Our Great Philadelphia Adventure (Part 2)

It wasn't all fun, education, and inspiration on our just-ended trip to Philadelphia.

We also ate. I had to have authentic Philadelphia Cheese Steaks. I got them at two places. The first was in downtown Philly, just blocks from Independence Hall: Sonny's.

There's nothing fancy about Sonny's. It's simple, in your face fare. (The ambiance reminds of me my all-time favorite pizza place, Tommy's, in Columbus.) You can eat inside or, if you can find a spot on beautiful fall day like we enjoyed two days ago, out on the sidewalk. According to Sunny's, authentic Cheese Steak uses Cheese Whiz. I couldn't go there. Provolone suited me fine. You could tell that the cut of meat was high quality. It was great, although there's no indication that Sunny has found a way to remove the cholesterol from the sandwich.

Yesterday, we were in Chadds Ford, a suburb of Philadelphia. A little spot called Hank's Place, which we later learned is frequented by local Andrew Wyeth, appeared from the outside to be a good place for lunch. Little did we know that we'd found a gem. The restaurant was packed. Regulars waiting in line told us that everything on their menu was great. Their Cheese Steak, which used an even better cut of meat, was outstanding.

We were in Chadds Ford to visit the Brandywine River Museum and the home and studio of Andrew Wyeth's father, N.C. Wyeth. The museum had displays that included the works of various illustrator/artists, people who, like the first Wyeth, have done both commercial art for magazines, advertisers, and books and what's called "fine art." Among the artists represented in the display are Maxfield Parrish and Howard Pyle, the latter being Wyeth's mentor. The tour of Wyeth's home and art studio is informative and fun.

In Philadelphia on Friday, in addition to seeing Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, we also took in a display of the portraits by Charles Wilson Peale and other of his late-eighteenth, early-nineteenth century contemporaries of important historical figures of that period. Peale was a showman, part Da Vinci, part Walt Disney, part P.T. Barnum, part scientist and historian. His museum in Philadelphia was a way for ordinary folks to not only see samples of the world's animal and plant life, but also to look at the faces of the celebrities and heroes of their time. Peale's portraits in particular, now in what was the Second National Bank in Philadelpia, appear not only to faithfully render the faces of his subjects, they also seem to convey something of who they were. One of his portraits of John Adams, for example, seems to catch the second president in mid-sentence, about to turn to you with a clinching argument. His Jefferson seems duly aloof, yet ready in an instant, to employ his vaunted charm when necessary.

And if all of this weren't enough for our family obsessed with history, we also went to Valley Forge, where Washington and his battered army wintered in 1777-78, and what's now called Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, where the miraculous crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas, 1776, took place.

Also worthy of mention and a visit: Washington Memorial Chapel at Valley Forge and Christ Church in Philadelphia.