Fairmount Regency outing
Aug. 6th, 2012 03:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandie_rwI should have probably done this write-up a little earlier, but I had to work today (after dumping Katy at the train station!), then came home and had dinner, and then went to see the new Batman movie with my family, which of course took like seven hours or whatever.
(Mum: "That was a silly movie." Me [offended]: "Well at the VERY LEAST you cannot say that you did not like to see Christian Bale without his shirt." Mum: "Oh I'd never say that.")
And then I had to read the f-list so I could steal all your pictures from Saturday before writing out my own post, to see if I look better in any of those than my own! I don't, but Katy did get the best shot of me, ever:
Poking a water droplet in the Water Works exhibit!
Er, anyway. I'm telling my story like Watson, wrong way round! (Also, yes, I've read those books too many times.) Saturday around noon (ish),![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rose_bertin and I traveled over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house to meet up with blackcat452 and isabelladangelo in Fairmount Park to tour a few of the historic houses, have a picnic, and generally roast. Why do I always pick the worst days to be costumed in summer??
Although let's be quite honest, your chances of picking a good day in a Philadelphia summer are slim...
Katy stayed over my house (in my disastrously messy room) Friday night, and I think we managed to not be too horribly late meeting Jess at Mount Pleasant. the first house I decided we'd go to. Poor Isabella got stuck in traffic and got there late, but only missed the Mount Pleasant tour. Which was the best one, honestly, to miss; the house itself has really impressive woodwork and was built by a one-armed Scottish privateer who had an interesting history (his first wife chucked him out of the house - even though he owned it - and made him live in town, which I find hilarious), but it's not furnished, and the tour guide kind of dragged the tour on longer than it needed to be. Oh, and she very much admired our 1750s dresses, which went so well with the house! *grin*
(I do hope she doesn't read my Live Journal...she was at least nice enough to take a group shot of us!)
Thankfully Isabella saved us all by arriving ("Oh, our friend's downstairs; we should really cut this short!"), and we got a few pictures outside the house.
And then we had our picnic on the back lawn (which I'm sure Captain Macphearson would have had a fit if he could see now), because 1/ I wasn't sure if Lemon Hill had enough lawn for a picnic (turns out it did, and lots of trees too!) and I knew Laurel Hill doesn't, and 2/ we were hungry!
So we scouted out a shady spot at the bottom of the lawn, lugged our stuff down (my bright red cooler shows up in a lot of shots! I should have covered it up), and sprawled out on the lawn to eat sandwiches, strawberries, cream puffs, and other happy picnic foods.
Well, I suppose I did most of the sprawling...
Sparkling pink lemonade!
Always-period-correct cell phones and Hellmans!
I decided that the one-armed statue was Captain Mcphearson, keeping an eye on his house...
That lovely rolling lawn was less than fun to lug a cooler up and down...it tried to run me over or drag me down at least twice both ways.
Picnic was very successful; we lounged around on the lawn for over an hour (I think I ate a dozen cream puffs), chatting, shouting at the thunder that had the nerve to manifest itself (at least Isabella and I did), and generally enjoyed ourselves (and everyone pretended not to notice we were drinking out of parfait glasses. I'll try to do better next time)!
Hunting for the trash can...
Eventually the sun moved far enough so that Katy and I were in the sun, so we decided to pack up the picnic and move on to Laurel Hill, whose biggest attraction for us was the Federal-style octagonal room. The man who gave us the tour was lovely and most enthusiastic, and loved our dresses, so we liked him very well!
Piano's over two hundred years old, and is still played at occasional concerts at the house. Much amusement when our guide mentioned a technical feature or two about the piano, then asked if any of us played, "but of course ladies dressed as you are must play!" We gave a collective "Ummmm..." then Katy proved herself to be the most accomplished of us by declaring that she's had some training in opera! The rest of us had to shuffle about and feel like extremely improper Regency ladies.
A shoe shot is always necessary.
I hadn't been sure if we'd have enough time to do the Water Works and all three houses, so I was thinking of cutting Lemon Hill (as it turns out the Water Works was more of, er, the self-guided type anyway, and quite short), but our Laurel Hill guide assured us we did, and that the lady at Lemon Hill would be thrilled to have us. Which she was!
I think she was less thrilled about the Drexel photography student that came in to take pictures while we were there, but I like being the favorite anyway!
So off we drove to Lemon Hill (after having to make a severely awkward left-turn, a frantic "Should I turn left or right at the fork? They're BOTH called Lemon Hill Drive! I've got two people following me! Left!" which was wrong, of course), and after parking, wandered up some stairs that led to nowhere ("WHERE'S THE HOUSE GONE?? I swear I just saw it!") before naturally taking the long way round the fence that boarders the property.
Sorry, peeps; that was the one I hadn't visited before!
Perfect house for our dresses, though; built in 1800 and so perfectly of the time. High ceilings, elegant furnishings, and perfectly oval rooms! I wanted to sit down and have tea out of their complete, 200-piece original set of china!
I was a big fan of the floor in the entryway.
And of the mirror!
Everything is curved - even the fireplaces, the windows, and the doors! Not the tour guide though.
There were three extant dresses upstairs, and we went a little batty over them!
We took a bunch of photos on the stairs, because they're a good photo spot - but it does look a bit like we were just sneakily trying to get pictures of that naked man-statue!
I love this picture! And all because I insisted we go back the long way round. :)
After Lemon Hill, we went to the Water Works, which was interesting but the exhibit's more geared toward kids. Still, we had a nice rest in the cool, dark (for two minutes til the lights cameback up) little theater they loop some kind of little film in, while we decided where to go eat. My contributiontoward the discussion was "I know there's some diner withing ten minutes' walk! But I don't remember what it's called!" Very helpful that was. Finally decided to just walk in the general direction I remember it being, with the thought that we'd probably run into something, which we did.
I only ended up with a few pictures at the Water Works - everyone was getting a bit wilted and hungry and thirsty, plus there were a couple weddings around, taking up all the choice photo spots in the gazebo and such. Jerks.
We ended up at the Bishop's Collar pub, maybe ten minutes' walk from the Water Works, where we got a bunch of funny looks and really tasty salads (3/4 of us, anyway! The Summer Salad just sounded so good!).
And on the walk back we heard someone yelling my name (well, my companions heard it, anyway; apparently my bonnet allows me to hear selectively) - "Wouldn't it be funny if they were yelling at you?" Seems they were - it was one of my old friends from high school that I've seen a few times recently. What are the odds? Well, L, now you know what I do on the weekends!
On our walk back, we took a slightly different route, closer to the back of the Art Museum, and very much enjoyed the line of statues of Famous Revolutionary-Era Men. We were very taken with the statue of one Polish soldier whose name I forget. But he was a very Manly Man:
Look at that attitude!
In case you needed a closer shot to appreciate the Manliness.
He was our favorite until we came upon the Perturbed Pointing Man, John Paul Jones (he of the much-abused name):
Who was pointing to the best of them all, the Dramatically Caped and Gesturing Gentleman:
Katy gets a picture with him because she's related. Some guy called Lafayette.
And then it was Donut Time, part two, which we enjoyed on a bench in the Azalea (and Creepy Sleeping Guys on Benches) Garden. We had a lovely time threatening the rabbits and squirrels with muff-hood. Luckily for them they stayed just out of reach, though that one rabbit really was begging to become a muff or trim for my skating dress, he stayed so close to us!
And then it was time to go! And time to wrap up this absurdly long post, because my laptop's going to die! Except now I can't get up, because I'm laying on my stomach on the couch, typing this, and Willow's sleeping on my back. Wee beastie.
Photobucket album here
(Mum: "That was a silly movie." Me [offended]: "Well at the VERY LEAST you cannot say that you did not like to see Christian Bale without his shirt." Mum: "Oh I'd never say that.")
And then I had to read the f-list so I could steal all your pictures from Saturday before writing out my own post, to see if I look better in any of those than my own! I don't, but Katy did get the best shot of me, ever:
Poking a water droplet in the Water Works exhibit!
Er, anyway. I'm telling my story like Watson, wrong way round! (Also, yes, I've read those books too many times.) Saturday around noon (ish),
rose_bertin and I traveled over the river blackcat452 and isabelladangelo in Fairmount Park to tour a few of the historic houses, have a picnic, and generally roast. Why do I always pick the worst days to be costumed in summer??Although let's be quite honest, your chances of picking a good day in a Philadelphia summer are slim...
Katy stayed over my house (in my disastrously messy room) Friday night, and I think we managed to not be too horribly late meeting Jess at Mount Pleasant. the first house I decided we'd go to. Poor Isabella got stuck in traffic and got there late, but only missed the Mount Pleasant tour. Which was the best one, honestly, to miss; the house itself has really impressive woodwork and was built by a one-armed Scottish privateer who had an interesting history (his first wife chucked him out of the house - even though he owned it - and made him live in town, which I find hilarious), but it's not furnished, and the tour guide kind of dragged the tour on longer than it needed to be. Oh, and she very much admired our 1750s dresses, which went so well with the house! *grin*
(I do hope she doesn't read my Live Journal...she was at least nice enough to take a group shot of us!)
Thankfully Isabella saved us all by arriving ("Oh, our friend's downstairs; we should really cut this short!"), and we got a few pictures outside the house.
And then we had our picnic on the back lawn (which I'm sure Captain Macphearson would have had a fit if he could see now), because 1/ I wasn't sure if Lemon Hill had enough lawn for a picnic (turns out it did, and lots of trees too!) and I knew Laurel Hill doesn't, and 2/ we were hungry!
So we scouted out a shady spot at the bottom of the lawn, lugged our stuff down (my bright red cooler shows up in a lot of shots! I should have covered it up), and sprawled out on the lawn to eat sandwiches, strawberries, cream puffs, and other happy picnic foods.
Well, I suppose I did most of the sprawling...
Sparkling pink lemonade!
Always-period-correct cell phones and Hellmans!
I decided that the one-armed statue was Captain Mcphearson, keeping an eye on his house...
That lovely rolling lawn was less than fun to lug a cooler up and down...it tried to run me over or drag me down at least twice both ways.
Picnic was very successful; we lounged around on the lawn for over an hour (I think I ate a dozen cream puffs), chatting, shouting at the thunder that had the nerve to manifest itself (at least Isabella and I did), and generally enjoyed ourselves (and everyone pretended not to notice we were drinking out of parfait glasses. I'll try to do better next time)!
Hunting for the trash can...
Eventually the sun moved far enough so that Katy and I were in the sun, so we decided to pack up the picnic and move on to Laurel Hill, whose biggest attraction for us was the Federal-style octagonal room. The man who gave us the tour was lovely and most enthusiastic, and loved our dresses, so we liked him very well!
Piano's over two hundred years old, and is still played at occasional concerts at the house. Much amusement when our guide mentioned a technical feature or two about the piano, then asked if any of us played, "but of course ladies dressed as you are must play!" We gave a collective "Ummmm..." then Katy proved herself to be the most accomplished of us by declaring that she's had some training in opera! The rest of us had to shuffle about and feel like extremely improper Regency ladies.
A shoe shot is always necessary.
I hadn't been sure if we'd have enough time to do the Water Works and all three houses, so I was thinking of cutting Lemon Hill (as it turns out the Water Works was more of, er, the self-guided type anyway, and quite short), but our Laurel Hill guide assured us we did, and that the lady at Lemon Hill would be thrilled to have us. Which she was!
I think she was less thrilled about the Drexel photography student that came in to take pictures while we were there, but I like being the favorite anyway!
So off we drove to Lemon Hill (after having to make a severely awkward left-turn, a frantic "Should I turn left or right at the fork? They're BOTH called Lemon Hill Drive! I've got two people following me! Left!" which was wrong, of course), and after parking, wandered up some stairs that led to nowhere ("WHERE'S THE HOUSE GONE?? I swear I just saw it!") before naturally taking the long way round the fence that boarders the property.
Sorry, peeps; that was the one I hadn't visited before!
Perfect house for our dresses, though; built in 1800 and so perfectly of the time. High ceilings, elegant furnishings, and perfectly oval rooms! I wanted to sit down and have tea out of their complete, 200-piece original set of china!
I was a big fan of the floor in the entryway.
And of the mirror!
Everything is curved - even the fireplaces, the windows, and the doors! Not the tour guide though.
There were three extant dresses upstairs, and we went a little batty over them!
We took a bunch of photos on the stairs, because they're a good photo spot - but it does look a bit like we were just sneakily trying to get pictures of that naked man-statue!
I love this picture! And all because I insisted we go back the long way round. :)
After Lemon Hill, we went to the Water Works, which was interesting but the exhibit's more geared toward kids. Still, we had a nice rest in the cool, dark (for two minutes til the lights cameback up) little theater they loop some kind of little film in, while we decided where to go eat. My contributiontoward the discussion was "I know there's some diner withing ten minutes' walk! But I don't remember what it's called!" Very helpful that was. Finally decided to just walk in the general direction I remember it being, with the thought that we'd probably run into something, which we did.
I only ended up with a few pictures at the Water Works - everyone was getting a bit wilted and hungry and thirsty, plus there were a couple weddings around, taking up all the choice photo spots in the gazebo and such. Jerks.
We ended up at the Bishop's Collar pub, maybe ten minutes' walk from the Water Works, where we got a bunch of funny looks and really tasty salads (3/4 of us, anyway! The Summer Salad just sounded so good!).
And on the walk back we heard someone yelling my name (well, my companions heard it, anyway; apparently my bonnet allows me to hear selectively) - "Wouldn't it be funny if they were yelling at you?" Seems they were - it was one of my old friends from high school that I've seen a few times recently. What are the odds? Well, L, now you know what I do on the weekends!
On our walk back, we took a slightly different route, closer to the back of the Art Museum, and very much enjoyed the line of statues of Famous Revolutionary-Era Men. We were very taken with the statue of one Polish soldier whose name I forget. But he was a very Manly Man:
Look at that attitude!
In case you needed a closer shot to appreciate the Manliness.
He was our favorite until we came upon the Perturbed Pointing Man, John Paul Jones (he of the much-abused name):
Who was pointing to the best of them all, the Dramatically Caped and Gesturing Gentleman:
Katy gets a picture with him because she's related. Some guy called Lafayette.
And then it was Donut Time, part two, which we enjoyed on a bench in the Azalea (and Creepy Sleeping Guys on Benches) Garden. We had a lovely time threatening the rabbits and squirrels with muff-hood. Luckily for them they stayed just out of reach, though that one rabbit really was begging to become a muff or trim for my skating dress, he stayed so close to us!
And then it was time to go! And time to wrap up this absurdly long post, because my laptop's going to die! Except now I can't get up, because I'm laying on my stomach on the couch, typing this, and Willow's sleeping on my back. Wee beastie.
Photobucket album here
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