Philadelphia Freedom!

On Sunday we made our way to the City of Brotherly Love - Philadelphia!  

I have two things to say about Philadelphia. 1) It was WET!  2) We LOVED it!

We started our day by finding a church, and the one we found was deep in the city with zero parking!  We ended up parking at the Arby's next door.  But church was great once we got there, and it got us out of the rain for a few hours.  There were some neat people in that ward.

Wet, wet, wet.  I don't I have seen this much rain ever!  Then again, I am a desert rat.  We don't see this much rain in an entire year, or decade, for that matter.  We loved it!

Pouring!

We had tickets to tour Independence Hall first thing.  Unfortunately, Dennis missed it because he was still driving around downtown trying to find a place to park that huge RV. Poor guy.  But they would very nice about letting him come at a later time, so he didn't miss it after all.

Before we went into Independence Hall, the guide spoke to us.  This was no ordinary tour guide history blah blah blah.  This guy was incredible!  He was passionate about this country and the Constitution!  He started by asking us which state we were all from, and many of the states were represented, and then he welcomed us all home.  He said that this was a family reunion of sorts, and we had all come home, from whichever state we happen to be from, home to where this Nation was born!  He was passionate as he expounded on what a marvelous document our constitution is and what it took to get it here, and why it is the key to what makes this diverse nation one and what makes it free.  I had tear in my eyes.  It was a very spiritual experience for me!  He really did a good job of preparing us for what we were about to see!  I wanted to stand up and cheer!

There really is not much to Independence Hall.  You walk into a large foyer, and to your right it is completely open to a courtroom.  He explained that the courtroom was open like that so that anyone coming into the building could see the proceedings to insure that they were done openly and fairly.

Then, off to the left, behind doors this time, is the chamber where our founding fathers sat two to a table, one for each of the 13 states, and hashed out our Constitution.  In this very room.  The guide pointed out where various men sat - Thomas Jefferson here, and Benjamin Franklin right over there.  A few of their personal effects are still there, at their places.

After the empassionaed speech we had just heard, I was so wonderful to be there and imagine what that must have been like to try to create a nation.  Surely the spirit was there with them.

He told us the story of how Benjamin Franklin, then a feeble old man who could barely walk, spent the whole convention looking at the half sun carved on the back of George Washington's chair up at the front of the room (he was the president of the Constitutional Congress) and wondered it was a rising sun, or a setting sun.  He finally stood at the end of the convention, after it had been signed, and he declared that he knew now that that was a rising sun on the back of Washington's chair.  

The chair behind the desk at the front of the room is the very same chair that Washington sat in.  Unfortunatley, we could not get close enough to really see the sun carved on the back, but it was still veery cool to see.

Before we left, he reminded us that we are all family, and that we all come from this place.  He asked us all to take a piece of this place home with us in our hearts, and to leave a piece of our hearts here in this room as well.