Day 47: Adventure Aquarium in Camden

Just across the Delaware from our marina is the Adventure Aquarium.  If we had swum across, that might have been the easiest way of getting there, but never mind...  When we first arrived, it was full to the brim of schoolchildren.  They were interacting with aquarium by shrieking 'wow, a fish!!!!' (or whatever), at the tops of their voices, flashing the cameras on their cell phones at everything and buying trinkets.  We didn't know how we were going to survive a whole day with all the noise.  Luckily, they all went home at about lunchtime and we had a lovely afternoon interacting with the aquarium by drawing representatives from six major phyla of animals.

Day 46: National Liberty Museum

We wandered into the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia more or less by chance.  It is one strange place.  It contains:

1. Some very beautiful art works such as the 'flame' by Dale Chihuly,
2. Propaganda of the 'America, land of freedom' type,
3. The small print that tells the truth about extermination of Native Americans, slavery, incarceration, grinding poverty, hate crime, violence,
4. Walls of biographies.  Biographies of good guys, bad guys, Nobel Peace Prize winners and dictators, people who've overcome disabilities or fought for human rights,...

I don't know what to think about this place, I'm still making up my mind.  On the other hand, it worked out quite well for the roadschooling because we seem to have found ourselves doing a whole unit on biography.

Day 42: Horseshoe crabs

The dunes of Cape Henlopen, looking towards the Atlantic

Today, I got to tick another item off my list of ambitions: see a real live horseshoe crab.  When we arrived at Rehoboth Beach yesterday, I did not have the highest hopes.    The Atlantic coast is pretty enough, but it's a barren desert when it comes to wildlife.  It turns out that the secret is to get into the Delaware estuary just a few miles north on the other side of Cape Henlopen.  We found live horseshoes, eggs, and lots of dead carcasses.

A horseshoe crab minding its own business...

Antonia imitating David Attenborough

The nether regions of a horseshoe crab

Bonus dolphin sighting on the Atlantic side of  Cape Henlopen

Day 41: Half way through the East Coast stay

We are about halfway through our stay in Philadelphia.  Since someone else had pre-booked our houseboat for this weekend, we had to move out temporarily.  We've gone down to the Delaware beaches to look for horseshoe crabs.  We are staying in a nice hotel, the Bellmoor, in Rehoboth Beach, which is also quite nice.  We found a vegan restaurant, and Mike is going back for a cooking demonstration there tomorrow.

Although I like Philadelphia, and still have a few things I would like to do, I am nearly ready to move on.  I've never found the east coast of the US stunningly attractive.  Some of it is plain ugly, and some of it is pretty enough and a few bits are interestingly authentic or grungey.  The Philadelphia skyline seems to the jewel in its crown (sorry Manhattan, I never was that impressed).  My worst problem with the east coast is that it gives me serious attacks of claustrophobia.  I thought it would be a bit easier having our own place, and it has been, but still...  The problem here is the lack of public space and especially access to any piece of countryside big enough to go for a walk in.  All the land is private, suburbanized, and there are few to no public footpaths.  You get caged into the narrow channels of streets and highways, if the cars will save you any space.  If you're welcome somewhere, it's usually so you can be sold something.  The state parks and the beaches are tiny oases where you can't realistically walk for more than a couple of miles.  Even they are better set up for drivers than walkers.  I started to realize that even the center of Philadelphia is a small oasis as far as walking is concerned, surrounded by mile after mile of urban or suburban smush, probably with no sidewalks! There is definitely an irony to the Americans being so proud that they can have access to anything they want, at least in their big cities.  Unfortunately, the things I miss most are not on sale at the mall.  I feel like a caged beast! I'm hoping things will be easier for me when we get out to the west and where our trip is basically centered around the national parks.  Big wide open spaces, here I come... in about two weeks time.

Day 40: Thomas Jefferson and Declaration House

Today's roadschooling: the declaration of independence

Thomas Jefferson's parlour

We read the US declaration of independence and I tried very hard to explain all the sections of it to Antonia.  Later, we wandered over to the library to find a picture book about Thomas Jefferson (who wrote the declaration, for those who don't know).  Our nearest library is right next to Declaration House. I think this is a reconstruction of the house Thomas Jefferson was renting when he wrote the declaration, more or less on the same site.

In the library, after we read our picture book, I was looking at a completely unrelated book and learned that Thomas Jefferson had been unhappy with the way his colleagues had edited his declaration, but that he found it so hard to express himself orally, he didn't say anything.  I had been struck by the way the declaration changes style quite radically in at least one place, so it made sense.

Day 39: Fireworks over the Delaware

One of the great things about our houseboat is that we have the best view of the fireworks over on Camden Waterfront.  They seem to let them off very regularly and we just climb on to the roof deck of our boat and sit and enjoy.

Fireworks from our houseboat

We don't know why there are so many fireworks, but this evening is special as they are opening the Race Street Pier promenade.  This is a little park a couple of piers north or ours and it supposed to help to rejuvenate the waterfront.  Tickets for the opening event were $150 dollars each!  That's why our photos of the promenade are from the next day.

Antonia bouncing down the brand new seating

I can think of a few things that would improve the usability of the new park (and only cost another couple of billion dollars!).

1. More attractive pedestrian access from the Old Town district, 
2. Pedestrian access to the walkway over Ben Franklin bridge, perhaps from the stone pillar that's right between Old Town and the pier.
3. An outdoor cafe in summer even if small.  Or even an ice cream stand!

Day 37: Museum of American Jewish History

I've mostly been catching up on my own work, but sneaked in a visit to the Museum of American Jewish History.  Getting in is quite a big deal.  They have airport level security bag checks.  They made me empty out about an ounce of water that was left over in my gym bottle.  Strange, because most of the exhibits are not of intrinsic value and a lot of it is actually panels of information and stuff like that.  The history of Jews in America is a close parallel for the history of Europeans in general.  The exhibits brought out a lot of questions of freedom.

Religious freedom was a main concern for earlier settlers.  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the exhibit echoed what I learned from family: that the US offered the freedom to avoid getting killed, but not a whole lot else.  It has always seemed to me that conditions for immigrants to the US show just how little it takes to be better than death. It seemed like for every wave of immigrants, religion became less of a concern, which led to the ongoing question of preservation of identity.  The exhibits talked about the tensions this posed between personal freedom for individuals (to follow religious rules and customs or not) and the 'freedom' of the group to survive.