My sisters and I scored an apartment on Booking.com with 3 bedrooms and 1 ½ baths just 3 blocks from the convention center. NOT mentioned in the apartment details and description – two very steep flights of steps.
My oldest two sisters have knee and back problems. They soldiered up and made it to the tiny landing. Where we waited for over fifteen minutes because we were given the wrong door code. Once Kathleen was able to contact the right people – and getting the right code – the apartment itself was very nice.
Kathleen and I are early risers, so we took a morning walk round the downtown area, checking out the Liberty Bell (through the glass),
Constitution Hall
and finishing at the Reading Terminal Market. The Market doesn’t open until 8AM (we were there at 7:30). We found a nearby Dunkin’ and grabbed some coffee while we waited. 8AM Friday is not too crowded, so we were able to make our purchases of bagels with fancy cream cheese, donuts and fruit in near record time.
Suz has a membership to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which gives us tickets to the preview on Friday – which is still quite crowded, and took about thirty minutes of waiting in line and winding through the exterior and interior of the convention center. But this was not our first foray. With only four hours to see the show, we boot-scooted to the miniatures (some of our favorite displays)
while most attendees crowded around the large themed displays that we save for the end. After miniatures and art, and individual plant competition,
we headed to the vendors. There were a lot more plant, seed and bulb vendors now that the show is back to its traditional March dates, alongside jewelers and purveyors of sometimes interesting and eclectic items.
The last hour we spent winding through the main displays – the theme this year was “The Garden Electric”.
Due to my upcoming travel schedule, this year needed to be a combination flower show with sisters’ weekend, so we stayed in Philly until Sunday. On Saturday we did one of my favorite things – we headed to the Museum! Kathleen and I walked up the infamous “Rocky Steps” of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was officially established at the centennial in 1876, but construction was not completed until 1928. It houses over 240,000 objects covering over a millenia of artwork. As always – I took lots of pictures.
I flew home on Sunday, picking up a week of work before getting to the serious business of getting the house packed up and ready to be a vacation rental while we spend the better part of 18-24 months traveling around the world (with a few breaks).