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A day in Philly.
Sep. 30th, 2009 05:18 pmRonan and I took the commuter rail lines into Philly today. No camera because I didn't want to carry a ton into the city on foot.
We took the River Line from Cinnaminson down to Camden, where we picked up the PATCO high speed rail into Philly. Ronan loved the River Line, which is above ground, but the PATCO train was underground at that point (except for the bridge). He loved going over the Ben Franklin Bridge (note: grab a front seat, the side windows are filthy and impossible to see through), but the tunnels distressed him.
We walked down Locust to Rittenhouse Sq, then up 18th to Logan Sq/Circle, where we followed it around to the Academy of Natural Sciences (Natural History Museum). I haven't actually walked around Rittenhouse much, so it was neat to see the shopping districts.
Ronan was not impressed by the animal dioramas, except for the yak. The butterfly exhibit held his attention just slightly, until the curator started talking to us. At that point, Mr. Antisocial demanded that we leave. He wanted to see the dinosaur bones, of course, but as soon as he realized just how *big* they were, he freaked. I pretty much expected that. We ended up on the top exhibition floor, where there's a kid's touch-and-feel room with puzzles, live animals, bones, pelts, etc. He enjoyed that.
After leaving ANSP, we walked up to the Swann fountain in Logan Circle. We sat there and had snacks. I asked Ronan if he wanted to go back to Grandma's yet or try another museum. He was game for another museum, so we walked over to the Franklin Institute. After convincing him to put on a wristband, we wandered about. It was mostly too big/intense/complicated for him. He wanted to see the trains, but the Baldwin 60000 was just too massive, too loud, and too scary for the tyke. So we wandered back to the Kid Science area and he played in the water exhibits for awhile . . . until I realized he was soaked and remembered that the weather today was windy, chilly (60F, so not cold), and somewhat damp. Ooof. Oh, well, that's what babywearing is for, right?
Leaving FI, we headed back down, crisscrossing over to the Starbucks at Market & 18th before walking back to our PATCO station on Locust. We rode a considerably more crowded PATCO train back to Camden and caught a very crowded River Line train back to Cinnaminson. A fifteen minute drive back to Mt. Laurel and we beat Grandma home by 10 minutes.
It was long enough for every single toy and train to be dumped on the floor.
We took the River Line from Cinnaminson down to Camden, where we picked up the PATCO high speed rail into Philly. Ronan loved the River Line, which is above ground, but the PATCO train was underground at that point (except for the bridge). He loved going over the Ben Franklin Bridge (note: grab a front seat, the side windows are filthy and impossible to see through), but the tunnels distressed him.
We walked down Locust to Rittenhouse Sq, then up 18th to Logan Sq/Circle, where we followed it around to the Academy of Natural Sciences (Natural History Museum). I haven't actually walked around Rittenhouse much, so it was neat to see the shopping districts.
Ronan was not impressed by the animal dioramas, except for the yak. The butterfly exhibit held his attention just slightly, until the curator started talking to us. At that point, Mr. Antisocial demanded that we leave. He wanted to see the dinosaur bones, of course, but as soon as he realized just how *big* they were, he freaked. I pretty much expected that. We ended up on the top exhibition floor, where there's a kid's touch-and-feel room with puzzles, live animals, bones, pelts, etc. He enjoyed that.
After leaving ANSP, we walked up to the Swann fountain in Logan Circle. We sat there and had snacks. I asked Ronan if he wanted to go back to Grandma's yet or try another museum. He was game for another museum, so we walked over to the Franklin Institute. After convincing him to put on a wristband, we wandered about. It was mostly too big/intense/complicated for him. He wanted to see the trains, but the Baldwin 60000 was just too massive, too loud, and too scary for the tyke. So we wandered back to the Kid Science area and he played in the water exhibits for awhile . . . until I realized he was soaked and remembered that the weather today was windy, chilly (60F, so not cold), and somewhat damp. Ooof. Oh, well, that's what babywearing is for, right?
Leaving FI, we headed back down, crisscrossing over to the Starbucks at Market & 18th before walking back to our PATCO station on Locust. We rode a considerably more crowded PATCO train back to Camden and caught a very crowded River Line train back to Cinnaminson. A fifteen minute drive back to Mt. Laurel and we beat Grandma home by 10 minutes.
It was long enough for every single toy and train to be dumped on the floor.
