The only down side to the site was the lack of a sewer connection. The park provided a pump out service free of charge though so it worked out.
The park was quite nice and I was glad to be out of New England, especially Massachusetts. The two parks we stayed at there were crummy compared to Scotrun. Here I was able to do some fishing and relax by one of the quiet pools.
There was a water slide also but I did not venture onto that. My time here was spent just relaxing. No sight seeing, no attractions.
This part of our trip would be for reconnecting with family and friends. Doreen and I went up to her hometown of Jessup, just outside of Scranton where we went to the annual Jessup Hose Company wine tasting event.
Nothing fancy here in spite of the fresh lobster. A dozen or so local wineries serving up samples along with some food vendors. Mainly it was a chance to see Doreen's family and hang out. I ended up leaving her at her mother's house for a few days and the next day got some golf in for the first time since leaving Florida on May 4. I played Hideaway Hills with Barry, Doreen's brother Mark, and his son Ryan. Since I hadn't touched a club in four months I didn't have high expectations. Good thing because I played lousy!
The following week I played Lederach on Labor Day. Once again lousy. It didn't help that we were partying the day before until the wee hours of the morning at Doreen's sister's house in Phoenixville, and that the temperature and humidity were in the 80's. Anyway a good time was had by all and it was nice to see everyone at Michele and Jimmy's. We ate, drank, played can jam, and Mark and I defended our boccie ball championship title. We finally lost a game when darkness descended on the court. Here is a shot of what I call Mark's terminator grouping that usually seals the deal:
As I said earlier I was not prone to sightseeing or anything like that even though we were close to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We had visits from Doreen's brother and his family for an afternoon and buddy-boy, Dan another night. Before you knew it our stay was over and it was time to head to Northwest PA for my longtime friend T.C's wedding. He and his fiancee' Christine were getting married on Sunday September 9.
We headed west across I-80 and drove through a pounding rain storm. Visibility was so poor traffic slowed to a 20 mph crawl as we passed the DuBois area. We arrived at our destination which was T.C.'s house in Jackson Center, Mercer County where we set up the trailer along the tree line of the farm.
It was a lovely bucolic and rural setting
After getting all set up, which was made a little difficult because of the rainy weather, we headed to his sister and brother-in-law's restaurant in Mercer for some dinner.
Jimmy still makes a great fish sandwich which I remember from his days down on Spring Garden Ave. in Pittsburgh running his parent's restaurant. Doreen had the wings which are also good.
Some back story might be in order here: T.C. and I went to the same grade school and high school and a group of us started hanging out together somewhere around the mid 1970's. Our core consisted of six or seven guys and gals growing up in Pittsburgh on the Northside in the Brighton Heights/ Woods Run area. We were constantly together, mostly getting into trouble, but mainly having fun and learning life lessons. None of us landed in jail, well kind of, T.C. and I both did working for the DOC, but everyone turned out as upstanding citizens. We might not see each other but once every five or ten years but when we do it is party time. On this particular occasion, T.C.'s wedding, there were five of us plus T.C: me, Joe L. and his wife Judy, Ron N. and his wife Torrie, Mike R. and his wife Sue, and Dave Z. the perennial bachelor. We did a little Village People YMCA for T.C. and I wish I had pics. If I can find someone that has them I will put them up. I think it is great that we still are together after all these years. I am so glad they came to the wedding and we all had a chance to get caught up.
The days leading up to the wedding I was helping T.C. get things prepared. I manned the tractor and he did all the grunt work;
I became proficient with the scoop fetching mulch for T.C. to spread. We would work all day until sundown and then order a pizza and crack a cold one. Of course no home improvement job is done without a trip to the local hardware store which in this case was a feed store too:
I love the old wood floors and items crammed in every available space.
Since we were only hours drive from Pittsburgh we made a trip down to see my mom a couple times and my sister Lori and her kids Ryan and Megan. One night we had dinner at her house and now that the kids are grown it was odd realizing they were adults and did adult things such as drink wine or beer. Another night I was surprised my mom wanted to go to dinner at an Irish Pub:
T.C. and Chris' wedding day was perfect and came off without a hitch. All though my OCD kicked in when T.C.'s sister insisted on setting up the tables in a diagonal pattern. Well it wasn't a pattern until she conceded to make it a pattern.
Monday was spent nursing a hangover and a broken middle toe. Don't ask me how but my toe was painful and then turned black and blue. Doreen said I keeled over off the sofa. Oh well, not much you can do for it except tape it up. Once I was mobile enough we took a trip down to the Grove City Premium Outlets. I wanted to hit two stores there: Steelers Sideline Store and Sports Obsession. I picked up some small items and a cool door mat.
After walking around on my broken toe with a hangover it was time to eat some classic Pittsburgh grub: Primanti Brothers. Primanti's is a Pittsburgh institution that started with a restaurant in the Strip District. It was the place to go after a hard night drinking on the Northside back in the day. After last call you would drive there at 2 AM and soak up all the booze with the No.2 best seller cheesesteak. (which beats a Pat's or Geno's back in Philly).
Over the decades Primatis has opened franchises including Grove City:
I love all of their sandwiches including the kielbasa which is what I had this time:
For the uninitiated the sandwiches are "almost famous" due to the oven fresh Italian bread, and the hand cut French fries and slaw being placed right on the sandwich. I doubled the meat and added an egg and I was in sandwich heaven. I usually wash it down with an IC Light but instead opted for a spicy bloody mary. Doreen had the pastrami and a Guinness, add a slice of their new pizza as an appetizer and the bill was about $26. What a bargain!
Miles to Scotrun: 325.1
Miles to Mercer: 290
Total miles: 6348.4
