Philadelphia:: Mini Historical Tour

I have made it a personal goal for 2013 to get out more. What that means specifically is open for interpretation, but I live near so many cute towns/cities and am only a 1/2 hour from Philadelphia, and I rarely visit. I also got a smart phone in November and have enjoyed taking snippets of life and capturing them with Instagram. It's forced me to be more creative compositionally, and I've begun to follow complete strangers whose work inspires me. So the goal is quite simple: at least once a month, I want to spend at least a few hours out in a town/city that is near me. So far the list includes: New Hope, Peddlers Village, Newtown, Philadelphia, Manayunk (all in PA), and Princeton, Lambertville (both in NJ). I am hoping for my list to expand, but I figure that's a good place to start.

This past weekend, I took a trip into Philly with the family I live with. The weather was supposed to be warmer than usual for a January day, so we drove down, found great parking, and walked around the Historic District of Philly for a few hours. The kids have been learning about Betsy Ross and Benjamin Franklin, and so they were excited to see the sites. Our first stop was to see the Liberty Bell; I hadn't been to see the bell since my 5th grade field trip to Philly. Of course, when you're younger, everything seems larger than life, so when I saw the bell this time, it looked so small to me. But there's nothing like sticking 2 cute kids in front of it. They were a bit shy at first, but the posted guard told them they could get a 'prize' if they had their picture taken. Afterward, he gave them each a souvenir card with history of the bell on it.

Then we walked past the Constitution Center, Independence Hall, and the US Mint, and they posed for some pictures along the way.

We also passed the grave of Benjamin Franklin - contained within the Christ Church Burial Ground. We then made our way to see the Betsy Ross House. The house tour was quite informative; it was great to learn about her flag making from a reenactor. She was great with the kids, and showed them different materials Betsy would have used to fill pillowcases. She also showed them how to quickly make a 5-point star, and gave them a star to remember their visit.

We had a super fun visit, and the kids got really excited about each stop we made. With the exception of the Betsy Ross House, most places are free. Tickets are required at some points, but since it was a January day, not many people were there, and we walked right into the Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross House. For more info. on what to see, check out this site. There are plenty of informational sites, but this one gives an overview and links to other pages.