Dave bought tickets to a Scottish festival in Maryland. We haven't been to one since we lived in Utah, and a band from Scotland that he is a fan of was going to be there. I didn't realize till pretty much the day before, but the festival was quite a ways away, on the far east border of Maryland.
The morning of, as we were getting ready to head out, the thought struck me, how far away will we be to Philadelphia? We have wanted to take a trip to Philly for a long time now, but have never gotten around to actually going. It was only another 45 minutes to Philly, so I looked up hotels in the city, and we decided to book one. I don't think we have ever gone on such a spur of the moment trip, it was so fun!
The festival was muddy, rainy, but fun. The band from Scotland, Albannach, are a primal pipe and drum band. Kinda cool. And of course, we got to enjoy some haggis, which really isn't that bad.
After that we hit the road to our hotel.
After taking a quick shower to warm up a bit and clean the mud off our feet and legs, we decided to hire a driver to take us into the city for dinner. We wanted to try a cheesesteak that the city is famous for. We were debating between Geno's or Pat's, and asked our driver what he recommended. He said tourists just go to those places, and that locals don't actually like their cheesesteaks. We took his recommendation to go to Jim's.
Despite it being quite rainy, there was a line out the door. Lucily it moved along fairly quickly and soon enough we were chowing down on some amazing Philly cheesesteaks.
I got one with onions, peppers and whiz. All the Yelp reviews said to ask for extra whiz. I should have asked for extra whiz! But despite this, it was still really yummy.
We wanted to walk around a bit, but it was still raining quite a lot and we had forgotten to bring an umbrella. We decided to walk across the street to get some tea from Starbucks and hope the rain would die down. Sadly, it did not, and feeling like I was coming down with a cold, we decided to hire a driver to take us back to the hotel.
The next morning we got to check something off my wishlist; Reading Terminal Market.
This place is AMAZING!
The place was first opened in 1892, housing more than 75 merchants! It's huge! So many amazing shops to explore! I really wish we hadn't put off coming, so that we could have made multiple return trips, there is only so much you can eat in one trip!
I wanted to eat a little bit of everything!
One of the merchants also include America's old ice cream company, open since 1861! My stomach was SO FULL! But I wish I had tried some.
We ended up sharing one cheesesteak, with cheese whiz, of course.
And an incredible grilled cheese, grilled in duck fat! Sounds crazy, but was so decadent!
And we got a couple of cannolis to go, and we reluctantly hit the road.
Although before leaving the city we drove buy the new temple that is being built at the the heart of the city. It was so cool to see this lovely house of the Lord in the middle of the crazy bustling city.
And Dave got this shot as we drove away from the city.
Wished it had been a little longer of a trip, but I am glad we managed to visit before moving much farther away!
.JPG)
No comments