Saturday in Philadelphia.

Saturday was particularly nice around here, weather wise. I had to hang at home and wait to have my dryer vents cleaned, which is not a sexual reference. They cleaned my dryer vents. Afterward, I grabbed the camera and took off for the big city. I was there from noon until 8 at night. Here are some of the photos I took during my visit.

That's the courtyard of the Betsy Ross House at 239 Arch Street, where legend has it, she sewed our first American flag. It is a matter of dispute that she indeed sewed the first flag and that she lived in this house. We never let the facts get in the way of a good story around here.

We have these charming things called cobblestone streets in Philadelphia. They're charming if you aren't riding a bicycle or walking barefoot. These lead you to the Carpenter House.

This is the courtyard behind the Rohm and Haas building that I showed you at night last week. That's it on the left. A short jog down the brick path leads you to ...

... a scupture called "Milkweed Pod" by Clark B. Fitz-Gerald (1965).

There's an Old Navy store on Market Street. Like children and animals, I'm attracted to bright lights.

This is the top end of a restaurant on Chestnut Street near Second. I liked the pattern of the green shades.

We're looking west down Market Street from the courtyard of City Hall at dusk. I was out for a while.

We have this strange piece of art on the other side of 15th Street called The Clothespin, by Claes Oldenburg. It's supposed to be a visual pun that mimicks the shape of City Hall. Get it? It was installed in 1976, just in time for our Bicentennial celebration, and at the time it was roundly hated by most of the city. I think, as the years have gone by we've warmed to it because we're good at adapting to odd situations. Now, it's our Clothespin. I've always liked it.

Another odd landmark is the Kimmel Center, which I showed you from the outside last week. This is the inside, about an hour before the Philadelphia Orchestra played Holst's The Planets. The orchestra plays in that big brown box. The rap on the place is that the sound isn't all that good, and it's inconsistent depending on where you sit. The inside is shaped like a cello and I can't figure out why they're so surprised that the sound is bad. The sound comes out of a cello, not in. I would guess that it sounds great if you had a seat on the glass roof.

It's also a little hard to get around in there, since one side is separated from the other, so if you walk up the wrong set of stairs you have to go all the way back down to the concourse and go up the other flight. The same thing happens on the inside. The two sides of the orchestra seating level are not conjoined, so if you make a mistake and go in the wrong door, you have to go out and back in again.

The concourse itself is kind of cold. The floors are hard and you can't do anything except mingle and say "excuse me" a lot becasue there is no pre-determined traffic pattern. People just kind of meander around bumping into one another until the bell rings and the concert starts.

Other than that, it's a great place.