We spent the morning in Philadelphia - home of the famous icon of American independence, the Liberty Bell. It's a nice couple of blocks, chock full of what we would call 'Georgian' architecture - beautiful square buildings made of tiny dark red bricks with pretty triangles above the doors. Such surroundings are very familiar and very welcome. There was some other thing going on, something about the American's thinking up their own country or something but I couldn't really concentrate - I kept hearing this in my head and I spent the day largely waiting for a SPLAT that never came.

So, not so much a cheese steak as a curate's egg, but we were soon back on the road, driving out of the city over the most ENORMOUSLY HIGH bridge and then down the 95 into Delaware and Maryland. On the outskirts of Baltimore we went through the Harbor Tunnel. It's 7650 feet long, so long that the initial downwards slope soon feels flat as your brain tries to make do with the information it gets from the blank walls flashing past. Definitely worth the $2 toll. Eventually we came out the other end and ploughed along the interminable interstate corridor of leafy green before suddenly we were in Washington, the city magically unfolding itself from the trees as we rounded a corner. In the distance the white dome of the Capitol shone in the sunshine and it stayed there as we drove straight towards it, down the impossibly geometric boulevards.

We had time to stroll over to it before dinner. It's fair to say that it is much bigger than Arkansas' copy. Even walking around it was a chore for here it is suddenly swelteringly hot again as we head south. We just made it to Union Station before we melted and then I did melt because it is such a beautiful train station.

That was today then. I'm still holding back on the whole American Independence thing - I'm not sure where to pitch it. Also it is very difficult to think - the air conditioning unit in the hotel room is making a noise not unlike that which a pneumatic drill would make if you kept it in an old biscuit tin and hid it under your pillow. Argh.