October 22, 2007 well, we made it home safe and sound. We left this morning at 7:15am and drove to Elizabethtown to catch Amtrak to Philly. What a nice train ride, I know I always make comments about amtrak coming off the tracks, but it was a smooth ride today. I really don't believe I have ever been on amtrak or any train ride, not for amusement, Knots ect. and it was nice. The seats are nice, kind of like on a plane, they lean back and have lights for reading. Anyway, to and from Philly was uneventful, just comfortable. When we got into Philly we had to catch their Septa Rail to take us into the city, close to the visitor center. Good thing Dave has experience buying tickets and reading there travel times and schedules because I would have been totally lost. We got to the visit center and checked it out and decided to do the free independence tours, you had to get tickets but it was free. We went and saw the Liberty Bell and read up on the history of that. Then our time for the Tour was 11 am so we did the Independence Hall and the Congress Hall. After that we went back to the visitor center and got tickets to do the double decker bus tour. The bus tour had 20 stops, Betsy Ross House, Chinatown, City Hall, Basilica of St. Peter & Paul, "Rocky Steps", Zoo, ect. which were interesting to see but the bus went too fast to take pictures. Since they have 20 stops to make in 90 min. they move pretty fast. What I noticed, in Philly, we did a lot of circles because everything is right in the middle of the town.(hope that makes sense) We did get off at stop 16 because then we were on the search for the best Philly Cheese steak sandwich, which I wanted to do. The 2 biggest places that people talk about, plus they have had on food network,( we seem to be following their recommendations if you haven't noticed from other blogs) is Gino's or Pat's Philly Cheese steaks. They were across the street from each other and just about had the same amount of people at each. We stopped at Gino's and got one cheese steak with onions and cheese whiz, then went to Pat's and got one cheese steak with onions and provolone cheese, well Gino's wins. We did half and half on the sandwiches and we both agreed that the cheese whiz was better. I still thought Gino's steak was tastier, but Dave didn't notice a difference, but the cheese whiz made a difference. All and all Dave said he could make a better cheese steak sandwich better then either one of them, and I would have to agree. But then again Dave isn't selling to the public, that makes a difference on the cost of things, Pat's and Gino's prices where very reasonable. If Dave made the sandwiches, the way he wanted to, he would have to charge a lot more.
Anyway, when we got off at stop 16 we had to walk 9 blocks to try those sandwiches, by the time we walked back the 9 blocks to re-catch another tour bus it had showed up early and we saw it go by. It was getting late in the afternoon so we decided to walk back to the train station. It ended up being 20 blocks that we had to walk to get to the train station, so 29 long blocks in all, hopefully we walked off those Philly Cheese steak sandwiches.
We got back to the coach at almost 6pm and Valley was a happy camper to see us again.
Tomorrow Amish country, will let you know about that.