"b1bob skims Pennsylvania" a Pennsylvania Travel Page by b1bob

This isn't a typical b1bob page, but I have just enough to cobble together this rudimentary Pennsylvania page. Political consultant James Carville once said of Pennsylvania, "It's Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in the middle." I know there is a lot more to Pennsylania to what Carville says and what I've seen, so please, no letters of criticism on that point. From what little I have seen of Pennsylvania, I like the countryside in the Susquehenna Valley.

I haven't been to Pennsylvania but twice:

January, 2000: I had a layover at the 30th Street train station on the way back from a millennium visit to Metuchen, New Jersey.

June, 2002: I had to go on a business trip to the Lehigh Valley. The trip proved to be more adventurous than either my boss and I had planned on.

Sunday, 23 June

We all go in Sam's Jeep (he likes to keep everybody together) through Purcellville, Virginia to drop off some things at a future auction site. Sam's wife Phyllis joined us. We drove through northwestern Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Just south of Harrisburg on I-81, the Jeep Cherokee overheats and dies. This is a Sunday afternoon and almost nothing was open. We were stranded in Enola, PA for two hours waiting for a car hire. The good news is, the hired car was more roomy than the Jeep and the AC worked better. The drive through the Pennsylvania countryside was just beautiful from the border just south of Chambersburg through to Kutztown on the outskirts of our destination, Allentown. While I didn't enjoy the breakdown in Enola, I'm glad we had to stop in Purcellville and approach Allentown from the west or I would have never had the opportunity to see the central Pennsylvania countryside.

Monday, 24 June

We oversaw the set-up of the store in nearby Easton. At noon, Sam gets a call on his cell phone that the Jeep's engine has gone the way of Elvis and will have to be replaced. So, Sam has to arrange towing from Enola, PA to Richmond as well as a new car hire (Enterprise only accepts returns from the same place.) For supper, we dined at Old Country Buffet. Next to diners, I like all-you-can eat buffets the best. I have always been called a glutton, but I was out of my league that night. The professional eaters were out. I mean, Goodyear must have had blimp auditions there that night. This one guy (who had his own zip code) had his bib tied to his reading glasses. I had thought about going to Dorney Park, but I was too tired.

Tuesday, 25 June

We had a very successful auction (considering it's the summer) and we were very anxious to get out of there. We would have come home late last night or early this morning if we had been able to keep the Enterprise car. However, we had to return the Buick to Harrisburg, go to Hertz at the nearby airport, get a Ford Windstar van (which they needed to get down to Richmond anyhow). So knackered from the day of dealing with the auction and the car hire, we decided to hit the hay early at a Super 8 motel in Carlisle, PA. Before checking in, we had supper at the Middlesex Diner directly across the road.

Wednesday, 26 June

Sam returned to Enola to arrange for towing the dear departed Jeep to Richmond. Somebody had to ride in the tow truck with the driver to direct him to Richmond. Since I'm Sam's best navigator, I was the one for the job. The bad thing was, it was hot as a $2 pistol and the air conditioning didn't work. We made terrific time and we all met at a mechanic shop just east of Richmond.

For a better look at the Keystone state, I recommend Pennsylvania by ClarkRB