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canoeing, kayaking and other adventures

canoeing and kayaking adventures born in the Southeastern U.S. and now centered in Scotland...

Thursday, January 03, 2008

The Rocky Run and Our Philadelphia Story - 20/12/2007

The plan was to meet Jeanne in Philadelphia in the evening so we made a day of seeing its touristy side. Brian and I took PATCO, which seemed no different from my high school days, unfortunately, across the river to 8th & Market and headed toward the old stuff. We saw the Constitution Center, Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. We thought the Constitution might be at the Constitution Center, so we went there first. It wasn't. They had a copy of the Constitution that appeared in a newspaper, which was pretty cool. The Center's Ipod tour was a bit annoying. I got yelled at by the security guy for taking a bad camera phone photo of Brian taking the oath of office to be the next US President. Sadly, we have no evidence, so the election nonsense continues full bore. We had a chatty tour guide in Independence Hall who made Brian envy his job ("I want a job like this. I could rant!"). Sadly, we missed the actual "official" Constitution because the building shut just after our tour ended.

We met Jeanne at her hotel and went for a four mile out and back run from there to the riverfront and up to the Art Museum. She and I both fiddled with gadgets that took their time to find their satellites as we ran. We reached the Art Museum and did a lap looking for the famous steps. You know the ones. Sylvester Stallone aka Rocky Balboa has his famous training montage that culminates with a run up the Art Museum steps to the tune of "Gonna Fly Now".

The wikipedia article breezes through the squabble of where to put 1900lbs of bronze Rocky. The Art Museum didn't want him. I think City Hall was supposed to get him, but they didn't want him. The Art Commission said it was a movie prop, not art. Rocky lived outside the Spectrum for a while and made another temporary reappearance at the Art Museum for another of the sequels before returning finally to a permanent home beside the steps and behind a reasonable amount of foliage.

We celebrated prematurely with Rocky and then made the famous run up the steps, celebrated again with the view and ran back to the hotel. We had a nice dinner at a Mexican place that unfortunately had limited vegetarian options. Unfortunately early flights and trains meant we had to say our good byes. The next morning, Jeanne had to get home and we had a play date with my puppy before heading to New York.

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