The original Krispy Kreme was a breakfast spot on the way out of DC.  We need to load up before heading out for some Cheese Steaks.

Pat’s Steaks was our choice this year.  Pat’s created the whole Cheese Steak thing so we wanted to give them a try.  We went to Jim’s steaks 3 or 4 years back and in my opinion Jim’s was better.  Pat’s may have invented the Cheese Steak, but others have polished up the idea a bit more.  I barely ate any of my steak and normally I eat the whole thing and more.  To me, Philly Connection in Cypress was better than Pat’s.  Sorry Pat!  The atmosphere was really cool and it was fun to see that part of Philly.

Independence Hall is a must anytime you visit Philly.  Our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence here and we owe those old awesome dudes a serious debt of gratitude.  We could use a bit more founding father approach to government today.  At least, it would be nice if our politicians would read and debate the stuff they are signing.  It is sad and scary to see how many things are signed and never fully read.

We have some good friends, the Stahls, from our neighborhood, who were having a family reunion in Philadelphia, so we crashed their party.  Then, we stuck together for a few days.  We started at Valley Forge, which was really close to the party location.

Valley Forge was somewhat interesting. We had the most fun launching stick boats in the river. We made it so that our parents could do everything except see us before launching a siege on them.  The water and buildings were old, but cool and the site is a nice one to visit.

We followed our friends farther to their Grum’s house in Charlestown, RI. The Rhode Island beach was so cool; actually, it was cold.  I mean, it was fffffreezing.  After boogie boarding, we built a fort that consisted of two pits with a tunnel in between them.   We did a bit of crawling through the tunnel and then what was left of it was crushed.  The picture below is in the middle of the wrecking process, the tunnel is already destroyed.

The beaches this far north are so different than our TX beaches or FL beaches or even from the ones in California.  It was cool to check this one out and it was really fun to hang out with our friends for a few days.

Going to the Adirondacks next.

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