Too Square to be Hip
A narcissist's guide to travel and culture
Well we’re living here in AllentownAnd they’re closing all the factories downOut in Bethlehem they’re killing timeFilling out formsStanding in line Billy Joel Allentown is not the typical travel destination. A Rust Belt city, it is often thought of as a rough and tumble town going downhill with a vengeance. The city was memorialized, along …
I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin’ about half past dead I just need some place where I can lay my head Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed? He just grinned and shook my hand, “no, ” was all he said The Weight, The Band The immortal words of …
Driving though the Pocono Mountains towards the Lehigh Valley I could feel my eyes, heavy with exhaustion, begin to tire. I pulled myself together as the last traces of dusk disappeared, engulfing my car in darkness. As I finally approached Bethlehem later that night, on the Fred B. Rooney Highway, I was greeted into Bethlehem …
Coplay and its Kilns (You Gotta Be Kilning Me!) On my return from Bethlehem, PA to Ottawa, Ontario I made a stop in Allentown for breakfast. Sitting at a diner table, waiting for my hashbrowns and bacon, I mapped out a few stops I could hit along the way back home. I clicked on the …
The old mining town of Mauch Chunk was down on its luck and desperately needed something to improve its reputation. In 1954, after a long decline, the town came up with a daring and, perhaps morbid, scheme to revive the town’s fortune. Hence the name change and queue Jim Thorpe’s Body! Arrival in the Big …
Just south-west of the city of Rochester, in Upstate New York, you will find the Finger Lakes. These five skinny bodies of water are formed in the shape of fingers, hence the name. A popular summer destination, the region attracts people from throughout the north-eastern United States. Here you will find wineries dotting the region, …
At a Bar in the Delmar Loop called Blueberry Hill, an elderly Chuck Berry performed every Wednesday until his death in 2014. Chuck, one of the founding father of rock and roll passed in 2017 in a suburb is St. Louis called Wentzville, Missouri. The man was as important to the city as Elvis is …
After watching the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire, I had a view of Philadelphia as a high class, liquor saturated city that had a reputation among the big players of the prohibition. Prohibition may be gone but the hard-drinking label still remains. Like many American cities, the “City of Brotherly Love” experienced a tragic downturn …
I have passed though the small city of Plattsburg a few times on my way from Montreal to New York and never thought much of the city. Finally, one day I stopped in town for breakfast and was pleasantly surprised. This town is a great base camp to start your exploration of the Adirondack or, …
This article should be read in conjunction with my previously released Champlain post as well as Saratoga. Why spend a weekend at Lake George, I was asked? I remember stopping at Six Flags Lake George as a child and enjoying myself. I was in the Upper Adirondacks the previous year and had such a good …
