Civil to Revolutionary

Today we stepped back in history to our beginnings. Started off at Valley Forge where Washington and his troops spent the winter of 1777. Beautiful, wooded country which was denuded by the soldiers that winter. Everything was cut down to build about 2,000 log huts to keep the army from freezing to death. But it wasn't the cold that was the biggest enemy, it was disease. Dysentery, pneumonia, and smallpox.

An amazing tidbit of information was that someone had figured out that if they rubbed pus from an infected person into a healthy person's blood stream, it wouldn't kill them but provide immunity to smallpox. Of course, they spend several weeks sick before they came out the other side immune to the disease. Who knew?

A stone house in the are was confiscated to be Washington's headquarters.

The war offices were on the ground floor (two rooms) and George and Mary's bedroom on the second floor. And yes, she did follow her husband to nearly all of his battle zones. They made a tougher version of people back then. It looks a lot bigger from the outside.

So Washington actually did "sleep" in this bed. The rooms were small and cramped

but I am sure it was luxury compared to

those sleeping in 10 by 12 huts stacked three high on wooden bunks. Those huts with twelve soldiers per hut reminded me of the confined areas of a submarine. The kitchen was attached to the house but separated by a small walkway.

As you have probably noted, I am fascinated by the architecture. I think I will spend an entire blog on that later.

From there we went to the Museum of the American Revolution. Two hours did not do it justice. It would take a lifetime to process all of this information. You can't spit without hitting something historic in this section of downtown Philadelphia. There is literally a museum on every corner, or a statue, or a grave, or a plaque. Even the Philadelphia mint was just across the street.

Then on to a Mediterranean restaurant for dinner. It was interesting in that it was situated across the street from a protest. I stumbled back to a king-sized bed with a fluffy comforter and a BATHTUB. Filled that puppy to the brim and soaked my sore knees and back and fell asleep in the middle of watching something on a really BIG screen television.

Tomorrow, we WALK. Since everything is close by, walking is the best mode of transportation. We will talk back and knees tomorrow!