We
left the house about 10 am on July 9. We traveled north thru Baltimore
with no trouble then a few miles before the Millard Tydings Bridge
(which carries I-95 over the Susquehanna River) we saw an overhead sign
warning that I-95 was closed at exit 93 (the first exit north of that
Bridge). There wasn't much we could do but wait to be detoured onto US
40 but that took over 3 hours from the time we saw the overhead sign.
That wasn't the end of our travel problems as the traffic on US 40
didn't move very well either at times.
The image is from a Fox News article on the cause of the problem which involved a fatal crash (the victim being a tow operator).
We made it to the visitor's center of the Nemours Mansion.
It has a number of displays related to the life of Alfred I du Pont (1964-1935) who was the head of the company during the installation of mechanization of the Gunpowder factory which in turn led to the enormous wealth of the family (that's du Pont on the left).
The displays and movie make du Pont into something of a saint with his treatment of workers and his philanthropy. Youtube has a copy of the movie here.
We stayed overnight at a Day's Inn near Wilmington, DE. There was a kosher deli near there.
It took only about 45 minutes from to motel to get to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. One of the exhibits there was something called the mirror maze.
The first image is when we were entering.
The second image is when we were deep in the maze.
There really wasn't a point to the maze but it was a fun thing to do.
The mirror maze was part of an exhibit that was about patterns in nature. It emphasized proportion, Fibonacci numbers, spirals, fractals and Voronoi patterns. Frankly I didn't really understand the point the exhibit was trying to make (my thought was, 'well, so patterns exist in nature - so what'). The museum's post on this exhibit is here.
The third image is an aluminum cast of an ant colony (fractal type pattern).
The fourth image shows a computer analysis of the proportions of a part of my body.
The Franklin Institute had an exhibit on virtual reality VR). It was one of the first such exhibits in the US (probably the world also).
Ann took a trip along the bottom of an undersea well.
I took a trip through a blood vessel and another in a water tank wearing astronaut attire to prepare for zero gravity work.
The VR exhibits were nice but they were not current technology as they didn't allow the person wearing the VR goggles to actively participate in their experience.
After the Franklin Institute we went to Camden Aquarium (Camden is across the river from Philadelphia).
The Aquarium had some fun stuff.
The first image is Ann with the penguins.
This aquarium allowed people to touch the manta rays. That is fun but I've done that before.
However, it also lets you touch sharks - although only with two fingers and not on their fins and only little sharks (about 2 feet long).
Both sharks and manta rays have mouths that are on their bottom side as they are swimming, so its not that dangerous.
The second picture shows two hippos that were in their own tank.
The third picture shows me pointing at one of the three dozen great white sharks they have in the big shark tank (a small school of little fish is in back of me). They also have a shark tunnel (like the one in Atlanta) and a shark bridge. The latter is for you to walk over the shark tank (rope on both sides protects you from falling although there is a pretty good sway).
The final image shows Philadelphia as seen from the promenade just outside the aquarium. The river is the Delaware.
We made it to the visitor's center of the Nemours Mansion.
