Philadelphia - St Patrick's Weekend - March 2012

OK, so we are on our 6th year of celebrating St Patrick's day in another city and we are in search of the best St Patrick's Day in America.  So far, we have seen Boston, Savannah, Chicago, Hawaii and San Antonio.  We decided this year to go to Philly and combine it with our home town tour of each other's home -- JoAnna grew up outside of Philly.  Shawna worked in Hartford the week before so flew in on Thursday at 8:30pm.  John and JoAnna flew from RDU and arrived at about the same time, while Keith had to get the flight from Denver so arrived past midnight.

Accommodation:
Hyatt Penn's Landing - Nice hotel across the highway from Old City.  The hotel does not have a Regency Club. 

Activities:

Scrapple

Friday was the official "stalk JoAnna tour".  In order to get this part of the tour wrapped up in time for the UVA game, we had to get up at 6am and pick up the rental car just after 7am.  We headed out the Schuylkill Expressway to the Classic Diner in Malvern where we had our very first scrapple experience.  Unfortunately we looked up scrapple on Wikipedia so knew what we were consuming ahead of time - expressed as "everything but the oink".  Our next stop was the house of JoAnna's sister, Leah - she was not home so we just took a picture in front of the house.  We drove by Maplecroft Dairy where Jo's family used to get milk, then went to the Baker Park YMCA where she swam.

In Front of Leah's House

At the Mill House

We then went to Audubon where we saw the Vaux Lane house, where Jo grew up - 6 kids, 2 parents, and a small house - cozy!  We then zoomed over to Mill House, the first house that John James Audubon lived in when he moved to the US.  Since it cost $4 to get inside, we bailed.  The next stop was the local strip mall where we saw the barber shop, Tony's Pizza, and the local Wawa.  The next stop was the Orchard Lane house, which is just around the corner from Audubon Elementary School.  We rang the buzzer at the school and John tried to explain that we were with an alumni and wanted to see the place, but apparently four 40-year-old people hanging out an elementary school is considered weird!  So, we had a quick look around the outside and then bolted before the cops showed up....

We then moved on to Arcola Intermediate School and Mathacton High School.  Following that, we went to Markley Farms Swimming club where Jo used to work.  One of the last stops was St Teresa of Avila church where we saw the new church, the old church, and where Leah went to school.  We then headed to Valley Forge National Park where we jumped out of the car and saw some re-creations of the cabins that Washington's army used for the long winter.

In Front of St Theresa of Avila Church
Looking Like Sad Kids Waiting for Our Parents

After our tour of JoAnna's childhood, we had to head back for the UVA game which we ended up watching at the Red Zone, a sports bar in old town.  While the bar was great, the game sucked as UVA lost.  Following the game, we went back for a nap before going back to old town to watch the first part of the Lehigh/Duke game at Khyber Pass before meeting Juli and Tom (Keith works with Juli) for dinner at Cuba Libre.  While at dinner, we found out that Duke also lost.  After dinner, we moved on to Dirty Franks bar, a dive near Juli's place.  We called it a night after that in order to save room for more drinking the next day which was St Pats!

Fergie's Pub

On Saturday, we slept in for a while before meeting Jo's dad and brother for lunch at the Down Home Diner in Reading Market.  We then tried to go to McGillin's pub, the oldest in Philly.  But the line was a mile long so we headed over to Fergie's Pub, only a couple of blocks away.  While there was no line to start, it quickly became packed, so we used that as a sign not to move for the rest of the day.  Most of the time we just chatted, though did meet Tara and her friend who was looking for men with good teeth.  Multiple pitchers of Yuengling later, it was 7pm and time for dinner.  So, we headed out to Villa di Roma, an old Italian place with butcher paper table cloths.  Jo tried to get the waitress to share the best item on the menu - it was not to happen.   Since we had a full day of drinking, we decided to go back to the hotel while John, JoAnna and Nick (Jo's brother) stopped at another bar for one more drink.

JoAnna with her Brother and Dad at Fergie's Pub

On Sunday, we did absolutely nothing.  We slept in until Leah brought us breakfast to our hotel on the way to working a game at Drexel.  After Leah left, we all relaxed and then John and JoAnna left for the airport.  We had a couple of hours to kill before we had to leave so we grabbed a late lunch in the hotel and relaxed some more.

Restaurants:

Classic Diner in Malvern, PA

Classic Diner - In Malvern, this diner is very cute.  We tasted the scrapple and then had eggs benedict and yogurt with granola.  The food was yummy.

Cuba Libre - A Cuban restaurant in Old City of Philly.  The food was very tasty.  Keith and I started with the pulled pork empanadas and the guava BBQ ribs and then we shared the churrasco dish.  And, of course, we also had sangria!

Down Home Diner - A nice diner located in Reading Market in downtown Philly.  We shared the corn chowder and the philly cheese steak sandwich.

Villa di Roma - An old but tasty Italian restaurant in downtown Philly.  We shared the spaghetti with meatballs and the veal in brown sauce.

JoAnna and Nick Attempting
to Get Rid of Hiccups

Grand Canyon - March 2012

Grand Canyon

Our friend, Keith, had wanted to hike in and out of the Grand Canyon for his 40th birthday, but the gang went to Hawaii instead.  So, to make up for that, John, JoAnna, Keith, Kate, Keith, and Shawna all headed to the Grand Canyon for a long weekend.  While we had been there in 2003 to raft the upper canyon, it was fantastic to return.

Accommodation:
Best Western Plus, Henderson - This is a fairly new, functional restaurant on Boulder Highway in Henderson.  We selected it because we wanted something close to the REI in Henderson, where we were to pick up our camping equipment. 

Bright Angel Lodge

Bright Angel Lodge, Grand Canyon - Bright Angel is a set of small cabins.  We rented three rooms here - keeping one for three nights for storage while alternating nights in the other two rooms.  The cabins look like they were recently renovated.

Phantom Ranch Campground, Grand Canyon - The campground is a bit less than 1/2 a mile from the river, on a turnoff between the black and silver bridges.  The camp sites are arranged along the stream which was nice to have the white noise of the stream to keep things quiet in the evenings.  It was also about 5 minutes away from the canteen.  The camp sites don't have shower facilities, but do have a reasonably clean toilet block to use.   For those who don't like tents, there are also bunk beds in dorm rooms that do have showers as well as private cabins that can be rented.

Phantom Ranch

New York New York, Vegas - We were able to book rooms here at a reasonable price -- the rooms were nice and the location convenient on the strip.

Activities:
We arrived on time at the airport in Vegas and met up with John and JoAnna who were waiting for us at baggage claim.  Keith and Kate were supposed to meet us about an hour later, but weather issues caused them to miss a connection so they had to spend the night in Detroit and fly out the next morning.  So, the four of us headed to National Rent a Car to pick up the minivan John had arranged.  We quickly checked into the hotel and then went out to grab a quick bite to eat since John and JoAnna had not had dinner.  We drove around Henderson looking for something to eat, eventually stumbling upon BW3 in one of the strip malls.  It was a quick feeding, then back to the hotel for bed.

Since Keith and Kate's flight did not land until 10:30am or so Saturday morning, we were able to sleep in a little bit, eating the free breakfast at the hotel.  Unfortunately, since we arrived just before the end of breakfast there were slim pickings at the buffet.  We then headed to the airport and did about 10 laps before Keith and Kate surfaced.  We quickly headed back to Henderson to pick up our rented camping gear at the REI.  Keith A had arranged tents, sleeping bags, pads, and sleeping bag covers for us.  We had brought two huge duffel bags to put it all in so that the donkeys could walk it down the canyon for us.  We all did a bit more shopping there: we bought new head torches and some more power bars in case the food was terrible.  By then it was lunch time, so we headed over to the Whole Foods across the road for a quick lunch before starting the 5 hour drive to the Canyon.

We arrived at Bright Angel Lodge in the evening and immediately found a parking space right in front of the main lodge.  Our cabins were immediately adjacent to the lodge, so we never moved the car again.  After unloading all our stuff, and dropping the duffel bags for the donkeys, we all met at the Bright Angel Restaurant for dinner.  It was an early night since we were to get up fairly early the next morning for the hike down. 

Dinner at Bright Angel Lodge

We all met for breakfast on Sunday morning at the Bright Angel Restaurant again (same place as dinner) and loaded up for our hike.  After cleaning up and putting all the luggage in John and JoAnna's room we met the 9am express bus to the South Kaibab trail head.  Everyone had their day packs on, with clothes and jackets to last the two days, as well as a heap of water.

Start of the Hike - South Kaibab Trail

Gang at Ooh Aah Point!

Fortunately, hiking in March is a LOT better than hiking in July (70 degrees lower than last time).  The only downfall is that the first part of the trail had snow and some ice.  Some of the other hikers had rented mini-crampons to get them through that patch - we opted to just slide in our own shoes.  The hike down South Kaibab took about 4 hours - with the last 1 hour the worst on the knees.  We crossed the black bridge and headed over to Phantom Ranch.

The evening before we found out that a couple of bunks had opened up, so John and Jo snagged those and did not have to camp.  After checking in, we all headed to the camp site to set up the tents.  We tried to do it without reading directions - it was Kate who saved us from that reckless abandon and set us on the straight and narrow.

Campsite at Phantom Ranch

We then went to the canteen for a couple of beers before dinner at 6:30pm.  The canteen kicked us out at about 7:30pm so they could clean up before allowing people back in from 8-10pm for beers (surprisingly, we skipped this option!).  It was a reasonably restful night in the tent - while the outside temperature was just above freezing, the sleeping bags kept us toasty.

Breakfast was served at 5:30am so we could get an early start on the trail.  We woke up at 4:45am to dress and pack up the tents.  After breakfast, we dropped off the duffel bags and headed to the Bright Angel Trail for the hike up.  The hike was gorgeous with stunning views of the canyon along the way.  We stopped a few times for bathroom/rest breaks.  The last 2-3 miles of the trail had snow and ice so it was a bit slower going once we hit that section, trying our best not to slide all the way back down to the bottom!  Our guess was that it would take us 6:30 hours to the top, and we did it in 6:25 - nailed it!

End of Hike - Bright Angel Trail

After the obligatory post-hike photo, we headed to the Lodge to check in again.  After a long and desperately needed shower, we all went to the Bright Angel Bar for a few rounds of beer and some snacks.  Following the post-hike celebration, we had a bit of a nap before walking to El Tovar for a yummy dinner - the same place we celebrated after hiking out from the rafting trip.  While the restaurant was only a 5 minute walk along the rim from our room, it took us a while to walk there as every one of us had some serious pain in our calves!

After breakfast Tuesday morning back at the Bright Angel Restaurant, we loaded up the van and headed out.  We stopped at a few of the sites on the way, including the Yavapai Observation Center and the official South Rim Visitors Center.  We considered visiting the Skywalk, but came to the realization that it was about 2 hours away - no way!

Vegas Baby!

On our way back to Vegas, we stopped by the Hoover Dam for a quick look.  This was the first time we had seen the new bypass bridge which had opened in October of 2010 - it is a beautiful bridge.  We both want to return some day and do the complete tour of the Dam.  After we checked-in to our hotel in Vegas, Keith stayed in the room to do a couple of hours of work while the rest of the gang wandered around the hotel and the MGM Grand.  At 7pm we went to a delicious dinner at Lotus of Siam, having some very interesting cab rides there and back.  We went to bed early since we had a 6am flight, while the other four stayed out to do a bit of gambling.

Keith and Shawna at Grand Canyon

Restaurants:
Buffalo Wild Wings, Henderson - We first thought the place was closed it was so quiet.  Typical chain restaurant fare, we just had a couple of beers while John and JoAnna had some appetizers.

Bright Angel Restaurant - We ate dinner and breakfast here before the hike.  For dinner, we shared spaghetti with meatballs and fish tacos and for breakfast we had eggs and oatmeal.  The restaurant is casual with decent food.

Phantom Ranch Canteen - We had beers, dinner, and breakfast here.  While the beer selection was not exactly robust, they did have Budweiser and Tecate.  Dinner was a hikers stew (we were worried this would turn into hikers revenge but it turned out to be quite good), complete with corn bread, salad, and chocolate cake.  Breakfast was pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs, with copious amounts of coffee. 

El Tovar, Grand Canyon - We ate dinner here after the hike to celebrate.  The restaurant is really nice with a rustic decor.  We started with the crab cakes and spinach salad and then shared one of the meat entrees for our main course.

Lotus of Siam, Las Vegas - Supposedly known to be one of the best Thai restaurants in the world, this place is located in a 'strip' mall off the beaten path.  And by strip, we also mean that the other establishments in this area cater to stripping.  While the location is not great, the food was phenomenal!!  We ordered dishes that we had not had in other Thai places and totally enjoyed it.

For more photos of this trip: