Leslie and David's Wanderings: 11 September 2022 Independence and First State

Being so close to Philadelphia (only an hour and a half away), we wanted to visit the city to see the Independence Historical National Park and get an authentic Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich. Thanks to Lauren and Bryan’s help, we located a parking lot in central Philadelphia that could take the Behemoth. After parking, we walked in the occasional rain shower to Woodrow’s Sandwich shop (a DDD restaurant) and David had a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich for lunch (Check that one off). We then walked to Independence Hall only to learn they had instituted a reservation system for touring Independence Hall. We got on line but found the next available tour was not for over an hour. Since we had other plans, we decided to skip the tour of Independence Hall (Leslie had toured it once before and David had seen enough pictures) and went over to the Liberty Bell Museum. While touring the exhibits before getting to the bell, we learned that they are not even sure if the bell was rung when the Declaration of Independence was first signed. Independence Hall and previously been the Pennsylvania State House and the bell was housed in the original bell tower and used to ring in various events. The bell originally cracked twice, prior to the Continental Congress first meet there. Two attempts to repair the cracks failed in time. The crack as we see it today did not occur until the 1780s. So it is interesting that there is such mistic about it when there is no historical record of it being rung for the American independence movement. We then walked back to the Behemoth and set our sites for Delaware. Being so close, we decided we needed to go to Delaware so we could check it off our list. We decided to visit one of the units of the First State Historical National Park. It was originally made a National Monument in 2014 by President Obama after several failed attempts to create a national park by congress. In 2015, congress changed it to a historical park. The unit we decided to go to was in New Castle Delaware. We arrived around 3PM in New Castle and began searching for the historical park. After searching around, we stopped in the visitor center for the state park to learn that there was not a national park visitor center yet and that the old courthouse museum had already closed for the day. But they did have the park passport stamp, so we collected our stamp and wandered around the old square and down to the Warf on Chesapeake Bay. We decided to check if there was a vineyard nearby, but were surprised to find that there are only 2 vineyards in Delaware and they were in the southern part of the state. So we jumped in the Behemoth for the long drive in the rain back to the Wanderer.