July 13 - Philly and DC

Tuesday we rode from New Castle up to Philadelphia, Toured Independence Hall and saw the Liberty Bell, then Headed South toward Washington DC
Doris took a couple of pics of the Liberty Bell...The second has Independence Hall in the Background.

I was hungry and found Mom's..voted best of Philly Cheese Steaks(by someone)
But it seemed like a good time to try one.

W e took the tour of Independence Hall, where the Continental Congress met and wrote and approved the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

The Penn. Supreme Courtroom, the First US Supreme Court also used this room, and issued its first decision here.

Matt...Our tour guide in the room where the Continental Congress met

Most of the original wood work still exhists including the stairs and the railing.

A replica Harpsicord in the large upstairs room used for banquets etc,

Doris' hand on the same banister Ben Franklin used to touch nearly 250 years ago.

Ben Franklin's Grave

Ben Franklins Tomb

Shipyard on the way to DC..Probably Baltimore, but

I'm not sure.

So we got to DC about 5:00 and the first couple of hotels we stopped at...Quality Inn and Comfort Inn basically laughed at us when we asked for a room, so we found a Budget Inn that had space.

No Internet though...which explains this late posting.

We decided to head down to the Memorial area, about 6:15 and take some pics so we could head straight out to Gettysburg in the morning.

It probably took 30 minutes to go the 5 miles or so.

Doris saw this on the way down town.

If you can read it...the bottom of the plate says

"TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION"

A Doris took this one for our neice

The above were all from the bike

Just to start setting the scene...It started to rain lightly just as we parked the bike, to walk to the Vietnam and Korea Memorials.

I didnt realize that the back side of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was basically at ground level...it is the dark line in the grass .

I took a few pics of the wall as the rain began to fall harder

Doris took a pic of the Washington Monument over the pool

This one I took with the wall in the forground.

Several Pics of the Korean War Memorial are below..

The expression in the faces is amazing.

As you can see it is raining pretty good now...about the time we got to the bike the Thunder started to rumble. Obviously with a downpoor I didnt want to ruin the GPS so I tried the Male Navigation method to head back to our hotel....

Within a couple of miles I was driving in water a couple of inches deep in the street...And of course for a short trip we had no rain gear.

As the Thunder rumbled and the lightning flashed...it was dark as night even though only 7:30 or so....lost in downtown Washington DC..

Finally I saw a police car parked under an overpass and lo and behold..I ACTUALLY STOPPED AND ASKED DIRECTIONS...

Soon we were heading in the right direction, and I really screwed up ..I told Doris...Well we cant get any wetter....not 10 seconds later I see a car coming up from behind water flying everywhere, and Im thinking this wont be good....It wasn't several of them took shots at us with 4' high walls of water from their tires.

Here I am wringing out my shirt...before heading to the room...I actually poored water out of my boots.

Oh well, life goes on.

Jeff and Doris