Philadelphia - Sept 2022

Independence Hall and Seaport Museum - Sept 22, 2022

Not related at all, except both start with "Independence" and are what we did the first day. We did grocery shopping for our apartment this morning. Here I got some donuts for this morning's breakfast, bagels and cream cheese for other mornings, and Travis bread and peanut butter for sandwiches and breakfast toast. We went to Giant, which had a card, which we did not have because we don't have Giants near us. Travis sign up in the store, and it did not work because it was not in the system yet. The cashier asked if she wanted to use the guest card. Yes, with groceries so expensive now and Travis signing up in the store, of course we wanted the sales.

We dropped the groceries off at the apartment, and then headed toward the Independence Hall area. In Love park, we found the I heart Philly and Love signs. The Philadelphia Museum of Art way in the background of the Love picture.

We read about waiting outside in a line at the Liberty Bell, so we targeted getting there when it opened at 9am. It was not crowded this day; kids back in school probably helped the most. You have to put bags through the bag scan and go through a metal detector; we got in quickly. At the bell, there was a Park Ranger giving others info when we arrived and taking questions. We started with the bell, if it got more crowded, did the exhibits that occurred before it after, and back to the bell.

The bell with Independence Hall in the background.

Declaration House where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was later edited, or as he said, mutilated.

Today, we had a 11am tour of Independence Hall booked from recreation.gov for $1 each. They noted to arrive 30 minutes before to get through security and that we had to have a ticket. This was also quick through security, so we read the signs and sat down for a snack/to finish breakfast. A Ranger asked if we were in the group, we noted the 11am group instead, and he said there was space to join the 10:40 am group. They never looked at our tickets. Later, our group looked smaller, so we missed our nice smaller group -- I guess because we were all in the earlier group making it bigger. Our Ranger tour guide was very passionate about the topics, so it made the tour very interesting.

Supreme Court. The art is an original; others items are replications. The door on the right is a fake door to keep everything symmetric, which was the architecture style then.

More symmetry. The Assembly room where the 13 states met to sign the Declaration of Independence and all, except Rhode Island, to debate the Constitution. Each state had a table, and George Washington sat in the middle, back desk.

During the tour, it started raining, so our guide recommended that we go directly to a close building with documents on display, including one of the copies of Declaration of Independence. Then we found a tour starting soon of the original House of Representatives and Senate. The Ranger lead us to a covered area to wait out of the rain. It stopped raining when they were ready to start. After we were in the secure area, we were able to join the additional tour. This is the House of Representatives with replication furniture, so they let us sit on it.

The Senate was upstairs. I don't have any pictures. It has mostly original furniture and furnishings, so maybe pictures were not allowed. There were two fireplaces, one on each side of the room, so another tourist joked to the Ranger, "is that the original paper shredder".

Outside of security and near the Liberty Bell building, we visited the Independence Visitor Center. This has more than just the National Park Services; it has other Philadelphia tours booths that sell tours. The NPS had exhibits, a theater with history segments of the sites, where we watched a couple, and the NPS Passport stamps for all the sites in the area.

We walked to lunch. Our Philly cheesesteak sandwich from Campo's. We got provolone as the cheese, onions, and no peppers. It was delicious! Though not much left when I thought to get a picture.

Water front, which was pretty dead with the rain and being a weekday. I liked the two story carousel since I have never seen a multiple level one before.

Caught a view of the Benjamin Franklin bridge to New Jersey.

The Independence Seaport Museum was on the waterfront. Since it was not crowded on a Thursday, we had to enter and buy tickets in the gift shop. We bought the normal ticket with the museum and USS Olympia plus the submarine, USS Becuna, tour. We had a little time before our submarine tour, so we started at the very first part of the museum. Then we did the walk (they noted about 5 minutes) to the Olympia and the submarine. It was raining again; not too hard. We showed our tour tickets, she said that we could wait under the trees for rain protection, and that she would let our tour guide know that we were here. We were the only ones on this tour. Our tour guide was previously in the Navy, and she was also very passionate about the topic. She noted how the US Government offered to donate the submarine to the museum, which they ecstatically accepted. Though she said that the Government forgot to remove some of the nuclear material from the topedes. That sounds like a challenge of dispose of properly or affordably! Travis tried out the beds in the buck room with three levels. In the front and back torpedo rooms, the bulks were directly above the torpedo or rolled out from under it. That seems too close!

We saw menus at the mess. Working on a submarine was not drafted, so to get people interested and to sign up, they served good food and paid more. The mess tables had built in chess, checkers, and backgammon boards. They also had a video player with projector. They only had two movies for their entire time at sea, but sometimes traded with other ships. However, they would never trade a Western, that we had not heard of, because it was there favorite.

We saw four engines; in this room, was Huff and Puff.

Seeing inside a torpedo and looking down the barrel of a torpedo chute, noting the bed above it.

A torpedo slide to the chute for firing.

After the submarine tour, we went to the USS Olympia, which was right next door. This one was a self guided tour with arrows on the floor to show the recommended flow. However, the top was closed due to the rain/wet. There were hammocks/beds from the ceiling but had one on the floor that visitors can try out. Since Travis was doing the bed testing today, I got his picture in it. The crew rooms were by rank, like in the submarine, whether they had to share with no one, one, or eighteen others. However, the rooms were all smaller on the submarine with much more limited space.