Philadelphia

As I get older, I'm finding myself getting more and more interested in history. I think it's because I can learn it now on my terms, which means knowing what happened and the relationships between events, without the excessive memorizing of dates.

Although I have been oddly interested in naval history in the age of sail, I'm starting to find all history more interesting, including U.S. history. So when my friend Patricia and I got to talking about how we hadn't seen any of the historical places in Philadelphia, it turned into a Memorial Day weekend trip.

Philly was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed seeing Independence Hall and the other historic sites. I was glad I saw them not too long after visiting Boston last year, too. It helped me piece together things. And it was especially nice to go there by train — in two stress-free hours from Union Station in DC, we were there. It was odd to feel like I was on vacation without the grief and aggravation of getting there.

The photo below we took just as they were kicking us out of the room. In the background you can see the only actual period piece there — the chair George Washington sat in. More pictures are up at Flickr.