On Saturday, we drove to New Hope (PA) and Lambertville (NJ). I was weirded out by how many people were downtown in both cities (New Hope a little more so). Lots of interesting shops, a ton of ice cream places, and dogs walking everywhere (on leashes). Jonathan got a cherry ice, and we walked around for a couple hours. We drove into




in between races this water truck came out and moistened the dirt. then a couple tractors raked it.





Jonathan dashed out in the rain to bring the car over (we were quite a few blocks away by this time), and we headed over to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch. PS - IF YOU GO THERE, GET YOUR PARKING VALIDATED!! We walked around some (Sundays are not the day to go, since about 1/3 of the market is Pennsylvania Dutch and they don't sell on Sundays), bought some apple cider and pretzels, then headed over to Carmen's Famous Cheesesteaks (cash only) for lunch. Kyla had a regular, I had a chicken, and Jonathan got his with pepperoni. All were good, although I'm not a big fan of cheese(chicken)steaks without sauce... I find them a bit dry. We headed out shortly thereafter, and with the sun shining, we continued with the tour.
We then parked near the Carpenter's house, in a metered spot which ran $4 for two hours (next to nothing, comparatively). We headed to Betsy Ross's house, which I enjoyed (it's like $2 or so to tour it). They had quite a bit of information on sewing back in the day, owning businesses, and her family life. I thought that they could have done a few things more in-depth (like her family tree), and the amount of speculation is a bit high (we're guessing she lived in a certain room, and have no idea if other families shared the home or if British soldiers also stayed there). Inside, we ran into one of the storytellers from the "Once Upon a Nation" program. She told us the story of Angelina and Sarah, abolitionist sisters. She was quite a good storyteller, and sold me on the program. You go across the city, listening to thirteen stories and collecting a star for each one. Then you get an ice cream cone. hehe
We went to Ben Franklin's grave (and passed a random fountain-garden with a hippo statuette), but it was mysteriously closed for the middle of the afternoon. We then went to see one of the oldest Quaker Meeting buildings, which was also closed to the public (Sunday, so they could have been in a Meeting). BUT, there was another storyteller outside! She told the story of a hunchbacked Quaker who was a rebel. We collected our second stickers and began toward a path that would allow us another four stories.


Lastly, we went to the National Liberty Museum, which we literally came upon on accident on the way toward the car in the rain. We definitely wish we would have had more time to check out the four floors! We managed to fly through two floors, just glancing at highlights as we kept moving. It was "pay what you like" which was amusing, since there were also posted prices... perhaps it depends on the day?

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