Finding your Happy Weight: More Philly Fun...

Hi everyone....I'm not even sure if your seeing this post, as I've been making a few changes to this blog and am in the process of figuring out how all of the new gadgets work...so please bare with me! Hopefully I'll have it back to being fully functional soon!

In the meantime (and if you can see this), I do have quite a few yummy things to show you from yesterday! Saturday we took advantage of one of the LAST cool and breezy days for awhile (the forecast is HOT, HOT, HOTTTTTT for the next week...BLEH!) And since it IS July 4th weekend, we thought what would be more American than taking in the historical sights in Philadelphia for the day......

But it wasn't ALL history lessons & founding Fathers:) Oh no:) We apparently decided to take the "Man vs. Food" tour of Philly, with our first stop being at our favorite "Reading Terminal Market"....

Where good things beckon you at...

...every...

...turn!

But we knew RIGHT where we were heading...

So the "official" sandwich of Philadelphia is the cheese steak....but apparently the BEST sandwich is the Roast Pork sandwich, and DiNic's is suppose to be one of the finest....

And holy cow, this did NOT disappoint!!! We made friends with the waitress, who told us that the pork is slow cooked for lunchtime starting at 3AM, followed by the broccoli rabe greens sauteed beginning at 9AM. And the most AMAZING part of this sandwich was the SHARDS of provolone. NOT the melty cheese, but the tougher shards so you could taste just how sharp and flavorful it was...PER-FEC-TION!!

They might have been a bit of a mess (between the juicy pork and the sauteed greens), but it was worth it! I was pretty full after a half, but I just could not NOT finish this baby! In fact, we both wished we were able to eat TWO of these:) (oh, if only all tasty delights had zero calories! :) But never fear...we stuck to one and headed out on our way...

We made sure walking was a MAJOR part of our day in between all these eats!! We walked around the historical district for about 2 hours, taking in all of the cobblestone streets and perfect old-fashioned row homes. It's almost like taking a step back in time...just beautiful!...

But don't worry...we didn't go toooo long before we enjoyed our dessert of the day:) And we were SOOO excited to make a stop at the Franklin Fountain. Everything about this place REEKS of a bygone era! Talk about taking a step back in time!!

Even the radio played music from (what sounded like) the 1930's. Love, Love, LOVED this place!!!

We placed our order and found a spot under the shade in the cute seating area....

And then got to devour THIS!!!! THIS, my friends, is the Mt. Vesuvius!! Vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, brownie pieces, whipped cream and dusted with malted powder...

Now...not only was the vanilla ice cream the "CLEANEST" ice cream I've ever tasted (it tasted like it was made of JUST cream & lots and lots of vanilla beans...so many, they actually CRUNCHED when you bit into the ice cream!), but the hot fudge was like a thick pudding. I dubbed this my ultimate honor: And proclaimed that it "tasted like Christmas!"

And about 2 minutes later...we managed to just barely contain ourselves from licking the bowl clean! If your ever in Philadelphia...the "Franklin Fountain" is NOT to be missed, both for it's FANTASTIC atmosphere & out of this world/era desserts!!!!

And after that...we were off for another 3 or 4 hours of walking and enjoying the gorgeous day! Our first stop was Penn's Landing...(lots of walking...as proof that I look like a hot mess! :)

Where we wandered around and checked out all of the ships that were docked....

And enjoyed the pretty views...

After that, we made a huge loop around the city...going through Society Hill, South Street and winding back to Old City. We even took a tour through the Betsy Ross house...cause we felt like it was the right thing to do on this particular weekend ;)

And after all that walking, we made one last stop at Reading Terminal on our way home and picked up some Lancaster County Strawberry Lemonade. So refreshing!! (This place made some GREAATTTT Eggnog during the holidays! I already can't wait for it;)