Day 11 of our June 2008 vacation

After cereal for breakfast, we drove into Philadelphia from our French Creek State Park location and spent the day at the Independence National Park. We started off seeing the Liberty Bell, then at the Library that Benjamin Franklin established, read some of the historical artifacts on display there. The girls really liked Lewis & Clark's Journal that was displayed, and I was wowed by the Declaration of Independence that was placed on parchment in a larger font by the printer in his second printing - the only one remaining of this second printing. Then we went to Todd's favorite display that was in the the Great Essentials Exhibit in the west wing of the Independence Hall - it had a copy of the paper copy (first edition) of the publicly read Declaration of Independence, then we were given a tour of Independence Hall. I was glad that we had done the Valley Forge tour the day before, as that gave us a great reference point to the declaring of Independence on July 4th, 1776, and then the actual signing of the final hand written document in August 1776. These men literally risked their lives and fortunes to this new government that had no allies and a very large enemy at that point (martial law already ruling in Boston because of the Boston Tea Party). We are looking forward to our visit to Boston, Lexington and Concord coming up that will show the beginning of this war with the 'shot heard round the world.'

After our tour of Independence Hall, we had to have Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches while in Philadelphia - so that was our lunch - very filling and tasty!

After lunch we saw the Free Quakers meeting house (the 'Fighting' Quakers who were 'read out' of the Quakers meetings.) Then we went to the home of Betsy Ross, then on over to the excavations of Benjamin Franklin's home - even that was very interesting! We went and saw the 30 minute movie at the Visitor's center called 'Independence'. We ended the day by seeing Benjamin Franklin's grave site - then drove back to our campsite, ate dinner, roasted some marshmallows and made smores, and sang a couple of songs as we watched the fire. The fire is once more a heap of coals as we have burned up the last of the free wood that we took a portion of from our generous campground host's site.