Out and About Philadelphia

Danielle and I went out on the town today!

Elfreth's Alley, the Betsy Ross House, and the Schuylkill (Skoo-Kill, apparently) Trail. We biked every step of the way (except when we took actual steps and walked), and it totalled about 12 miles!

We had a lot of fun, although I think I scared Danielle quite a bit while biking through Center City. I like to dodge in and out of stopped traffic and burn yellow lights, Danielle likes to be safe. She handled it like a champ, though, and was a loving wife through it all.

So our first stop was Elfreth's Alley, a free walk down a block of 18th century row houses on "Our Nation's Oldest Residential Street." And people STILL live there! We learned a little about the poor Irish and German immigrants who originally settled the neighborhood, saw inside one of the houses furnished to match the 18th/19th century lifestyle, and learned a little about the industrial manufacturing and shipping jobs that drew poor immigrants to the Alley, which sits a couple blocks from the port on the Delaware River.

Our second stop was the Betsy Ross House. Betsy Ross (Elizabeth Claypoole) was a Quaker-then-Anglican-then-quasi-Quaker patriot credited with sewing the first American flag. The house called "The Betsy Ross House" is an old building on Arch Street which Betsy rented with her family throughout her adult life. During the British occupation of Philadelphia Elizabeth supposedly sewed her treasonous flags in her upstairs bedroom away from prying loyalist eyes. Interesting fact: Elizabeth is responsible for the five-pointed star on the American flag, instead of the six-pointed star suggested to her in the design presented by George Washington and her Uncle-in-law, George Ross (and Robert Morris).

Finally, after leaving Old City we headed back West to the Schuylkill River to bike along the Schuylkill Trail. Schuylkill, while pronounced oddly, has a cool meaning: hidden river. It comes from the Dutch, which explains a lot. We biked north for a couple miles and saw some great gardens, biked past the Art Museum, which we plan to visit soon, and saw lots of statues, which seem to be Philly's choicest way of commemorating its impressive history. We will have to go back many times to take in the full awesomeness of the path and to train for a future trip up the Trail to Valley Forge. For now here are a few pictures: