Common sense wins again

Why is it we have to be logical and practical adults and always do the right thing?

Sometimes, it would just be fun to throw responsibilities aside and do something for fun and spur-of-the-moment.

Thus, the reason for this post.

All through the month of February we searched for good ticket prices so that we could go to Fort Lauderdale/Miami for our anniversary. 

No luck.  Nada.

Now this week-- one of the last minute fares is for that exact destination we were looking for.

So......should we go?  Or should we stay?

Big problem:  we were just gone a trip recently and we have another one coming up in 3 weekends.  We're trying to get things caught up and get ourselves on an easier work schedule. 

So common sense has won again.  We have loads of things to get done.

So goodbye to those dreams of hanging out on the beach, going to the Jai Alai, and just enjoying being away from our "real life".

And hello to getting all this work done so that we can enjoy a tropical adventure in the near future.

Finally......Part 4 of the awesome adventure

Too much time has elapsed since the beginning of this trip and this last day.  So I am taking some time out of my busy day and getting this blogged.

Day 4.......our last day.  Always the saddest day to me, because you know that tomorrow you will have to leave.

Day 4 began early because we were making the drive to Philadelphia.  This city has been on our bucket list for at least 5 years.  Paul really likes Benjamin Franklin and where else would you go to see more about him.......Philadelphia!

We started the day out in Maryland, and ended up being in Delaware and Pennsylvania before we were finished.  The two hour drive was very beautiful and scenic and we really enjoyed the quiet time traveling in the car.

 

This was the tunnel underneath Baltimore Harbor

We arrived in Philadelphia and the first destination was to find somewhere to park.  Because we only had a few hours to spend here, we decided to take a bus tour so that we could see the entire city first.  The bus also allowed you to get off and on as much as you wanted -- so this way if we saw something of interest -- we could hop off.

 

 

Our first stop was in an area that we thought we could find an authentic philly cheesesteak.  We ended up at a neighborhood pizza place that was small and tiny, but had exactly what we were looking for on the menu.

 



Now that are bellies were nice and full.....it was time to walk off all that food.  We were near the Franklin Institute, so we thought that would be our first stop. 

This place ended up being more like a science museum than a place that we were looking for (a museum celebrating Ben Franklin), so we headed back out to the street to catch the bus and continue our tour.  We did, however, stop to take a picture in the middle of a busy intersection!

I loved the details on this statue!  That is one thing we really noticed about Philadelphia......they had so many sculptures throughout this amazing city.

Here are some of the things we saw on our bus ride.  Now, please be aware that it is extremely difficult to get good pictures from the top of a moving bus!

One of the oldest streets in Philadelphia.....love the cobblestone streets!

 

 

Independence Hall

 

 

Museum of Natural History and the famous steps that Rocky ran up in his first movie

 

 

Just some beautiful scenery

 

 

Giant clothespin across from City Hall

 

 

After our bus tour, we only had a little time left......so we had to hurry and hit some of the spots we wanted to see more up close and personal.

 

A definite must see for us was where Benjamin Franklin's House stood.  We also got to go inside and see a demonstration on one of the old printing presses that he would have used back in his day to print Poor Richard's Almanac.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next stop was off to Ben Franklin's grave.  Not Paul's favorite thing to do, but I LOVE old cemetaries! 

 

 

Many of the Declaration of Independence signers are buried here.

 

We found Benjamin Franklin and his wife's graves and learned why people throw pennies on top of them.  If you throw a penny on it and it lands "heads up" you will have good luck for a year.  If it comes up "tails", it's supposed to be bad luck.

 

 

 

It really is an undescribable feeling standing at the foot of someone who is so important in our country's history.  You've read about him all your life in books and here you are......amazing!

 

Time was running out and we still had our 2 hour drive back to Maryland......so we headed over to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  We weren't allowed into the Hall because they had already given out all the tickets for the day.....so we had to stand on the outside and only imagine what had taken place in that building so many years ago.

 

 

The Liberty Bell used to hang in the top steeple, but was moved to it's own building right next door to preserve it.  The line to see it up close was probably at least an hour long, and because we were pressed for time.....we elected to get our photos of it from the outside.  Not the best shots.....but we do have some!

 

 

 

On our way back to the parking lot, we stopped for our souvenirs.  I've heard lots of Ben Frankin sayings......but I've never heard this one before.  Of course, I had to buy a pint beer glass with this saying.  It was calling my name!  Thank you Mr. Franklin.

 

 

Our last photo of the day in a city that we will definitely need to come back and visit!

 

 

The car ride back to Maryland included a stop at Tiger Direct.com.  We've ordered stuff from them online and never realized they had a retail outlet.....so what the heck, we needed to see what they had in their store.

 

On our way back we also plotted what our evening plans would be.  Since we had done music the past 3 nights we decided to play some trivia.  So it was off to Annapolis, Maryland and test our brains.  We found a place called the Greene Turtle Tavern and our team name was "We're not as dumb as we look".  Good thing we didn't know anybody there......because we were pretty dumb that night.   We feasted on Jalapeno & Cheese stuffed burger and a Crab Melt sandwich and a couple of cold beers and then it was time to head back to the hotel.  Annapolis was about 20 minutes from the hotel, so we had a short drive.

 

The rest of the evening was spent packing up the suitcases and getting all ready to leave at 5:30 am the next morning to get to the DC airport before the rush hour traffic.

 

We had a wonderful time and getting away from everything for those four days was exactly what we needed.

 

Can't wait for the next adventure!



Part 4 will be slightly delayed

Well I know that ya'll just dropped everything you had to do today so that you could tune in here and see what exciting events happened on our last day of vacation.

Sorry to disappoint you, but...........I've got some things I need to work on today and I really am not feeling that creative today. 

So rather than just put up some unimaginative and boring post, I've decided to try again later today or tomorrow.  I want to keep up the quality work on this blog.....ha ha!

Wow......it's snowing.....part 3

Day 3 of our great adventure found us waking up to SNOW!  Here's the view from the hotel window:

It was awesome....and we were excited to get out in it and enjoy our day. (*typically this does not sound like us.   We are usually weanies when it comes to cold weather*)

Here are some of the more interesting shots outside the hotel.  We were thankful that the car rental company had a brush and a window scraper in the trunk.  Little did we know that we were going to need it!

Our original plans for today were to go back to Baltimore and see all the things that we couldn't see the other day.  However, the snow put a big change in our plans.  Since most of the snow was in the direction we wanted to drive......we opted to go back and spend the day in D.C. since we could get around the city all day by just riding on the subway.  We certainly didn't want to be out driving in something we weren't used to.

So off to the subway station we went.  First stop:  to finish the Smithsonian Museum of American History.  We still didn't finish it......but we did spend a couple of more hours taking goofy pictures of each other!

Of course, we started to get hungry again.  The night before at the Garbage concert we had been talking with a girl who recommended the "best" pizza in D.C. to us.  So after researching where it was......we hopped on the subway and went to have pizza for lunch.

Our pizza stop for the day was a New Haven style pizza shop.  It is a thinner crust baked in deck ovens which gives it that char burning on the edges (personally, I love it).  After a hard decision of what we should try we opted for 1/2 meatball and 1/2 New Haven White Style with clams.  We spent time talking with the manager about "the business" and finally our creation arrived.

It really was different eating clams on a pizza, but I have to admit it was pretty darn delicious.  Of course, Pizza Zone style would be to add a few more toppings and then it would be incredibly awesome!

We got on the subway with no real plan, but eventually ended up in D.C. Chinatown.  We have discovered that the Chinatown's in any city are always a great source for buying the cheesy souvenirs that you have to take back to everybody.  This one was no different.

The weather wasn't really bad, just snow and rain mixed.....but we made the decision to find something to do inside.  We ended up at the National Geographic Museum which had an exhibit on treasures recovered from a sunken pirate ship.  Personally, I loved it.  I have a fascination with sunken ships for some reason.

After this, we decided to head back to the hotel.  We were trying to beat the rush hour on the subway and needed to take a break and eat a small snack.  We ended up buying a couple of beers and a bag of chips and heading back to the hotel room where we would plan that night's adventures. 

Whenever we travel to the east coast, we always try to find Wise Potato Chips.  Paul introduced those to me during our trip to Boston one year and I have to say they are THE BEST POTATO CHIPS IN THE WORLD.  Well, the D.C. area didn't have them, but we did find some RED HOT UTZ chips that were so incredibly delicious.  We seriously should have brought some bags back with us.

After spending an hour or two relaxing in the hotel room and eating those awesome chips.....Paul found us some live music in Arlington, Virginia.  Guess where we went.......off to the subway of course!  We were lucky and the bar was only a couple of blocks from the subway in Virginia.  Have I mentioned how much I love the D.C. subway?  It seriously is always convenient to wherever we wanted to go.

Club Iota was a small hole-in-the-wall bar that was featuring 3 live bands on this night.  We settled down, ordered a beer, ate some awesome sandwiches with pastrami and corned beef, and listened to some live music.

 

After a couple of hours, it was time to head back to the hotel since the plan was to get up early and head for Philadelphia.  Bedtime was once again about midnight......but we seriously had an awesome day!

D.C. - Day 2

Woke up to a cloudyish day, but we were ready to tackle the city.

After a quick stop to Starbucks (for the husband), we were off and running.  The subway station was only 5 minutes down the road, so we parked the car and bought our passes for the day.  What a deal.....$7 each for all day travelling on the subway.  Off and on as many times as you want!

 

I love the D.C. subways.  They are so clean and archtecturally beautiful!

 

 

First stop was the Smithsonians Museum of American History.  The one museum I have wanted to see my whole life.  It was under rennovation the last trip to D.C., so we had to miss it......but not this time!  It's a huge museum and unfortunately......very popular!  Hard to see everything the way you want to see it because of so many people, but we did the best we could.

One of the greatest things we saw there was the original flag that flew at Fort McHenry.  Of course, it was in a darkened room to preserve it and there was absolutely no pictures allowed, but here is some that I found online to capture how magnificent it was.

It was really an awesome thing to see this flag.  I am so glad that I got the experience.  After spending over 2 hours at the museum (and still not seeing the whole thing), we decided to find something for lunch.  The best idea was to jump on the subway, get off a stop, come up from the underground, and see what was around you.

We followed that plan and ended up at Gordon Biersch.  We enjoyed a Blue Crab and Artichoke Dip, Garlic Fries, and a salad with some funky Jalapeno dressing.  While we ate, we plotted our next destination!

 

After walking around the town a bit, we ended up at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American Art.

These two museums are very interesting if you are interested in paintings and funky art.  We don't spend a lot of time looking at each piece, but we do enjoy looking at some of the items they have.

 

(* read the license plates in order *)

 

We were then on our way to the Crime and Punishment Museum.  Filled with crime information, criminals, and all kinds of interesting facts spanning 100 years of criminal mischief.

 

 

It was difficult to take pictures in there because we couldn't use the flash.  Unfortunately most of these were blurry :-(

 

 

By the time we were finished here, we dead dog tired and our feet hurt (and I was feeling a little blurry....see picture above).  But there wasn't time to go back to the hotel for a rest, so we found a warm place to sit a spell and Paul enjoyed a dish of ice cream while our feet recuperated.

Our next amusement was the one that Paul was looking forward to the most.  The Garbage concert in Silver Springs, MD.  The plan was to take the subway -- easy and fast.  This way we didn't have to deal with traffic or parking and we could just hop on the subway and head straight back to our hotel.

The concert was located at The Fillmore.  It was a standing room only concert (for us), so we had to stand in the middle of the floor for over 3 hours packed like sardines. 

 

The good part of the place was how close we were to the stage

 

 

After the concert, we jumped on the subway and headed back to our car in the parking lot.  Since it was so late (11:30pm), we just stopped at a 7-11 and grabbed a package of ham, bread, and chips and it was back to the room for our gourmet meal!  Another great day has come to an end........another fantastic day to look forward to tomorrow!