Philadelphia, PA and Queens, NY

We spent another week in Gettysburg and took some downtime to relax at the campground.

It was a hot weekend, so we weren't alone in taking advantage of the campground pool.

Then, this past week, we headed to Philadelphia. There were no RV parks in Philadelphia, so we stayed outside the city in an RV/Mobile home park in Hatfield, PA. We were only there a few days and only had one day to go into Philadelphia. Our plan was to go in and have lunch with one of my employees whom I'd never met face-to-face. I chose the restaurant by looking up places that were gluten free. I'll cut to the chase and say that I should have asked the local to pick the place. First, the parking was non-existent—at least for us with our beast of a truck. After driving for a bit and realizing the only possible parking in the area was in garages and they all had low clearances, we decided to just have Brett drop me off and he would hang out and come back to get me. And then the food was just ok. But it was great to finally meet Kristen! After lunch, we headed to the Independence Hall area where we were able to see the Liberty Bell and get in a quick tour of Congress Hall. A little tidbit we weren't aware of about the Liberty Bell is that it was ordered from the Whitechapel Foundry in London and upon arrival, cracked on its first test ring. The bell was then melted down and recast by local metalworker, but when presented to the public, the sound was so awful that it was publicly mocked, and the metalworkers melted it down and recast it again. After about 90 years of use, it developed another crack, but it's not documented exactly when that occurred or why. The large crack that we now see is actually the repair of that crack—they widened it to prevent the spread and restore the tone.

Independence Hall

House chamber of Congress Hall

Senate chamber of Congress Hall

The next day, we headed to CT to drop off the "house" and the following morning, headed to Queens, NY. The Hampton Inn La Guardia Airport is now our home for 51 days. We're here as Brett is working for a friend who owns Roadwerx, a marketing and event production agency. They are building out some of the areas for the US Open. Check out their website—they do really amazing work! 

The Arthur Ashe Stadium, where the US Open is held.

The Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. It was built for the 1964 World's Fair as a symbol of world peace and reflected that year's theme of "Peace Through Understanding."

Walking through the misting plaza at The Fountain of the Fairs.

"Before" views of two of the areas they will be transforming for the US Open.

Today, we went to Target to do a small amount of grocery shopping—as much as you can actually fit in a hotel mini-fridge;-) After going just the two miles from the hotel to Target, I am so beyond thankful to Donna for loaning us her car so that we don't have to navigate the city with our big truck. We then found an amazing Australian restaurant, The Thirsty Koala. Brett had a smoked trout and goat cheese omelet, and I had the pain perdue (french toast) with a bruleed banana, rum toffee sauce, and fresh whipping cream. We'll definitely be back, and probably more than once over the next seven weeks, as they have so many other amazing things on their menu that we want to try. And the fact they are relatively close doesn't hurt.