We settled into our site at Philadelphia South KOA Holiday / Clarksboro after a very short drive of just 62 miles. It has been nice the last couple of stops to have such short drives. There are two types of KOA campgrounds: KOA Journey, like we stayed at in West Virginia, is for short term stayovers, like a pause in your driving schedule to rest up and recharge; KOA Holiday is a more resort-like property with lots of amenities and even cabins to rent that is more conducive to bringing the entire family for a week as a camping vacation. Our Philly Holiday location didn’t have so many kids, though, because it was stuffed full of futbol fanatics (yes, like in soccer). Philadelphia is hosting a month of FIFA World Cup events and games, and the entire town has been taken over by European and Asian tourists wearing bright Futbol jerseys from every corner of the earth. A “FIFA Ambassador” (they are everywhere) volunteered to take the picture of us above. Our KOA was full of giant RV’s (Class A Motorhomes and 5th Wheels) plastered with signage and team names, and we’re guessing they are there for the month. Philly KOA is the only RV campground close to Philadelphia (only 15 miles) so I’m glad I booked this 7 months ago!
Philadelphia itself, packed as it is with FIFA tourists, is decked out with FIFA bunting and signage, and all this will come down the day the World Cup events are done with a super-fast retrofit to America 250 bunting and signage. We saw the boxes of waiting stuff stacked around the backs of all the displays, ready to go. It will take an army, I think, but judging by the army of volunteers that were raised for the WC, I have faith they will just reuse that army for America 250.
We started our day of immersion with an early “Open House” tour of Independence Hall, available from 9am to 9:50AM. We recommend it to avoid the formal tour crowds of later in the day. It isn’t a large venue and I imagine it either looks more like a sardine tin later on, or the lines to get in are around the block (which they are set up for).
From there, it’s only steps (our iPhones were counting) to the Liberty Bell Center, then a few more steps to the Independence Visitor Center. In these 3 buildings you can get a concentration of every bit of American Revolutionary War history you were ever exposed to in school, and a bit more. And they are all free. Somehow, more than a few steps farther, a National Constitution Center was raised but you have to pay $25 each (senior rate) to see anything. We passed, feeling like we had been immersed enough.
All that immersion made us hungry and reminded of one of the boxes to tick while we were in town, a genuine Philly Cheesesteak. We spotted a small sidewalk cart near Independence Hall, and I asked the owner, whose name is Rostam Khan, if any fat cops ate there. He first looked at me funny, then I realized his English wasn’t native, so I explained “you know, fat policemen”. He laughed and said “Yes, of course!”. When I told him I wanted authentic Philly Cheesesteak, he pulled out his cell phone and showed me an interview he had with Fox29 WTXF that aired on a food segment, proclaiming his to be 100% the real deal. So, we bought and ate. It was a LOT of food for us, and we shared one. You can use this technique when you are next in Philly!
We learned a few new things. Did you know there is a Women’s Liberty Bell? It was inaugurated in 1915 to celebrate the equality of everyone.
And it makes perfect sense, but isn’t something that is pointed out in the school history of the RevWar, that each of the Continental armies had “followers”, wives, sisters and aunts, homeless men, women and children whose best chance at survival was to follow along and perform any tasks or jobs the army needed in exchange for security and sustenance. They acted as nurses, cooks, firewood gatherers, water fetchers, launderers, seamstresses and supply managers. Contrary to what many might be thinking at this moment, it was rare that they were prostitutes. Washington created a policy that governed them, and the armies fed and housed them in exchange for their services. Many got paid in Continental Currency. George figured it was better for a wife or girlfriend to be close by and safe than to have the soldier desert out of loneliness or concern. The flip side to this for the British army was to enlist and employ the same services from either Loyalist colonials or to bring them from England. It gave a slight edge to the Americans to have this part of their logistics managed organically.
Washington Park, kitty-corner to Independence Hall, is the site of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the Revolutionary War, a tribute to the many anonymous patriots who fought and died for our freedom. Washington Park itself was originally a potter’s field, gravesites for the poor or unidentified, including many RevWar soldiers. The tomb also memorializes the leadership and bravery of George Washington.
Next stop was Washington Crossing, a park and museum about 30 miles north of Philly, close to where George and his troops crossed the Delaware River to attack Hessian troops camped on the New Jersey side. Initially 3 forces were to cross at 3 different ferry locations on the river, then to converge on the Hessian encampment to surround them. 2 of the forces were stymied by the tidal crush of ice downriver that made the river impassable to both foot and boat crossing. On the late afternoon of Christmas Day in 1776, Washington, who was advised against trying to cross, crossed anyhow using 40 flatboats, each capable of holding 40 people, that had been drawn up at McConkey’s Ferry on the Pennsylvania side.
It was planned to take 4 hours to transport 2,400 men, 50 horses, 18 cannon, and numerous supply wagons across the Delaware River to Johnson’s Ferry on the opposite bank, a few miles upriver from the attack site at Trenton. Instead, it took 13 because of the ice jam in the river, but still didn’t ruin the surprise attack, which gave the only real advantage to the significantly reduced attacking forces. Fortunately, when the surprise effect was combined with the fact that the Hessians, assuming nobody would be able or stupid enough to cross the river, had gotten drunk and passed out the night before, the battle was relatively quick and decisive in favor of the Americans. This was an early victory boost for the patriots, and an example of what happened when the relatively untrained and inexperienced American armies, and especially Washington’s situational awareness and strategic thinking, were underestimated.
We toured south to the 1777-1778 winter camp for the Continental Army, Valley Forge. I had always assumed the name was a reference to a geographical entity, a valley, named after some local townie. But this encampment inherits its name from a successful ironworking business located nearby. The army of some 11,000 to 14,000 soldiers and artillery battalions made camp in the bitter winter with the help of their following women and children. The farmland and forested area they occupied was quickly changed by the harvesting of vast swaths of the forest for logs used to construct about 1,200 smallish huts for shelter from the cold. These shelters proved decisive in the attitudes and health of the troops by the following spring. After the troops departed, the locals quickly scavenged many of the materials used to construct them, so only a few remain in a preserved state.
Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian recruited by Washington, and uber-experienced in the ways of war, was influential in helping Washington and his officers in planning the layout of both the camp and its defenses. Von Steuben was appointed Inspector General of the Continental Armies, and was in charge of training of forces. “Squad, halt!” were 2 of the very few English words the General knew, but he got the job done admirably.
The valley geography offered wide flat spaces, the farmland, and higher hilltop artillery emplacements that overlooked all the advances to the site and could deliver long distance deterrents to any attacking force. Redoubts, fortified lookouts, were also dug at these locations to assist in detecting any possible enemy forces approaching.
Von Steuben instituted a formal training program for the troops to instill some order and discipline that, later in the war, paid big dividends in battles where the Americans were frequently outnumbered. He also installed protocols for field hospitals that stressed cleanliness and quarantine that dramatically improved the survivability rate of wounded soldiers. His contributions are underappreciated in our war literature.
The encampment at Valley Forge resulted in a lot of “ruined land” with trees cleared for miles around and farmland laid to waste. It took the locals only one year to rehabilitate the land and plant crops again.
A little-known fact about the motto E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one”, that we have seen thousands of times on virtually all of our currency (go ahead, find some currency all of you ApplePay folk, or borrow some from a neighbor, and take a look). It was coined (pun intended) by George Washington and the 3 intertwined letters appeared on Union soldier uniform buttons.
Travel Update (from a previous blog): We’ve used Amazon a couple of times to get parts that became needed for a repair, and we used it again to get a new Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) for the trailer tires (the truck has a factory integrated one). We can now see, in real time, what the pressure and temperature of each tire is, which gives us a level of anxiety relief after the blowout in North Carolina. The little monitor is stuck on the dash with Alien Tape and constantly reads out both PSI and Temp for each tire. It lets me set a range so I get an audible and visual alarm if the tire pressure gets too high (overheating) or too low (leaking) and has a different alarm for “sudden loss of pressure” that you would get with a puncture. Phew!
Travel Update 2 (also from a much more previous blog): Wendy was cruising through the blog archive and found a mention of gas prices from May 17, 2011, while we were traveling in Northern Nevada. We logged gas at $3.78 per gallon on that day, almost exactly what we just paid to fill the truck before our drive to Connecticut. According to Wendy’s research, “gas prices were high in May, 2011 due to political unrest in the middle east and North Africa”. History does repeat itself. Everybody stop whining about the price of gas, we’ve been there before.
Next up, Hartford Connecticut and Rhode Island
Onward!
Another annoying Legal Notice: Tippy has gone on strike. Words cannot describe. We have hired a scab, Chester, who will be filling in until Tippy’s manager comes to his senses.
MUDDSCAPE 