The City of Brotherly Love

Our next destination was Philadelphia, PA which was a tough city to find a camping spot. We ended up at Campus Park & Ride which was a lot right in the city that actually had water and electric sites with a dump station (sort of) and bath house. This would be our 1st official campground with hookups since we left home.

 

 It was convenient to Penn's Landing by way of shuttle and Septa city bus. Our first night there the boys let loose by "hitting the wall" with tennis balls and lacrosse sticks in the parking lot. We got to talk with a few other campers in our odd camping location. We found out that Comic Con was in town and a vendor staying there offered us some free tickets. Jason Jr and Nathan were excited. The next morning, our other "neighbors" gave us tokens for the bus ride. This was an awesome place so far!

 



 There was a lot of history here to soak up...from our Founding Fathers, signing of the Declaration of Independence to Continental Congress and the Liberty Bell.

After a few site tours, we walked to the convention center to drop off the big boys to explore Comic Con.                                                                       They had some freedom and loved shopping the booths there and people watching. We would meet up with them later in the day. 

 

Jason and I took SamBob and Wesley to explore some more and grab lunch at the Reading Terminal Market. This place was a really cool indoor farmer's market/food court with over 75 vendors. It was chaotic and oh so hard to choose something. Jason had a Philly Cheese-steak, the obvious choice here!
Our time here was short and sweet then off to The Big Apple!

Visiting the Rich Family

I was so excited to stop in York haven, PA to see my childhood best friend Michelle and her family. We got a premium camping spot in their driveway complete with water hookups from their hose. (LOL)

The first night we enjoyed a relaxing campfire around Mark's fancy firepit. We even had smores!



The next day we all drove up to Harrisburg for a ferryboat ride on the Susquehanna River. The boys all got a chance to hang out and get to know each other.

 

Later we grilled out and played cards and board games. Josh had SAT the next day and we kept him up late that night. I hope he got a great score!





We decided to stop at Hershey Park on the way out of town. The chocolate tour was really cool and the smell was fantastic! The ride showed you the process of making chocolate. There was even a free sample at the end. Mark bought us a 5 lb. box of Twizzlers for the road. I am sure they will be gone soon!

 

 

 

It was bittersweet leaving town because I had to say goodbye to Michelle but I knew we had many more adventures ahead...

The Hams invade Washington, D.C.

We arrived in D.C. on Monday May 29th. Our campsite was in Greenbelt Park which was part of the national park system. It was close to the metro rail which was the preferred method of getting our large family around the city. We went to the station and purchased our 6 Smart Cards and loaded them with some money to get us started for the next day's adventure.

 
We started at the National Mall and visited many exhibits over a 3 day period walking over 25 miles. Some of the exhibits were: Holocaust Museum, Museum of Natural History, Museum of American History, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Washington Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, National Gallery of Art, The White House, Chinatown and the Space and Aeronautical Museum.

 

 

 

  
 

 

 
 
 

We covered a lot of ground but still didn't scratch the surface of all the Washington D.C. has to offer. You could probably spend a month there before seeing it all. It was "museum overload" for the little guys and they needed some downtime to play and cut loose on the grass at the national mall. Daily ice cream treats also helped. 

 

My favorite was the Holocaust Museum and we had the privilege of speaking to two survivors that were volunteers in the museum. One lady was Susan Strauss who is 91 years old now. Susan, her grandmother, mom and only sibling were sent to the Riga ghetto, Latvia in 1942. Her grandmother was killed there. Then in 1943, Susan, her mom and sister were sent to a concentration camp where they were separated. She was sent to a factory to work on boats then worked as a bricklayer. Susan was liberated in 1945 but here mom and sister had been killed at other camps. 

The other survivor was Louise Lawrence-Israels who is 77 years old now. Her family went into hiding in Amsterdam in 1943 to escape deportation to concentration camps. Her family was liberated in 1945 when she as 3 years old. This was the first time Louise had been outside in 3 years.

I had goosebumps even talking to these ladies. All of the boys were impacted greatly by what they saw and heard at this memorial. SamBob and Wesley even had questions for the 2 survivors.

We left D.C.exhausted but feeling "full"...of knowledge, history, power, freedom and National pride.