation stones where their basement was located. As I said, we then entered the Franklin Museum. The museum began with a display of Benjamin Franklin’s belongings and inventions. Then you entered a large room with telephones straight ahead of you, a doorway to your right and a huge diorama to your left. The telephones were for dialing various numbers and then hearing various people, Europeans and Americans; give their opinions of Benjamin Franklin. The diorama had figurines of people, first in an English court, then a French ballroom, and finally an American courtroom, and an ongoing audio of the conversations going on, with spotlights and everything. It was very well done. Through the doorway to your right, there was a huge movie theater. In this theater, we saw two movies, the Real Benjamin Franklin, and Ben and Me. The first movie was very informational, and the second movie was a cute little cartoon about Ben Franklin and his friend Amos, the mouse. Outside of the museum was a replica of a 1700’s print shop. In the print shop, an interpretive guide showed us the process of printing with an old fashioned printing machine. There we also learned about the different typeset or fonts used. Some were so small it was hard to tell what the letter was. We also learned while in those times the letter “s” looks like a lowercase “f” with half the crossbar missing. This stands for “long s” and is often found at the beginning and in the middle of a word, but never at the end. There was also a book binding shop with explanations as to how book binding was accomplished back then. Next door to the print shop was the Ben Franklin Post Office, in which all cancelled mail is stamped with Ben Franklin’s signature. We mailed some stuff here, and then headed to the Franklin Fountain.

          The Franklin Fountain is an old fashioned ice cream parlor in which you are served huge portions of ice cream with the waiters in period costumes. We arrived there, grabbed a menu, and began our decisions. All of the names were very amusing, but finally we all decided on a dish, but some of us shared. Dad got a creation called The Lightning Rod, and the description described it as: A dark chocolate brownie surmounted by coffee ice cream bathed in a double shot of espresso and peppered with chocolate covered espresso beans, white chocolate shavings, and finished with a salty pretzel rod. Will surely ELECTRIFY even the most enervated! Daddy had a fun time eating that one. Two dipper full’s [sic] of Philadelphia vanilla bean ice cream suffocated in Franklin Fountain hot fudge, and topped with our fresh whipped cream, and a cherry… a true American icon. Wilbur’s dark chocolate is churned smooth with fresh local milk, cream and butter, then cooked on-site in an antique copper candy kettle. Honest ingredients are the best policy for flavor. This Homemade Hot Fudge was Mom’s choice. Caitlin decided on a Lady’s Choice Ice Cream Soda, with Raspberry Soda infused with Peach Ice Cream & Sweet Cream. Unfortunately, this creation promptly exploded when Caitlin got to our table, so she had to drink it very fast, resulting in it being half gone before anyone else got there. Ben got a Tarzan of the Apes. This creation consisted of a swinging slosh buckler that was born in 1912 by a middle-aged pencil sharpener salesman named Edgar Rice Burroughs. As the story goes, a supple young man (a generous serving of Vanilla) with Ape blood (chocolate syrup) is raised on tropical fruits (bananas & berries) and crowned King of the Jungle (whipped cream headband). This dessert’s Intelligent Design makes for a slippery slope and can split audiences right down the middle! Lindsey and I shared Mt. Vesuvius Ice Cream Sundae, a mountain of chocolate ice cream erupting in chocolate brownie pieces, cascading with hot fudge and blanketed in malt powder. A dollop of whipped cream indicated her smoking signal. A true display of Pomp-eiin circumstance. We all enjoyed our ice cream extremely, although I think mine had the best description.

      Having filled our tummies with ice cream, we returned to the RV. However, when we got there, we found that we had been ticketed, even though a policeman had said that it was OK to park where we did. Supposedly we had parked less that 20 ft. from a corner, which is against the law. As we find this unfair, we plan to challenge it.

      Finally finished with Philly, we drove out of Philadelphia, and searched the Internet for places to stay the night. No hotels, no campgrounds, not even a Walmart were to be found. Finally we found a Sam’s Club, received permission to stay the night, and then went inside to the Sam’s Club food court for dinner, a truly delicious affair. We went back to the RV, and set up our unfinished movie of 1776. Instead of popcorn though, we had candy corn, better than popcorn in my opinion. We finally finished this great movie and sent Dad and Ben to look for a new watch for Ben, while the rest of us got ready for bed. Ben returned with a very nice watch, and we went to sleep, looking forward to a dark, quiet, and good night.