The Van Blog: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Sunday we left New York City and made it to Philadelphia within a few hours. We initially tried to get a hotel room and stay there the night, but we ran into many hotels with no availability or high rates for places that were normally very reasonable. We weren't sure the reason, but one of the hotels we stopped at was right by the baseball stadium and there was a game getting ready to start as we were pulling up. The irony was that they were playing the Oakland Athletics (go A's!)! Kyle had put on his "Philadelphia" shirt which gives homage to one of his favorite shows It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but the thing we never anticipated was that his green shirt might be mistaken for an Oakland Athletics team gear (he got some interesting looks, and as we understand it Phillies fans are some of the most ruthless)! As headed downtown we passed through the streets of South Philly and all its glory: Philly cheese steak stands with enormous lines into the streets, the Italian market with fresh fruit and vegetable karts, one way streets that run into other one way streets, and brick row houses. After finding parking we walked downtown and saw Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed, a small brick building amongst tall sky scrapers. We would have liked to see the Liberty Bell up close, but the line was about a mile long and we could see it through the glass wall of the building, so we called that “good enough” and I got a photo as proof that we have seen it. We took in the city, had lunch, then headed out of town, south towards Washington DC. Sunday we went through 5 states: Starting in New York, then New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and eventually landing in Maryland, just outside the District of Columbia. We got a hotel for 2 nights so we could wake up early and hit the historical sites of DC.