A Philly Fourth

This year we headed up to Philadelphia for their big July 4th celebration. Wanting to avoid traffic, we "park and rode" up there from the outskirts of the city (Marcus Hook). Had it been a weekday, we could have just rode from Wilmington or Newark, but those trains don't run on Saturday. Theodore just loved watching everything go by on the train, and I laughed as his eyes moved back and forth tracking passing objects. We have not really spent a lot of time in that part of Philly, so it was a bit of an adventure for us. 30th St. Station was our destination, which is a classic train station that is actually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in the 30s, back when beauty and details in architecture was considered a necessity in public buildings. Check out the columns in the picture linked above.

Once we got down to the "Party on the Parkway" (after just a few mistaken streets) we scoped out the place and got down to business getting dinner. We had some pretty good gyros and humus, something I would never pick out on my own but Brian suggested we try it. I always forget that I really like Mediterranean/Greek food, and it reminded me of the place in Arizona that we infrequently got to enjoy, The Phoenicia Cafe.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway leads right up to the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum (think Rocky Balboa) and looked beautiful lit up in the evening.

(We were about half way down the street in this picture... and it actually goes a lot further.)

(Theodore in full patriotic regalia.)

We found a decent place to set down our blanket in the shade, and we relaxed and enjoyed the music. Theodore napped through most of his first official concert, but did wake-up and enjoy dancing with mama for some of it. Green River Ordinance were a pretty good start to the show, and then The Roots helped put us in a decidedly Philadelphian state of mind. The Goo Goo Dolls finished off the night. Unfortunately, by the time they were over, we had to start heading back to the station for our 11:50 (!) train back (the last train of the night). Apparently, there was some miscommunication about the start time of the fireworks, and they didn't start until way too late in our opinion. We had to watch them as we walked. Had they shortened all the music a bit and started the fireworks sooner, it would definitely have been a perfect July 4th.