Philadelphia and Sesame Place

As we said goodbye to Ocean City, NJ, we began the second leg of our journey. We drove north about 30 minutes to Atlantic City. We wanted to see what it was all about, having heard about it for years. Well, we were not impressed. There were quite a few casinos on this "strip". But there was seemingly no casino traffic. I saw no hustling and bustling like you see in Las Vegas. It looked like AC was past its heyday. Only a block away, there were significant signs of urban blight and decay. It was depressing. We looked for a lighthouse, and finally found one. But we didn't stay around for long. We headed inland to the Borgata and Harrah's casino area. This was more like what we expected, although it was a couple short miles from the main strip. Things were happening here. But we had to get to Philadephia.

Back in Philly, we drove to the near west side to what I understand is the cultural district...theatres, parks, zoo, and museums. The Please Touch museum is kid-focused -- it encourages hands-on with all the displays and themes. There were too many displays to recount every one of them here. But Connor couldn't contain his enthusiasm. He was a kid in a candy store. It was as if someone told him "ok, you have 10 minutes to touch everything in the museum". We only had a couple hours to spend there, for we needed to get to our hotel northeast of Philly in Langhorne, home of Sesame Place (SP).

Once we checked in, we were in a hurry to get to SP. They offered 2-day tickets for the price of 1. We got there around 6pm and looked around the park. We should have brought pool clothes, but we didn't. Connor was begging to jump in the water. Instead, we looked for the SP characters to get Connor's picture taken. We saw the Count and Zoey, but Connor wasn't interested.


We went to Ernie's Bed, which was a giant cushion that the kids could jump on. That was probably our longest wait. There were only a few kids allowed at a time. But Connor finally got to jump around on it. I think that might have been his favorite thing at SP. 




That night there was an SP parade down the main drag through the park. We were camped out at the very end, at the back of the park. Connor loved the music and dancing and eventually got to see all his favorite SP characters. Immediately afterwards there were fireworks, but at the very front of the park. We hustled to get a good spot to see, but the streets were jammed, and everyone stopped walking. We were stuck. We still saw the fireworks, just not as up close as we wished.

It was time to go back to the hotel, for tomorrow would be a looooonnnnnggggg day.

We arrived back at SP when it opened. We rushed to the roller coaster. On the ride, the park took our picture, but we didn't buy it. Connor didn't really like it, because it went too fast. Then we went to the water park area. We rode some water slides and Connor jumped around in the wave pool. Then it was time to look for some lunch. Once we walked around the corner of one of the buildings, I looked back over my shoulder and saw Bert and Ernie posing for pictures. Renee remembers me saying something like "Oh my goodness!" or something like that. I was so excited, because Connor LOVED Ernie. This was our chance! So we ran over there and got in line so Connor could pose with both of them. I could only imagine what would've happened if I hadn't looked over my shoulder because we never saw them hanging out on the street again and we would never have gotten a picture of Connor with them.








Later, we ate, and went to another part of water park called Count's Castle. This is where Connor wanted me to go along with him, so I went everywhere he did, with water splashing all over my face and head. He didn't seem to mind, but he had his swim hat, which blocked water from going directly into his ears. We rode some slides and then got dried off to see the show called Elmo Rocks.









We tried rides like Elmo's Flying Fish and the swings and the Cookie's Climbing Mountain. Then it was time to ride more water slides. This was a double tube ride. Connor sat in the front ring and I sat in the back ring. This was a nice long slide that ended in a huge splash at the bottom. After seeing Connor's face splashed so much, I thought he wouldn't want to ride anymore. But I was wrong. We rode it 3 more times -- maybe 4, I can't remember. 

Then we saw another show called Elmo's World Live. Connor really liked that one too. After that we rode the carousel and prepared to see the parade again, this time in a more strategic spot where Connor would have more time to watch Ernie and Bert dance around. 



Then the park closed. We headed back to the hotel and went for some Philly cheesesteaks. Well, I really got a chicken steak, and it was very good. The next morning we headed back to the airport. After the return flight, Connor was so exhausted, that he fell asleep on the couch.