Philly - April 2017 - Day 1

April 28, 2017 (Friday)

Here We Go! 6 A.M. American Airline flight to Philadelphia! 3 A.M. sure did come early! Smooth sailing to the airport – we probably could have slept for another 30 minutes! Lines were very short at the airport – huge relief since last trip they were quite long.  Again, we parked in the Big Blue Deck at Metro Airport – it is so much faster (if you remember where you park – which we did this time – end of the row right by the elevator helped).

Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site

My prior coworker, Morgan, graciously picked us up at the airport in Philly.  The pick-up area was very deserted, which made finding her super easy!  Our first stop for the day was the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site.  The site was established in 1771. We started our visit with watching the short video before venturing out to the buildings. There are also some displays within the visitor center that we checked out – lots of furnaces!  The iron created during the American Revolution played a critical role in supplying the army. George Washington took his army to nearby Valley Forge to protect the supply lines along the Schuylkill River.  After the war, the owner, Mark Bird, had difficult collecting debts from the newly formed nation. Hopewell Furnace struggled for a bit, and then the Civil War brought some relief in the 1860’s, but then it ultimately closed in 1883. The site was free to visit. There are a few hiking trails in and around the park. We spent about 2.5 hours at the site.

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Heading back towards Philly, we stopped for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in King of Prussia. Yum! Near there was another National Park Site – Valley Forge National Historical Park. Again, there was a short video, we watched and a large number of displays to check out.  After checking out the displays, we hoped back into the car and drove the battlefield loop. There were a few stops along the way – check out the huts, Washington’s Headquarters, and monuments. Again, this was a free site to visit!

Back to Philly, we went, again we hit some traffic.  We checked into our hotel – Holiday Inn Express Penn Landing.  Using our saved up reward points made the stay quite affordable.  We ended up with a river view – very nice, but a little load due to train traffic over the bridge and motorcycles loved to race along the road in front of the hotel.  We were so tired out from either getting up so early or all the walking we slept great!

View from Holiday Inn Express Penn Landing

Once we got everything dropped off at the hotel, we hopped back into the car and headed to Morgan’s apartment – awesome location, cute, but small!  We checkout the area near her place – the area is known as Old Town.  We grabbed a bit to eat at a place called Nick’s Roast Beef Bar & Grille. They had amazing happy hour specials and the food was good. I tried the French Onion Soup and Mac & Cheese bites. After dinner, we walked back to our hotel, which was a short walk away.