Longwood gardens
 

Is in Kenneth square pennsylvania, I think, and that's where we are right now. Well, actually right now we're at the days Inn in west Chester after a pleasant dip in the pool after an afternoon at the gardens. We saw the conservatory and orchids and water lilies and fountains and tree houses and old stone farm houses and Pierre dupont's house and rode a shuttle bus and had a good time. A favorite fodorite told us about a Groupon discount for the gardens, which we used, and said we'll enjoy the avalon restaurant in west Chester for dinner, where friends we're with made a reservation. Now I gotta go meet people for dinner.

Kennett Square...you're in my neck of the woods, almost. This is the most unpleasant weekend we've had all summer, but at least it isn't raining (we've had plenty). Hope you enjoy Avalon...haven't eaten there in a while, but enjoyed it.

~Liz

There is a great tea shop in the town of Kennett Square...and a mushroom museum. You might enjoy that. You can also drive by The University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center where Barbaro was treated.

http://www.mrsrobinsonstea.com/mrsro..._Tea_Shop.html

http://www.themushroomcap.com


http://www.vet.upenn.edu/veterinary-...s/NBC-hospital

For anyone interested, Longwood's official mail address is, in fact, Kennett Sq., but most locals refer to the area as Chadds Ford.

If you're still there, take the backstage tour of Longwood's organ. Interesting, even if you're not a music buff.

At Avalon, I've had one of the best meals I ever ate and one of the worst meals I ever ate. Hope you get (got?) the best.

Well, we didn't get to the tea shop, mushroom museum, or vet school. Please don't despair, or conclude we aren't listening. We were a bunch of friends, not easy to steer.

This is what we did. We had dinner at the Avalon in west chester, which was nice. There was an exciting bike race circling in front of the restaurant, lots of fun to watch.

After dinner we returned to longwood gardens and saw the water lilies and conservatory at night, watched the fountains, and listened a bit to a performance of Annie. The big water lily platters start as a white flower, turn red, bloom for only two nights, then grow into the huge floating platters over two or three weeks.

I thought this was pretty interesting. The conservatory at night is pretty cool too.

This morning we had breakfast at Nudy's in west chester, where everyone is fully clothed, and then went to look at Wyeth paintings in Chadds Ford at the Brandywine museum. You can rent tubes and float down the river from there but we decided to drive home and got stuck in traffic on I95.

And had an argument over whether the free market is soul crushing or not. I find this kind of argument very tiring, but the rest of the weekend was really fun.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

Oh, we did see the organ pipes, and wish we could have heard them.

You did a lot. Your timing was good, too, with being there during the bike race.