Today marked the beginning of the “Church Trip”, or whatever you want to call it. I still haven’t even made up my mind. We spent most of the day in the car, so the day was fairly uneventful, and by the end of it we were pretty “road sick”.
Washington, D.C.
We left Granite Falls a little after 5:00am, stopped for breakfast along the way, and managed to make it to Washington, D.C. (through some of the worst traffic I’ve ever seen) around 2:00pm. We stopped at District Taco on F Street for some barbacoa, carnitas, and pollo asado tacos, which were excellent!
Originally, we planned to take a walking/circulator tour of the monuments and National Mall after lunch, but because we were running behind and it was drizzling, we opted to drive around the Mall one time and then head out of the city.
Philadelphia
We finally arrived in Philadelphia around 7:00pm, which was unfortunately too late to tour any of the historical sites. After we found some parking, we walked around the Independence Hall area, toured the President’s House, and walked around the outside of the Liberty Bell museum (thrilling). After our rather uneventful tour, it was on to better things: cheese steaks!
Our first endeavor was to find a place called Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop that supposedly had great steaks. By this time, it was close to their closing time at 8:00pm, and we were headed towards a rough part of town, so we opted for Plan B, which was basically whatever Dad had pulled up on his phone. It turned out to be a good decision. We ate at a place on Broad Street called Jimmy G’s Steaks that was outstanding.
Jimmy G's Steaks
Philadelphia, PA
An authentic Philly steak. Unfortunately, Jimmy G’s is now permanently closed.
* – Would definitely visit again
** – Exceptional, must visit if you’re in the area
*** – Worth making a special trip to eat there
Conclusion
After ordering our steaks “prov wit” like semi-authentic Philly natives (the only difference being a bit of a noticeable drawl) and devouring them at the tables outside, we decided it was time to hit the road, so we headed up to NJ (some familiar territory for Dad and me) and finally checked into our hotel just shy of 11:00pm.
Tomorrow, the Church family will take on the Big Apple and hopefully some big waffles. Oh, and something about Connecticut too, but we’ll see if Mom survives the subway before we start to speculate.
Final Thoughts
Like I said, there wasn’t much to report from today, but tomorrow should be pretty interesting because [Churches + NYC = ???].
A few other things of note from today:
- Obviously, we didn’t teleport straight to DC and then to Philadelphia, though that would have saved us a significant amount of time and possibly prevented some amount of road rage. Today we saw sights in NC, VA, MD, DE, NJ, PA, and then NJ again.
- We realized we still don’t know what’s happening on this trip. I suppose I kinda do because I planned it, but Mom thought we were going to Boston tomorrow instead of New York City, so that created some temporary confusion. Dad remembers the plans by types of food, so I don’t believe he has any concerns as long as the status-quo is being well-fed.
- Mom was amazed that it’s illegal to pump your own gas in NJ, and that they offer full service at every gas station. And that service stations are sometimes in the median. Dad and I were too busy discussing the job-creating potential of requiring that in other states.
