Philadephia History Excursion

So, in the midst of planning this big trip to Spain and looking at tourbooks, me and Leann noticed Philly ones in the store.  We figured living so close to one of the biggest cities in the country, and the one with probably the most of amount of significant American History in it, how come we never do anything "touristy" there?  So, we bought ourselves a guidebook (check it out herei f you're interested) and decided to start planning some trips there.

The first is going to be this Sunday, with hopefully perfect weather (70 and partly cloudy?  I'll take that!).  First on our agenda is Independence Hall where our Constitution and Declaration of Independence were created.  Basically, the birthplace of America.  In learning about this, it seems this also requires advance reservations if you really want any shot at going.  Go to recreation.gov to be able to reserve a time-slot if you're interested in going.

After that, we're going to check out the Liberty Bell Center and maybe try to make the crack in it a bit bigger ;-).  We're also planning on seeing the Free Quaker Meeting House, Arch Street Friends Meeting House and the Christ Church Burial Ground, where Ben Franklin is interred.

I bought the tickets to Independence Hall last night and am definitely looking forward to checking out these historical sites.

If anyone wants to come along, let me know!

Gibraltar Airport/Highway

We are now exactly 4 weeks away from taking off from JFK to head to Madrid, and are beyond excited to get this vacation under way. While trying to finalize some of our plans today, we discovered that when crossing the border from Spain into Gibraltar (which is technically part of the U.K.), you actually need to drive over an active airport runway!

Who designed this thing? Apparently they are trying to build another road to get around this, but as of right now, there is absolutely no way into Gibraltar by car or foot without crossing this runway. This should definitely be an interesting drive.

Check out some YouTube videos of people's experiences crossing this runway.