Philadelphia, PA - Our first stop ~BETSY ROSS' HOUSE~

Our time in Philadelphia was really fun but I must say it was a bit stressful!!  When we first arrived we began to see tents and detour signs.

 We quickly realized that the POPE was coming to Philadelphia.  And to make matters worse, we were told we could park our RV at the Marriott hotel downtown (which is where we were staying) because they had an open parking lot, but when we arrived the man told us that it would be $180 a night to park, but money wasn't the problem because he had nowhere for us to park our RV anyway!  So we had to find another hotel (which luckily for us was only about 20 minutes away) BUT, trying to get there was a nightmare!  We could only go down one way streets and one of the streets we were directed to drive down had cars parked on BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET making it impossible for us to turn right or left.  We continued driving because we thought surely we would come across a two way intersection, but no... we came to a dead end and were forced to maneuver our 33' RV down a narrow one way street with cars parked down BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET.

Since we were no longer within walking distance of everything like we had originally planned, instead we were able to enjoy taking the SEPTA (the local commuter train) which was fun.

Once we got off the train, we walked up the steps to an alley way and walked through what I call "Weirdoville." People were panhandling for money and sleeping on the sides of the street!  We finally arrived at Independence Hall's Visitor Center where we found out about the double decker BigB bus tour and so we hoped on!  First it took us to Betsy Ross' House, where we took an audio tour.  We learned so much about her, we didn't realize that she had had such a sad life.

Here are some pictures that we took of the house she lived in...

                                                                 

 A lady showed us how to make chocolate! Yum!!!

 The actual room that George Washington sat in with Betsy Ross when he asked her to make the American Flag.

 A picture that hung on her living room wall of the meeting she had in that same room with George Washington.

Betsy Ross' original Bible from 1794

 Betsy's actual reading glasses, her husband's actual cane and the silver tin (on the right) was Betsy's snuff container.  Snuff was thought to have medicinal purposes.

 This is the actual bedroom where she made the American flag!  

She had to make it in hiding for her safety!

 This was what the original American flag looked when Betsy made it.

 This was Betsy's 3rd husband, John Claypoole,"who helped her with her upholstery business because having a woman run a business back then wasn't proper.

 And this was the kitchen.