Philadelphia

 

We took a tour of Philadelphia and it is a very pretty city. On a sunny day anyway.

You go to New York for a deli, but Philly is for the Philly Steak and Cheese sandwich.But people kept telling us what great Dim Sun there was in China town. Philly has the third largest China town in the country after San Francisco and New York.

The row houses look a lot better than they ever did on the Cosby show.

 

 

And apparently they spend a lot of time in church

 

Streets of Philadelphia

And since we are museum geeks, we went to the Rodin Museum

And the Philadelphia Art Museum

It has a great art collection, but it is probably better remembered for the stairs that Sylvester Stallone ran up in the Rocky movies.  there is a statue of him by the stairs.  There was a line of thirty people waiting to have their picture taken with the statue. And there is Love Park. It is the brain child of Edmund Bacon father of Kevin Bacon.  It is one of the 10 best skate boarding parks in the country.  Tony Hawk even included it in his video game.  The sculptor who did the Love sculpture said the "O" was crooked because love isn't perfect.  He had just divorced the third of his four wives.

Public Art

Independence Hall

We got up in the morning and headed to independence hall.  Philadelphia is where they wrote the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, as well as the First ten amendments.  Oh, and congress served there for the first ten years.

It seems like a pretty small room for so many momentous events.  Oh and it had two nice oil paintings of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI.

They were strong supporters of the American Revolution, though less supportive of the French Revolution.  They lost their heads even though Marie was willing to give everyone some cake.

And of course there was the liberty Bell and senate chambers.

Even in the late 1700's the senate chamber looked pretty fancy.

But they deserved it.  They managed to put aside their major differences in things like slavery and do what was best for the nation.

Independence Hall

Chadds Ford

We got up in the morning and the rain was falling very hard.  The local residents tried to feel bad about it, but they've had a drought for two months and were not so secretly giggling with delight.  We headed off to Lockwood Conservatory.  It is 1100 acre flower garden created by Pierre DuPont, but it has a large glass enclosed area full of flowers.

We spent three hours wandering around inside and it is not just because it was dry.  It was really very interesting.  My favorite flowers are the orchids.

but the six foot water lilly pads were pretty cool. n a Jurasic Park sort of way.

They had a great section on how perfumes are made and you can even combine various scents to make your own. Mine was a manly scent with a hint of gentleness. but I favorite has too be this little tree that grows it's own Christmas lights.

 

It is actually a type of pepper and a single plant will have peppers of five different colors on it. They had a great display explaining how perfumes are made. You can even combine various scents to make your own. Mine was a manly scent with a hint of gentleness.  Then you could select a favorite perfume , no proof of purchase necessary, and an explained what the base, middle, and top scents consisted of..

 

Photos of Lockwood Conservatory

In the afternoon, we heade4d off to the Brandywine River Art Museum.  It is famous for its collection of Wyeth paintings.  It has NC, Andrew, Jamie and even a couple of Caroline's, who is Andrew's sister. 

Our tour guide was Victoria Wyeth, who is the grand daughter of Andrew. She is the only grand child and lived with him from age 15 until 29, when he died. She said she was not an art expert, but she knew what her grandfather told her about the paintings and what he liked about them.  It was very interesting and highly entertaining. If you are ever in the Philadelphia area, I recommend taking the time to visit.  You can even visit Karl Kruner's farm and see many of the things Andrew painted. Then you'll see why he considered himself an abstract painter and not a realist.  He moved things around in the paintings to fit his composition and included things that hadn't been there for thirty years.

The next morning we headed into Philadelphia, but it had rained 9 inches during the night and the rivers were flooding between us and Philadelphia.

We were one of the last cars through the over flowing Brandywine River before they closed the road. A couple of more detours, thank you Iphone for the wonderful GPS/map application, and we were in Philadelphia to see the Barnes Foundation art collection.  It is the largest collection of Impressionist art in the world.  Larger than any in France.  It is moving to the Philadelphia Art Museum, a sordid story of trust breaking, lawyers, and politicians, but it should make your visit to see it much easier in the future.

The Road to The Corporate State

is lined with good intentions and historic towns.  We left St. Michaels and headed to Pennsylvania.  On the way we passed trough Delaware. Delaware has never been on my list of places to visit. I've always envisioned it as being nothing but DuPont chemical plants, but if the DuPonts, who have enough money to live any where like it, it must have some redeeming qualities.  Turns out they live across the border in Pennsylvania.  But within two hours are some wonderful places to visit and just across the border in the Brandywine valley is another world.  The road from St. Michaels to Chadds Ford is tree lined and filled with villages with more dead people in the cemeteries than walking the streets, but some of the cemeteries have really really old people.

The first village we went through was Wye.  It is on the river Wye

 

The town grew up around the oldest grist mill in Maryland. It was built in 1682.

The village also has a church built in 1721. I'm not sure why it took forty years to get a church built, but I'll bet it is an interesting story.  Let your imaginations sore.

Wye village

There are also several historic towns filled with 18th and 19th century buildings.

And one great fountain in something called monument square.

In the town where I was born is the oldest building was the Presbyterian Church across the street from my house.  It was 40 years old when I was born. that wouldn't even be a legal antique in Maryland.

Centerville

Black Water Refuge

 

Even though it rained on us the minute we crossed the bay bridge and tunnel, who builds a bridge that goes under water?, we loved the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It is totally different than Puget Sound.  Puget sound is deep.  The average depth of the Chesapeake Bay is 21 feet.  Twenty-five percent of it is less than six feet deep. It has fresh water, salt water and a lot of brackish water between the two.  The tidelands, creeks, marshes, and waterways weave in and around each other in a complicated dance. They are beautiful even in the rain.  I suspect the sun would only add to the beauty.

 

The major flyways for migrating birds come together and work their way down the peninsula. The waters are, or at least were, one of the richest feeding grounds in the world. The waters are filled with Oysters, crabs, and fish.  The skies are full of birds.

We spent an afternoon at the Black Water Refuge, but you could spend a summer exploring it and it is just one hundreds of spots. We drove from spot to spot, exclaiming oohs and ahhsss, just like a couple of silly tourists.

Black Water Refuge

Watermen and Bishops

The oystermen on the Chesapeake refer to themselves as watermen.  St. Michaels has a great marine museum chronicling there boats, tools and life style.

The museum has a wonderful collection of restored wooden boats.  They even have a "apprentice for a day" program where individuals can  work with ship wrights learning how to bend wood and make hulls fashioned together with wooden pegs.

Marine Museum

On the road too Black Water Refuge is the oldest church that has been in continuous use since it was build. Definitions are very important.  Everything is the oldest something due to some clever semantics.   I've seen the oldest church, the oldest gothic church, and the oldest church still in use.  Old Trinity Church was built in 1670 and someone has gone to church every Sunday since then.

It is an Episcopal Church now, but when it was built in 1670, it was part of the Church of England.  After the revolutionary war, the Church of England fell into disfavor due to the requirement for clergymen to swear allegiance to the British Monarchy.They reorganized into the Episcopal Church. In it's grave yard are people who served in every war the United States  has ever fought. Does your neighborhood cemetery have a revolutionary war veteran?

 

Old Trinity Church

The best laid plans

often gang aglay.  We left Seattle looking for sun and warmth.  We found the warmth, but landed amidst the remains of a unnamed, but still note worthy tropical storm.  St. Michaels on the water became St. Michaels in the water

but the rain was warm and we're from Seattle.  Our mother's really didn't teach us to come in from the rain.

The tourist section has some great restaurants for dinner

and the usual tacky places to shop

But on the back streets there are some really cute little houses

and some marvelous parks and walking area.  Can you park your sail boat in your community park?

Photos of St. Michaels