Longwood Gardens and Wynnewood, Pennsylvania

The historic train station makes a beautiful arrival point in Philadelphia, and as we came to a stop, we could see the name Drexel University on blue and gold banners.  Our daughter Gina now works at Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health, and we would be taking her commute by train to her new home in Wynnewood.

Our granddaughter Emma was due out of school within minutes of our arrival, so instead of going up to their apartment, we decided to get a Diet Coke at nearby Elevation Burger and wait for Gina's husband Laszlo to come down to meet her.

We struck up a conversation with the restaurant manager, and when we mentioned our family lived upstairs in the same building, he asked if our granddaughter was a little girl who likes to wear capes.  Knowing Emma's love of Princess costumes and Halloween being nearby, we said probably, and he said that sporting assorted capes, Emma would look in the window and wave at him when she walked by.

Soon Laszlo came down to meet Emma at her bus stop, so we joined him before we all went up to the apartment to await Gina, who would be returning from a business trip to Chicago.

The new place is beautiful and modern.  Located close to the easy-commute train station and also in a shopping complex, it is an ideal location for them.

We would take several walks while there, and the surrounding neighborhood feels like the essence of the USA, reminding me of the kind of place where Benjamin Franklyn Gates's father lived in "National Treasure."

Amy came down from New York for the weekend, so it was great family reunion.  We wish Jay could have been there, too.

Longwood Gardens (all of the following photos are from Longwood Gardens)

Because Julie and I had changed our flights from Thanksgiving to October after Gina relocated, we decided to have an early Thanksgiving meal, substituting Quick-Clean Cuisine Chicken Breast for turkey but with a huge batch of stuffing (we used Stovetop Stuffing instead of our low carb recipe this time).


Gina's family doesn't have a TV, prefering to spend time reading, playing games and conversing, but Gina did play one of her favorite movies, "Anne of Green Gables," on their computer for us, because we were scheduled to visit Prince Edward Island, where that movie is set, on our upcoming cruise.

Gina said when she and Laszlo went on a similar cruise that the stop in Charlottetown had been a highlight because of that movie and the book it is based on. By the way, if you've never seen this charming movie, which is much like those we enjoyed as children on "The Wonderful World of Disney," I highly recommend it.

In late evenings, we would head to nearby Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza for drinks and conversation so as not to awaken Emma, whose inquisitve mind makes her want to be part of any action within earshot.

On Saturday, however, Gina wanted to take us somewhere special, and she arranged for us to visit Longwood Gardens, about an hour Uber ride from their home.

Because it was a rainy day, we didn't arrive until late afternoon, but we had plenty of daylight to explore the grounds between scatterings of sprinkles.

When the sun set, the gardens were illuminated with Nightscape, which combines natural landscapes with lazer light shows and black lights in a way Timothy Leary would have appreciated.

The Longwood Gardens project is the brainchild of Pierre Du Pont, an heir to the Du Pont fortune.

The Du Ponts had their start in the United States when the family fled the French Revolution.  E.I. Du Pont had apprenticed as a chemist in the French government gunpowder factory before immigrating with his parents but had no intention of working in that industry after moving.

The story goes that E.I.'s gun misfired when he shot at a bird, and his chemist's mind sought the cause.  He realized that while Americans had saltpeter of sufficient quality, they lacked the expertise to refine it properly.  He founded a company in 1801 funded by 18 investors of $2,000 each.  Three years later, they produced their first gun powder, and the rest, as they say, is history.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company became the largest supplier of gunpowder to the US military and morphed into other lines including steel, gradually rising to be one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the United States and creating a massive family fortune.  

Pierre Du Pont was one of E.I.'s great-grandsons, and in addition to rising to be President of the family business, the MIT Chemistry graduate also headed General Motors among other companies.

Born wealthy and highly successful in his own right by his mid-thirties, Pierre bought the huge tract of land he called Longwood in 1906 and soon began building the gardens.

He remained a bachelor until age 45, and as we sat at the outdoor beer garden beneath a huge white canopy, I couldn't help imagining garden parties attended by the creme de la creme of East Coast society, although I would see myself as more like a Wedding Crasher.

In any case, now Longwood Gardens, including the elegant Conservatory, where we did not see Colonel Mustard with a candlestick or Miss Scarlet with a rope, is open to the public willing to fork out the price of admission and pay for the food and beverages.