Philadelphia and Valley Forge

10/20/15, Tuesday. Arrived at Quaker Woods Campground in Quakertown, PA.  Got settled and set off for the campground showers to wash my hair.  Oops - should not have done that as the showers were lousy--no stools or benches, small showers, and only warm water.  I have been fighting spasms in my back muscles for about a week and this shower did me in.  By the time I got back to the RV, I was in bed for the rest of the night.

Could not move next day, Wednesday, so had to stay put.  Tom cleaned up the coach and washed and walked the dogs.  I mostly caught on my reading.

10/22/15, Thursday.  Tom left on his own and drove to the Simeone Auto Museum in Philadelphia.  He really enjoyed it.  All of the cars there were operational.  All were racing sports cars.  Since they had just had an event the evening before, they had to move a lot of cars around.  Tom could hear the engines running.  Here are two pics for the blog:

1938 Alfa Romero

LeMans Racing Cars

Liberty Bell

10/23/15, Friday.  Tom and I ventured out to downtown Philly for a tour of the historical district surrounding Independence Hall an the Liberty Bell.  The three main buildings were the Court House (where the first Supreme Court was held), Independence Hall, and the Congressional Hall.  Philadelphia was the hub of our founding fathers' meetings.   The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were both created and signed at Independence Hall.  Even though the first capitol of our country was in New York, it was only for 2 years, and then moved to Philadelphia, where it stayed for 10 years from 1790 to 1800 (while they were building Washington DC out of swamp land).  Then it moved to Washington DC. We talked to many of the park rangers and security people and found out that life in the 1700's in politics wasn't very much different than today.  Our forefathers fought constantly, even violently, in congress and in the senate.   Actually Jefferson and Hamilton were arch enemies and found on two sides of almost every debate.  Jefferson pushed for more states' control, where Hamilton wanted bigger government.  Seems like we have that today.  Here are some of my pictures.

Independence Hall Front

Side of Independence Hall

Congress Hall

Philly City Hall

After our day in the city (and the horrible traffic), we headed back to the campground but stopped in a little town called Spinnertown, where we had dinner at the Spinnertown Hotel.  The founders of the town (the Spinner family) built the Hotel and Restaurant in 1811 as a stopover between New York and Philadelphia.  We had the best full dinner of the trip.  The onion soup was the best I have ever had.  The dinner was delicious (I had short ribs and Tom had pork loin) and the dessert - Wow!   A dinner that goes down in the memory book.

10/24/15, Saturday.  Tom and I went to Valley Forge Historical Park in PA.  It was larger than we expected - about 5 square miles.  It is a valley surrounded by hills where Washington wintered his troops in preparation for battle with the British.  The winter was harsh.  The men had no proper clothing, or shoes.  Also food and other supplies were scarce.  Disease killed many more men than the fighting.  I cannot fathom how hard that must have been.

After the battlefield, we went to the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site.  It was an ironmaking plantation from 1773 to 1883.  They produced their own charcoal to fuel the furnaces.  They cast iron cannons, stoves, kettles, and other pig iron items.  From these furnaces, grew America's iron and steel industry.

Hopewell Fireplace

Hopewell products