Pennsylvania

We made a short stop in Pennsylvania where we enjoyed more beautiful fall colors on our drives. 

Beautiful Fall colors and a covered bridge.

We stayed at our first “Boondockers Welcome”  in Bloomsburg, PA.  What is Boondockers Welcome?   Private homeowners that have room on their property to share with other travelers (short stays).  We decided to join and try it - Our hosts were a really nice couple who had a great site for us with 30AMP power hookup and water available.  They made us feel right at home, inviting  us to have dinner with their family our first night there.  They gave us lots of info about what was going on in the area.  Awesome hosts who set the bar very high for future Boondockers visits - we hope to come back and stay with them again next time we are in the area.

We took a drive to Jim Thorpe, PA for their Fall Festival 

The town of Jim Thorpe, many spots throughout the town with live music for the festival.  The pumpkin guy would sit in waiting looking like a stuffed decoration before scaring you when you walked by.

This town was already busy with traffic building up as we got to town that morning to attend mass at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church built in1908.  

As we were greeting the priest after mass, he of course recognized us as visitors and asked where we were from.  We told him Texas! and that we were there for the festival.  Then he told us we could leave our Jeep parked at the church while we went to the festival which was a Big Bonus for us as we did not have to get into the traffic to park & get shuttled  back into town.  

The town of Jim Thorpe has a very interesting history as it changed its name in 1954 from Mauch Chunk to Jim Thorpe.   In the 50’s the town that was once a thriving coal/railroad town, was  struggling to maintain the town, raising funds with a nickel drive at one point.   In 1954, Jim Thorpe's wife was looking for a town where her late husband would have a memorial to commemorate his Olympic, professional and amateur sports achievements.  His home state of Oklahoma had refused to do anything in his honor so she and the town officials of Mauch Chunk struck a deal and the athlete's remains were moved to the town that was renamed Jim Thorpe!  It is a thriving tourist location now.  We understand that years later Oklahoma tried unsuccessfully to get his remains shipped back.  

Jim Thorpe Memorial 

Although Jim Thorpe was never in the town, he does have a connection to the area as he started his athletic career at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School about 100 miles away.

The town’s historic jail is now operated as the Old Jail Museum. 

The old Jail, with replica of hanging gallows

 It is most known as the jail where a number of suspected “Molly Maguire” were imprisoned and hung.   In one cell, there is a handprint left by one of them, using dirt from the cell before he was hanged in 1877,  stating he left the handprint to proclaim his innocence.  Legend has it that despite many attempts to remove it, the handprint still remains today!

We visited America’s Oldest Brewery, Yuengling, in Pottsville, PA.  A very cool &  interesting tour where we saw the caves where beer casks where stored when the brewery first operated. You can see the remains of brick walls that were put up by the government to seal off the caves during prohibition.   And of course a great sampling of their beers at the end of the tour.  They have a Hershey’s chocolate porter that you can only get at the brewery - very good!

Tour of the Yuengling Caves.  

Lower pics show the remains of the brick walls put in place

 by the government to seal off the caves during prohibition

Beer samples at the end of the tour, including the Hershey’s chocolate porter!

We visited the Eagles Meer plane and Auto Museum.   They have many antique aircrafts (1900-1940’s) that they fly every weekend. They also have a huge showroom of classic cars - mostly Chevys.

Antique planes - I forgot to take any pics of them on the ground...

Cool Aerial pics of 1957 Chevy’s taken in 2017

Lots of classic cars. 

The story on the green corvette (lower right) was that the guy told the shop that he liked green, and they could decide on the paint job... not sure if he really wanted a “flower power” design..LOL

Of course, I had to take pics of these antiques 

from the companies I’ve worked for.