Philadelphia: Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site

Edgar Allan Poe lived in a house in Philadelphia for six years. He wrote some of his most famous work while living there, including my favorite Poe piece, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” as well as “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Black Cat,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Cask of Amontillado” among others. With him in Philadelphia lived With him lived his wife Virginia, his mother-in-law Maria Clemm (whom he called Muddy), and their cat, a tortoise-shell tabby named Catterina. It was here that he experienced some literary acclaim, though it was before “The Raven,” and the addiction and poverty to which he later succumbed weren’t yet at their peak in Philadelphia.

We visited the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site and immediately loved the gutted, empty feel of the house. There was no furniture, no wallpaper, nothing to indicate the literary giant had once resided here except a raven erected out front, long after he was gone. The place had a creepy feel even in broad daylight, with the boards creaking and the footsteps echoing in the vacant rooms. We particularly enjoyed the cellar, where spiderwebs abounded and dirt caked the floor. 

There were two possible signs of Poe. In one room, the word DEATH was scrawled into a wall. The ranger told us they weren’t sure if Poe had done it, or if squatters had done it long after Poe left. Also, green wallpaper had been recovered; the Park Service was pretty sure had been on the walls when Poe lived there.

You could almost feel the great author’s presence in the empty rooms, better by far than if they had been filled with replicas and fakes.

Philadelphia: The Brandywine River, Valley Forge, and Chaddsford Winery

On Sunday morning, we both were under the weather, but we didn’t cancel our plans of an outdoorsy day. We left Philadelphia at 8:00 and arrived at Valley Forge National Park around 8:30. It was at Valley Forge that General George Washington forged the Continental Army in 1777. I have two ancestors, eight generations back, who were commissioned officers under Washington’s command, and it was neat to think I was stepping where they had stepped. It was a crisp autumn morning. We walked about two and a half miles along the paved walking trail, past replicas that put one in the mindset of the Revolutionary War. We saw dozens of deer and flocks of geese, and the fall foliage was lovely.

We grabbed some lunch at a market and arrived at Northbrook Canoe Company around noon. We rented a canoe and paddled almost five hours down the Brandywine River, where the clear water sparkled over golden zinc. A chilly breeze kept our jackets on for most of the trip, but the sky was a deep, clear blue and we had the river mostly to ourselves.

Near the end of our trip, we saw a juvenile bald eagle, its brown feathers rough. We were extremely excited and decided to grow quiet in case its family was nearby. As we gave up hope—and I put away the camera—we began to talk loudly and disturbed a hidden adult bald eagle in the trees just above our heads. She took off. Her wingspan was wider than I am tall, and her beautiful plumage shone in the midafternoon sun. Her wingbeats reverberated in the air. We both clapped our hands to our mouths and watched in awe as she soared within ten feet of us and out of sight. It was the most amazing thing that happened on the Philadelphia trip.

Bubbling with our experience and both feeling in peak health again, we drove to Chaddsford Winery, which was founded in 1982 and had live music playing on its patio. We tasted the semi-drys and sweets and bought a bottle for later. We then took the scenic route back to the hotel through yellow and orange foliage.