More to do in this town than we had thought

Philadelphia was awesome!  The National Park Area of Independence Hall is well organized with plenty of helpful Park Rangers and people in period attire.  Unfortunately it's surrounded by a still kinda crappy town and pawn shops can be found within a block of Independence Mall and the drive in takes you through a run-down industrial section.  Whatever, we still had fun.
We started off yesterday pretty slow.  Woke up late, took a dip in the pool, took our time loading up.  Unlike today- I'm trying to get out of this crappy hotel as fast as possible.  It's an embarrassment to the Holiday Inn Express name.  Broken window, hot room with wet floors, water tastes like the local swamp, and to top it off- the TV caught on fire this morning.  The kids are acting up already- Gotta get out of here.
Oh, more about yesterday, right.
Started off the day at the new-fangeled Independence Museum.  Watched a couple videos and talked to some period actors. 
We saw the liberty bell.  This was pretty cool I guess.  We tried hard to envision a world without TV or Radio where a town bell was kind of a big deal.  Told the time, announced important events, called folks to meetings.... no txt messaging available.  Didn't spend a whole lot of time soaking in the glory of a broken bell because we had a 1500 military muster.
The kids joined the Continental Army yesterday.  They marched to fife and drums and did drill and ceremony with wooden guns.  It's the number one kid event of the city.  Lots of fun.
After a break for fudge and to re-load our camelbacks with water we went on to Independence Hall. 
The hall was cool and historical and important.  It was neat but I'm starting to get the feeling that the kids have been a bit over-history-ed.  All these colonial spots might be running together in their 2nd and 3rd grade brains.....all well, that's the way it goes.  Welcome to the American Road trip kiddos.
Then we saw the weirdest thing.  Independence Mall was visited by a gaggle of spy-suited women.  Apparently this was some sort of public advertisement for some spy show airing at  blah blah blah.  Didn't watch the show but Biz does enjoy the free red binoculars one of the ladies gave her.
Another fudge break and some time in the Travel Truck's AC before dinner with Nate's girlfriend.  Oh wait, we did stop for soccer for 15 minutes or so while waiting for our dinner date.
Heather was fun (good find Nate) and the kids had a great dinner of fancy-smancy mac and cheese.  We have been fortunate to meet up with lots of friends in different cities along the way.  We'll call them "friends of the road"and I'll have to write more about them later.

Finally we went on to the World's Worst Holiday Inn and basted in the swamp-like room.