Philadelphia

I'm not sure of the exact date, but around the first week of May, Southern Company Services flew me from Birmingham to Philadelphia to visit a manufacturer that was assembling a condensate polishing skid for the Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Power Plant. This was no doubt Georgia Power's own NRC-mandated Quality Assurance program that required them to send someone, and I was selected. I didn't mind at all, though.

Here is the condensate polishing skid. Pretty, isn't it?

While I was in Philadelphia, I took the opportunity to visit a few famous sites. I saw Independence Hall, completed in 1753, was where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, and where the Constitution was drafted in 1787.

The famous Liberty Bell was another site that I couldn't miss.

The Philadelphia City Hall, finished in 1901, is a beautiful building, built in the ornate French Second Empire style. At 548 feet, it was the tallest occupied building in the world at that time. Unfortunately, it's impossible to get a good vantage point to photograph the building in its entirety.

One thing I remember about my trip is reading an article in a local paper about tensions between the Black separatist MOVE group and neighbors. Then about a week later, after returning from my trip, the MOVE group made the national news when the police department bombed their house, burning down half the neighborhood. I was one of the few people in Birmingham who was familiar with the group.