goin' back east! (part 2)

This is the continuation of my first spring break account, for those of you who missed that one. I realize this is really long and you may not care, so feel free to skim or to only look at the pictures. Here it goes:

Our fourth day of the trip was epic. It started, for me, with an epic breakfast of granola, followed by an epically hair-raising trip through morning traffic with our caravan of three courageous minivans. Soon, however we were safely arrived in downtown Philadelphia. That was epic.

We visited several places that are just good places to visit. For example, Independence Hall...





The Liberty Bell (Independence Hall is in the background):



...and the original courthouse/meeting place of congress. Those were pretty sweet. If you get a chance to see them, do it. They're awesome, and very inspiring for the imagination.

After a few more stops, we were once more set free on some purposeful, planned wandering. That was a lot of fun. We looked at Alexander Hamilton's first and second national bank and mailed some postcards from Benjamin Franklin's original post office. We also stopped and bought some philly cheese steaks, which was probably almost my favorite part. If Independence Hall was glorious for the mind and imagination, those sandwiches were glorious for the stomach. It was amazing. On the way to one destination we passed this amusing little shop:


I want a hoopskirt.

We also stopped at another cemetery, this time one that contained the graves of Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. Like most of the older cemeteries, the headstones were close together, often plain and thin, and sometimes ornate and beautiful.


That evening we stopped at Valley Forge. The miserable cabins were small with cramped bunks and drafty walls. Those camps were so awful--it was obvious why so many men died of exposure that winter.

On the way out we looked at the chapel of Valley Forge. It was exquisitely beautiful in that evening light.









The next day began pretty early, with all of us actually driving down the road at 6:30am. I was the navigator for the lead van, and I handled the responsibility pretty well I think. The stress of the position didn't keep me from catching up on my sleep, at any rate. Despite the blaring bluegrass and my professor's attempts at serious conversation, I continually nodded off, awoke and gave some directions from the mapquest sheet that had fallen to the floor from my lap, then repeated the process until we finally reached Mount Vernon--the home of George Washington and the destination of thousands of shouting middle-schoolers.




At Mount Vernon, we were immediately on our own. I spent my day wandering throughout that enormous and beautiful estate--mostly alone, sometimes with a favorite professor--simply enjoying the beauty and solitude of that gorgeous place. The home itself was beautiful, with its decorated rooms, and a giant, peaceful back porch facing the Potomac River. The dining room was painted a sickening yellow, because Washington believed that the color aided digestion. Who knew? But the grounds!! The estate was complete with gardens and orchards and stables and threshing floors and a shoe shop and smokehouse and gardener's home and small costumed women...


The estate was completely autonomous. Everything that Washington could have needed was there on the plantation. The same was the case with Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, which we visited the next day.


You really can tell a lot about a person from visiting their home. I truly understand far better who these founders are that we hear so much about.

Our final two days were spent in Washington D.C., somewhere I had never been but always planned on going someday. While there we looked at the big things like the capitol building:


The National Archives (where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are kept) and the Library of Congress (where the Gutenberg Bible was on display). We went to the Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson Memorials, the Holocaust Museum, various Smithsonian buildings, the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial,


Ford's Theater (where we watched a wonderful musical), and Arlington National Cemetery (where we watched the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier).




My crew almost missed our plane out of DC because we didn't really have time to visit Arlington, and to top it off I failed my security screening and had to be patted down and thoroughly checked. I really did almost miss my flight. That would have been a cool story, eh? Haha... ah.

All in all, it was a pretty sweet trip (far more fun to actually go on than to blog about, though). I think the only downside was the fact that my feet were suicidal by the end of the trip--Chucks are not the best shoes for that much walking. I have so many awesome stories and random facts and thoughts about the founders that I would love to share, but I have not the patience to blog them out. So you'll just have to start a conversation with me if you're really interested (I add that caveat because my sister often isn't interested and she gets the full-length speeches anyway. Consider yourself warned.)

That's all for my Founding Era trip. Thanks for your patience, I hope you enjoyed reading (or skimming, as the case may be) my account. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.