So many photos

Some of you who are paying close attention have noticed that there were some problems with the Longwood Garden photos. So I deleted the whole entry. Easy fix. And now, a whole mess of old and new photos that haven't been put up and that I think are pretty decent.

Pinnacle Point in Lancaster. Lovely. Small area, but like I said, many paths around there. I think that Muddy Run is also nearby, and no, I haven't been back there since we went for like, seven straight years through junior high school.





Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia. It's really great this time of the year, and it's only going to get better as the leaves start turning colors. A good time to visit either lancastercounty.org or visitpa.com. I check them out pretty frequently for ideas on trips and so forth.









Longwood Gardens, again. More photos. The best time to go is around sunset, I think. And if anybody is up for a trip during wintertime, let us know. Maybe we can get a group rate.











The lily ponds are pretty cool because they actually color the water black. That's right. To deter growth of like, algae or something. It's a creepy thing, really. You're not sure what you're looking at first -- oil, maybe?











About two days ago, I read that Longwood was having its Festival of Fountains. That would definitely explain the massive amounts of shooting water all over the place.



Mmmmmm... cake. From Pellman's. Straight from the factory in New Holland. Keep driving down 23 until you get to the huge Sheetz. Hang a right just before that, cross the railroad tracks, make another quick right. There you are. Carrot cake, black forest ...







Crossing Broad Street in Philly. This one's during the late winter. I think this was just before my last trip to Pakistan in early March.



Artsy ketchup.



Another view of Boathouse Row. One you don't normally see. This one is from the Art Museum side. The ground there is bit more dodgy, but worthwhile if you want to get a decent sunset shot. The Museum also looks fantastic during sunset. I notice this a lot when I drive past sometimes, but it's kind of hard to stare when you're worried about merging and trying to figure out which lane is going to move the fastest.

Some firsts

Last weekend Pat, Tara and their friends came up to Philadelphia for the baseball game on Sunday. The Phillies played the Brewers. Phillies won big, which was fun to watch. I was really excited about going for a few reasons. Partly because Maria has never been to an American baseball game yet and this was the first time I had seen the inside of the new ballpark in Philly.

We parked up near the Convention Center and took the Subway down. Good thing, too. Turns out the game was a sellout -- still trying to figure out why. The subway was pretty easy, although the token machine did take more money than I wanted to give it. Oh well. Free tokens for everyone. We saw a small fight break out on the way back up to the Convention Center, which was interesting. The police came running onto the platform where it happened after a few minutes and everything settled down. But, just like they told us in psychology class, nobody really did anything. About a hundred of us just stood around and tried to stay out of it. Great citizenship, huh?



Our seats at the game were really good, although the weather wasn't the greatest. Yes, it was sunny, but that meant sweltering heat. We would watch from our seats for an inning or two and then head back up to the concourse to watch from there. We managed to walk all the way around to check stuff out, which was cool. Fortunately, we were in our seats to watch the first Phillies grand slam of the season.



Maria putting up with me and my desire to go see a game.



After the game, we went to visit our friend Shannon who just moved to a new place. Parts of Philly have great tree-lined streets, which made the aimless walking around town afterward a bit more fun. We enjoyed dinner at Pietro's before going back to Lancaster.



This past Saturday, the fourth, was Maria's birthday. So I thought it might be nice to take her out to lunch here in Lancaster (we got take-out at The Pressroom and ate in Steinman Park just outside). We then drove all the way down to Pinnacle Point, which is in southwestern Lancaster County. Unfortunately, we were there in the early afternoon, so the light for picture taking wasn't that great. But the view is pretty spectacular. There are some trails that run around there that we'll get to someday. The drive there was pretty cool, too. It's a lot more hilly than you'd think in southern Lancaster County.