I felt crappy this morning. Not sick (although I was a bad host last night at movie night and went to bed with a sinus headache), I just felt sluggish and lousy. I didn’t feel like doing anything on the computer but browse email, journals and news sites. I didn’t feel like reading, I didn’t feel like being productive, I didn’t feel like hanging out with friends (a couple even offered). I didn’t know what I wanted. I was just miserable. Michael suggested that we go kayaking with friends, I thought that would be ok, but our kayaking friends were busy.
So instead Michael and I just chilled out for a while, talking about random things and about how unmotivated I was feeling. He had a whole list of chores around the house he wanted to do, but I really wasn’t in the mood. Then I thought about when we went to Gettysburg last year. That was a great day, I had so much fun walking through old battlefields and in the downtown, enjoying a civil war era themed dinner, I want to do that again. Unfortunately it was after noon and Gettysburg is over 2 hours from home. I had to think of another place to go of similar interest.
Luckily, we live less than 30 minutes from Valley Forge National Historic Park. I’d never been to this park, didn’t quite believe it existed since I always associated the Valley Forge Convention Center and their cheapo computer shows with the whole Valley Forge area. Afterall, how could a big historical park be located just outside of Philadelphia?
Well it really exists, a revolutionary war era park where a large number of troops were stationed. And we had a great time! It was beautiful out, in the low 80s, but there was a breeze and the humidity wasn’t bad.
We parked and ended up walking close to 4 miles around the park trails. I saw a deer and was all excited, but it turned out they were all over the park, we saw dozens. Yay! I took a few pictures.
I used the zoom a bit on this one, baby deer so cute! And they ran off quickly.
Now I didn’t use the zoom on this one, the creature was fearless! I was slightly bored with taking pictures of deer at this point, but it was just so interesting that it wasn’t scared off when we walked by on the trail.
We walked past an artillery field, and lots of old style cabins, taking pictures all the while.
Artillery Field
Some of the several cabins we saw
Michael in cabin
Lyz in cabin
We left the park around 6pm. I was hot and needed more water. On our way out of the park we saw more trails that we want to check out next time (and there will be a next time!). What a day!
I was hungry, hadn’t eaten much all day (wasn’t in the mood for that either). But I was tired and hot. Didn’t want to cook. We thought about a bunch of places, figured most would be
packed on a Saturday night. And finally decided to check out Ortino’s Northside.
I’m so glad we did. The place looked very nice inside, and their beer list was AMAZING! On one side they had the American beers, and on the other they had Imports. So. Many. Belgians. Even Chimay on tap! Holy crap! I stuck with the standard Delirium Tremens, and they even served it IN A DELIRIUM TREMENS GLASS! I want one or four!
The service wasn’t the best, we ordered an appetizer, but it didn’t come out until after our entree was served and we asked about it. Someone had forgotten about it, and when our waitress asked if we still wanted it we said no. But she brought out the cooled off crab mushroom things anyway and said she wouldn’t charge us for them.
On our way out we picked up a flier for their beer tasting and BBQ on Wednesday night. While walking through the parking lot we were reading it and getting excited, a domestic and a bunch of imports (germans, belgians, yum!). Michael called up Bob to see if he was interested in coming with us, he was and so we bought 3 tickets to the event, woo! Beer tasting!
And now it’s night time. I think I’ll be going to bed soon.