Philly Night 1

After all of our traveling was complete, we finally were in Philly. We checked into our hotel and asked the front desk staff what the easiest way to get down to the Wells Fargo Center. Can you guess their response? Subway.

The hubs and I quickly freshened up and made our way tot he Broadway stop on the Orange Line, where we made our way to the sports complex. Even though we were in another form of public transportation, we were excited to be en route to see some hockey.

When we got off the subway, it was quite a site. You could see the Spectrum, Citizen Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field and the Wells Fargo Center, although it's very hard to capture in one photo.

Time for some Flyers hockey.

When we arrived we found out that the Flyers were honoring the late great Barry Ashbee by giving his family the old banner that once hung in the Spectrum.

The graphics were pretty cool, but they were no United Center.

We enjoyed watching a win, a few good fights and seeing a new arena.

By the time we made our way back to the hotel, we were pooped, but we had to take a minute to participate in the post game victory dance that are plastered to the ground throughout the subway stop.

Trip to Philly

It's no surprise that my husband is a huge Phillies Fanatic, despite the fact that he has never actually been to Philly. The last two years we've waited to see if Philly was going to make it to the World Series and when they did we would go to purchase flights out to Philly but the air fare was going to cost us an arm and a leg and the hotels were just as bad. Both years we watched the World Series from home and news flash THERE AREN'T PHILLIES FANS IN CHICAGO. Poor guy has had to route for his team all by himself. And you know when you live in the home city of your favorite sports team you can find merchandise in abundance? Not the case for the hubs in Chicago.

After last season (and the trip to the Final Four that the hubs helped to make possible) I told him that if Philly made it to the playoffs we would look at buying flights. Sure enough, the Phillies were on a roll. We started browsing air fare to Philly but the flights were going up daily. It may be because the 76ers have their home opener against the heat the same night as game 1 for the World series. We waited a week to see if they would drop but they didn't. A few days later, about a week ago I got an email from JetBlue with a one day only offer for $80 flights from Chicago to New York (JFK).

We took a chance and booked our flights, hotels and train passes in all hopes that Philly would make it to the World Series. We had not taken the chances previous years and we figured we were running out of time. Well after a very long week, Saturday we found out that Philly wasn't going to the World Series. So here we are stuck with tickets to NY and Philly. I write this blog as we're about to board our plane for our 2nd vacation together of all time (our first was our honey moon in June of 09 and trips to Indy really don't count).

Despite the fact that we can't watch the Phillies play (which is still heart breaking for the hubs), we still have a a sports filled plan of action:

• Tuesday - Flyers Game
• Wednesday -Tour of Citizen Bank Park & a Philly Cheese Steak (yes I will be breaking my paleo diet for 1 day, it's going to be worth it.)
• Thursday - Dinner with friends in the City of Dreams
• Friday - a self guided tour through New York City and possibly and Islanders game.
• Saturday - flight back home so that I can work the Bulls home opener.

Cheers to a fun week with no work.

PS I did try to schedule some positings but won't have photos of our trip till next week.