Our Carriage Ride

I have been so busy I have barely come up for breath!

That sounds like a good opening line doesn't it?  Fact is... I just haven't had much to say in the blogging world! Ha ha!

Matthew and Lindsay arrived safely from Florida after a 4 day journey of long long days of driving, dodging the big snow storm in Wyoming and Colorado (altering their itinerary), rough and windy roads at night (um, Rockies anyone?) and pulling a Ford Ranger that was loaded with wedding gifts on a trailer behind them! I have yet to ask about what the gifts were but HAVE seen a set of Rachael Ray knives come out! (its not nice to be envious is it?)  It is great to have them here and though they are anxious to get started on their lives with jobs, school and a house to rent in Portland, we are enjoying them here.

I was thinking about part of our trip yesterday and got to chuckling.  When we were at Thane and Becky's they took us into "the city" by train and subway.  It was a great trip and we did a lot of talking and laughing on the ride back from Philadelphia, it was great. I will tell you what we joked about in a minute but while we were in the city Becky wanted to take us on a carriage ride.  We got our tickets, the kids couldn't ride alone, so Becky split them up, we had Brey and Keller in our carriage.  It was such fun! The guy we had knew all kinds of facts about Philly and obviously LOVES the city, he spoke with such enthusiasm and such knowledge it was great.  He said he had been a history teacher at one time and the way he taught us about so much of the history of Philadelphia, I could believe it!  What a beautiful part of the US!  It was a lot of fun and so educational.  It was a good thing we had blankets to sit under (although my germ-o-phobe part of me wanted to cringe) because it was freezing dang cold!  Here are a few of the things we saw while touring the city:

Our carriage driver took this picture of us before we took off...pretty cool huh?

I wish you could see this guy! He was great! Would turn in his seat and talk, rarely pausing, spitting out facts and history like nobodies business and this horse, this big ol white horse, would plod along, stopping at exactly the right spots and taking off at exactly the right time! Incredible! Keep in mind...there were cars whizzing by the whole time!

Our carriage buddies, Brey and Keller...

No, I don't remember what this building was for but it was the first of something and Ben Franklin had been in it....

Another cool building...the statue in the front, I have later on in this post, looks like Andrew Jackson or Thomas Jefferson (don't they all look alike in those whig thingies? It wasn't, can't remember who but his name IS on the Declaration of Independence.

This is one of my favorite pics and will, when I get some good photo paper, be on the wall in my house somewhere, in a black frame! I LOVE it!  These old houses are just so awesome and if they have gotten a historical plaque, stating they are over 100 years old (many of them are many many years older than that) they don't have to pay taxes! Which, as B and T say, are exponential in that whole area. Click on the pic and check out the date below the linked hands...1752

The guy that built this once owned Coca Cola (at least that's what I think the guy said) The window, if you look at the bottom ones, are coke bottle bottoms and the whole thing, isn't a turret, its shaped like a coke product...

I DO remember a fun fact about this bank and several others just like it....

See above the windows...the animal carved into the stone? Many of the immigrants could not

speak english so when they made these buildings, they put an animal that was what they would 

recognize as their country (you know, like ours is the eagle) and they would know that

that was their bank! Cool huh?

I so wish I could remember this guys name and what he was doing in this statue!

Another Ben Franklin building....

So I was completely enamored with these buildings...Becky said that they were really neat inside, she got to stay in one with a friend when she was attending nursing school here.  They are very tall and narrow so each floor is dedicated to a room...The kitchen is a floor, the bedroom, the living room...and they are gorgeous! I would have loved to gone in one.  As I recall, Dolly Madison, wife of James Madison, resided in one of these here homes and has an illustrious career as a woman of power.  Our carriage driver, LOVES Dolly Madison!

The Philly skyline we saw as we were walking around town.

The birthplace of the military command....

China town...doesn't every major city have one?

Walking toward...um...can't remember but that building in the distance in the middle?  A small part of Ghostbusters was filmed there...so Becky reminded me!

Check out that mural behind me...cool huh?  That is the Ghostbuster building behind me. I honestly don't know what it really is called though!

Now to the subway story.  We were riding along on the Subway and John mentioned Laverne and Shirley and we began to laugh about that show and all the people on it.  Right away we decided that Thane was Lenny...you know tall and slender. John was Carmine....I can't remember but I think I was Laverne and of course, Becky was Shirley! The funniest part was that Thane DID NOT want to be Lenny...he wanted to be Carmine or someone cool but of course, we were going for body type and Carmine is short so we thought, well, maybe John could be Squiggy instead, Lenny's sidekick and stuff...John didn't much care for being Squiggy...we brought the boys into it too because, of course, they needed to be "someone" from the show and then it carried on into Happy Days...We made Thane and John happy by making them the Fonz and Cha Chi...okay, not Cha Chi so much...maybe Ritchie?  It was quite a rousing discussion for most of the way from Philadelphia back into Jersey.  I didn't do the story justice at all but you get the idea.