This was the day I woke up and learned that DT had won a second term as president. I had some adjusting to do in my brain, and it used up a lot of my energy that day. We did get up and booked a nice bus tour of Philadelphia. We saw a lot and learned some… our tour guide was great. My head and heart were elsewhere though. We came back to the hotel and crashed.
The next morning we rode the subway to the 15th street exit, then got on bus 38, which took us to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We’d heard this was a good museum, and we weren’t disappointed. We spent about 4 ½ hours inside. The museum was open a couple of more hours, but we were both pretty well shot by 2:30 or so, so we jumped back on the bus and made our way back to the hotel. I’d intended to read for a while, but dozed off for an hour or so. I did go out and find a bank so we could replenish our cash, which we’d used for tips, etc., got some Chipotle takeout and called it a day. The tickets to the museum were for 2 days, and included the Rodin museum, so we planned to go back the next day. The subway/bus folks were threatening a strike at midnight, which meant we might not be going anywhere.
The strike didn’t happen, so we took the subway to the 15th street exit, walked up the first stairway we saw, and found ourselves someplace neither of us recognized. Yesterday, when we exited up onto the sidewalk, there was a large city square with a major bus stop just across the road. Instead, there was a large office building next to us, so we figured if we walked around it, we’d soon see something we recognized. This was definitely the right station, and my guess is they have multiple exits for the convenience of folks that know what they are doing. We kept making right turns, and one of them took us down a sort of dodgy looking alley. We met someone walking the other way, and she seemed comfortable being there, so maybe we did a little bit more also. Eventually we came around another corner and found the bus stop. They really made us work for this one, though.
After a short wait for the bus, we tapped our phones/credit cards and got moving in the right direction. We soon arrived at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) and got off. We showed our tickets from yesterday to the friendly clerk, and she printed us fresh ones. Tickets at the PMA are good for 2 days. Then we walked to a gallery and were once again transported. These artists and their work do a great job of putting us in another world.
We toured until midday and they headed over to the museum cafe for a rest and some lunch. After lunch we decided to spend the afternoon at the Barnes. We walked over to the clerk that had checked us in and asked her if there was any transportation to the Barnes. She said no, but that it was a short walk of a few blocks. We decided to try it, so told the GPS on the phone to take us there. We dutifully followed the blue dots on the screen, and the amount of time to our destination increased rather than decreased. We turned around and tried retracing our steps. Even though we were walking opposite of what it was telling us, the time to the destination was now decreasing. That didn’t last long however. We finally by luck and process of elimination got close enough that the GPS got wind of the proper destination, and we arrived at the gate of the Barnes.
After some small hassles getting our tickets figured out, we were given the go-ahead to enter the galleries. It was our great good fortune to walk in just as a tour group was assembling, and we dovetailed our way into the group. Our guide was fabulous, and she did just what we needed. She chose around 10 pieces of art and focused on them, telling the stories about the artists and their work, and Dr. Barnes’ acquisition of the pieces. For me, the story behind each piece adds greatly to my enjoyment of it.
Our guide told us a lot about Dr. Barnes, a medical doctor that invented, patented, and produced Argyrol, an antiseptic that made him a wealthy man. She explained how he became interested in impressionist art before it caught on, and how he traveled extensively and bought a LOT of art. The Barnes is no small building, and it is just crammed with work by famous impressionist artists. As I understand the story, Dr. Barnes, during his life, had no real interest in making his collection available to the general public. He would make his gallery available to students in which he saw potential, and would spend hours showing his work. He died tragically in an auto accident after running a stop sign. According to our guide, he had petitioned the powers that be to have that stop sign removed, which they refused. So, perhaps as an act of defiance against authority, he didn’t stop and was killed instantly when he was t-boned.
At the conclusion of our tour, we wandered around the galleries a bit, but we both felt it was getting late enough in the day that we should head back for a rest. We were reluctant to walk back to the PAM to the bus stop after the difficulty we had had getting to the Barnes. So we found a bus stop nearby, and when a bus came by, we asked the driver what would be the best bus to take back to the 15th street terminal. He pointed us to the bus stop across the road, and told us the number of the bus to wait for. He was spot on. It was just a short bus ride and we found ourselves at the subway station. A quick look at the map told us which train to catch, and we were back at the hotel in a very short time. I find it satisfying to figure out a mass transit system, and getting to where we’re going for a few bucks rather than a lot of money for a dedicated cab or Uber.
An annual event is Philadelphia is the Rocky Run, which, as luck would have it, coincided with our visit to the city. Thousands of people descend on the downtown area to redo portions of the run that Sylvester Stalone did in his Rocky movies. Apparently, the grand staircase leading up to the Art Museum played a part in the conditioning run he did in the movies. (I’ve not seen the Rocky movies).
Since we knew the downtown would be full of people, we looked for an alternative for the day’s adventures. I say “we” but it was, in fact, all Alice. She found the University of Penn Museum which was just a few blocks from our hotel. We figured it would be OK in a pinch. Wrong! It was better than OK, it was fabulous. We spent the morning in the exhibits, had a nice lunch in the museum cafe, and then back to the exhibits for the afternoon. I tried to make it until 3:00, but gave up around 2:40. My brain was so full that nothing else would fit. So we walked back to the hotel very satisfied with what we saw and learned today.
We had one day left in Philadelphia before we were scheduled to board the train to New York. We were both getting low on clean clothes, so I did some looking around in Google Maps, and found a laundromat about .6 miles from the hotel. According to what I saw, they opened at 8:00 am, so I made a note to myself to try to get there around opening time. I figured Sunday morning would not be too busy, and that early Sunday morning folks not going to church would likely be sleeping in.
We’d organized the laundry the night before, so there were just a few details to attend to in the morning, and I was off. I had dirty laundry stuffed in my daypack and two of the nylon shopping bags we carry. I’d reconnoitered this place on a walk earlier in the week, so had a fair idea of where I was going. I took a slightly different route this time, and went by a church I found interesting. The building was clearly in decline. One door was propped open, which one might expect on a Sunday morning, but there was no activity that I would consider getting ready for church services. Had I had more time, I might have explored some, but it was already after 8:00 and I was still 5 minutes away.
Once inside, the small Asian woman I’d seen on my earlier visit was there, as well as several other women already deep into the laundry process. I was lucky enough to find 2 washing machines in a small aisle that was deserted. This aisle also had a nice fiberglass table for folding that I claimed as my own. There was no change machine, so I asked the woman behind the desk how much change I’d need. I told her I had 2 loads. “Wash and dry?” she asked me. I nodded yes. “10 dollar,” she told me. So I gave her the 10 and she gave me 40 quarters in the cap of a laundry soap container.
This facility was open from 8:00 am until 8:00 pm 7 days a week. When I looked at the small Asian woman that was in charge, I imagined that she put in most if not all the hours. There was something about her I’ve noticed with other Asian folks, that of being they are hard working and consistent. Once when I walked by, I saw her in the tiny office doing some stretching exercises. I remember thinking I hope she has some help with running this place, because the hours would grind anyone down.
The place itself was in need of some sprucing up. Many of the tiles in the drop ceiling had large water stains, and several were bulged out to the point that they might let go at any time. The walls of the place appear to have been modified some time ago to accommodate a change in the washer/dryer machines. Whoever did the work used a sawzall, and did not do a careful job. Some trim would have covered up the rough edges, but no trim was evident, and I predicted none on the near horizon.
One of the machines was clearly marked $2.50, so I added my soap pod, the money, and got it started. The other machine accepted 1 quarter at a time, but had nothing discernible saying how much money to put in. I had to ask the clerk a couple of times, and she finally came over, looked at it, and said, “Three dollar.” With that mystery solved, I was back in business. I walked over to the chair I’d been using and saw it was occupied, so I sat next to the fellow. He had walked in with a coffee cup and sat down. I assumed he was doing laundry too. We said nothing to each other, and after 10 minutes or so, he got up and walked out the front door. No laundry, just a place for him to sit and watch the dryers spin.
The women that were in the facility before me were skilled practitioners. They flowed through the process with no wasted motion. And did they talk! One more than the other. I likened her speech pattern to that of a machine gun. Ratta-ta-tatta-ta-tatta. I didn’t catch any of the words, just the cadence. Her friend got a word in now and then, but for the most part, the first lady was holding forth on a topic that required a lot of words. The entire time they were there, I never heard the talking stop.
As soon as the first machine finished, I put the clothes in one of the dryers that lined the wall. $.25 got you 6 minutes of low, medium, or high heat. I was a bit timid at first and put in 1 quarter at a time, but as my confidence grew, I did 2 or even 3 quarters. My second load finished and I managed to put that load in the dryer below the other one I was using. When the dryer stopped, I felt inside and added more money. When the first load was dry, I took it out and over to “my” table and folded everything. The other load took another 20 minutes or so, which gave me time to get the first batch folded. The final batch came out and was folded, stashed, and I was out the door. It took an hour and a half, not including the walk to and from the place.
Once back at the hotel, we got our fresh laundry organized and headed back to the Penn Museum. Once again, our minds were blown. The place is so comprehensive. You’d finish one room and walk to the next, and see some additional wonders begging to be explored. As we wandered, we came into a large round room with a high domed ceiling. I stood just inside the door looking up with my mouth open. If there’d have been pigeons up there, I’d have been an interesting target. I estimated the distance from the floor to the top of the dome to be about 100′. And the treasures inside were phenomenal. The acoustics were interesting too. The children that came in made full use of the echoes, but we adults, though we wished we could, didn’t. The kids would stomp a foot, clap, screech, and make other sounds. The dome was high enough that there was a lag before the sound returned, making for some interesting echoes.
Around noon we headed down to the cafe for some lunch, then more museuming. Around 2:30 I looked at the time, and thought I’d be able to stay until closing. By 2:45 I’d hit a wall, and found that Alice was kind of staring off into space. There must be an antiquities limit set somewhere in the brain, because we had found that once that limit was met, there was no more room and we might as well go back home.
We had a nice rest and got a bit more organized for the train trip the next day.