Farewell Philly

Today Blake, Debbie, Kristin, Dan, Bret, and Skylee were heading to Disneyworld. So Alison and I were left to our own devices. We got up and packed all our stuff and headed over to 30th street to pick up our rental car. 

It was fitting that our time in Philadelphia started and ended at the 30th street train station. This was a great trip and we really enjoyed spending time with our family in Philadelphia. It wasn’t our favorite city, but we were with our favorite people and that made it memorable. 

The first stop on the agenda today was Valley Forge. I went to Valley Forge back in 2005 when I was on the National Jamboree. We thought we would check it out. We arrived and headed to the visitors center. Valley Forge is an interesting place. It is seen as significant during the revolutionary war because the Colonial army was able to regroup and retrain. After they wintered in Valley Forge the Colonial Army was able to turn the tide of the war to an American victory. 

While we were walking around the visitor’s center I noticed a sign advertising some kiosks that you could use to identify any ancestors who had served at Valley Forge. Since we learned about Alison’s ancestor who served in the revolutionary war earlier on this trip we decided to check and see if he was at Valley Forge. We plugged in James Tucker and found two of them. We weren’t sure if either was Alison’s ancestor. She pulled on Family Search on her phone and found a Revolutionary war pension request record attached to her ancestor (the record was very sad he was disabled and destitute and fortunately was able to get assistance). This record detailed his commanding officers, which were listed in the kiosk. Alison’s ancestor James Tucker was at Valley Forge. It was really a neat experience to figure that out.

After we went through the visitor’s center we drove around the park. We stopped at the Cabin, a few of the monuments, and George Washington’s headquarters. For the most part, we were one small step ahead of a couple of big tour buses, which was really nice. We enjoyed the tranquility of the park and really wished we had more time to just walk around. It was beautiful.

Our final stop in Pennsylvania was Amish country. On the Jamboree I ate at a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant called the Good N Plenty. I wanted to find it and eat there again. It was about an hour's drive, but we had time. The food was excellent. They had pork sausage, roast beef (that melted in your mouth), fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, noodles, beats, corn, apple sauce, fresh bread, apple butter, and many other dishes that I couldn’t even describe. We finished off the meal with 5 desserts – cracker pudding, cheesecake, cherry pie, shoofly pie (my personal favorite), and fresh ice cream. It was glutinous but oh so good.

After the meal, we tried to explore Amish country, but it was hard to tell what was a tourist trap and what was cool. It kind of seemed like some of the venues might be exploiting the Amish. Before long we were done and it was time to head to the airport and come home.

We are not ready to be home and get back into the swing of things. This vacation was amazing. New York was so much fun. It was easy to forget how much we missed it until we were there. We love that city. Spending time with family in Philly was great. We love traveling with people we love. It doesn’t even really matter where we go because we just enjoy being there together.