Are we back in China??? June 24

Today we traveled from Washington, DC to Philadelphia. John really wanted to go to Independence Hall and to see the Liberty Bell. We came into downtown Philadelphia and found Independence Hall very easily, but what we couldn't find was available parking. The decks were all full. We rode around and finally found a metered space about 2 miles from the sights we wanted to see. The problem with the space was it was only available for another hour. So, we took off walking.

 Can you tell Abbey was sans nap and not exactly thrilled to be here

Another thing we hadn't expected was the fact that there was a limited amount of tickets given each day, and of course, the quota was already met for today. So much for seeing Indeped. Hall, except from the outside:

As we got in line for the Liberty Bell, we noticed these people looking at our children.  I asked them where they were from, and as I suspected, they were from China. I told them Abbey and Elijah were from Chongqing and Guangdong. Immediately they start to take pictures of our kids and us. They came and posed with us. It was just like when we were in China.

So, I took a picture of them taking pictures

 The woman with the umbrella pushed the stroller along with me the whole way

Abbey wasn't amused, and wouldn't talk to them. Elijah just sucked his thumb and acted as if they weren't there. I thought it was pretty neat. They gave us the "thumbs up" sign several times. 

After our few minutes of fame, we got inside and saw the infamous bell

Abbey was definitely in "a mood"

After getting out, John got a "real" Philly steak and cheese sandwich, and we watched a living history display

As we walked back to the car, the sky was getting dark. Right when we got settled into the car, the bottom dropped out. It rained buckets, hailed and the wind was blowing like crazy. (We saw on the news that night that there was lots of damage from the storm). Of course, because of the weather disturbance, we briefly lost contact for our GPS. That was a little unnerving. It came back though, and got us out of downtown Philly and onto New Jersey where we spent the night. We will head to NY tomorrow.