EDIT: I changed the size and style of the font because certain readers of this blog claimed it was unreadable. Changing the color scheme would also probably help, but I'm rather fond of the look right now. It looks somewhat polished and respectable. Let me know what you think of the new font, I'll try shifting things around later to see if I can find a best of both worlds situation.
ONWARDS!
I was really looking forward to writing these entries and then I got hit by a truck. Not really, but I got a bad cold and it left me completely useless for about 2 days. Why did I get a cold? Because I forced a sick Nicky into a car with us for a total of roughly 8 hours of travel between the two days. I guess I deserve what I got. The point of this story, however, is that it has taken me forever to get each of these entries out. While it may seem like they're only a day or two apart, that's a lot for me. I can't remember these things and have to get them written down quickly or else I start lying. We've entered that period of time in between the actual event and the recording of the event where I can't guarantee that this isn't all lies. Every entry contains on average one large exaggeration and at least two slight exaggerations. This entry might actually contain a flat out lie. It might not. Hopefully no one will call me out on it.
I had set my alarms (I always use two alarms) the night before to wake me up at 8:45 and 9. That way I would be ready to leave for the Yuengling Brewery at exactly 10:30. I woke up naturally at 8 o clock and congratulated myself on being an early riser. I had forgotten that while I had sprung forward every clock I had with me at home, I did not set my school clocks. So 8 o clock was actually 9 o clock. I was running late. I sprung into action, although I didn't set my clock to the right time which would have been a good idea, and went through the morning routine. At exactly 10:30 I rounded up the troops. All three of the troops had tried to evade this trip with various excuses such as work and sickness, but I was having none of it and managed to guilt 2 out of the 3 into putting aside academics for the day to go get some beer. Unfortunately Paige could not be broken and bowed out of the days events. She was missed.
Since Paige could not navigate, Ari was given the job for the day. After hitting up Wawa for an on the road lunch, we were on our way. Getting up to Pottsville involved a long trip on the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike. You basically get on that road and drive straight for an hour or so. Long, tedious, we struggled for conversation. Once we got up to Allentown we had to stop for a bathroom break as per usual. I pulled into a truck stop, all excited that I could count it as "research" for my paper. Ari and Nicky just rolled their eyes and went to the bathroom while I started taking pictures. I couldn't get the nerve to talk to the truckers, though. It's not that I was afraid, I just knew that I would bring up Convoy and make a fool out of myself. I didn't want to spend the rest of the trip feeling like an idiot for bringing up Convoy with a trucker. They're so much cooler than me. Especially the one wearing the barbeque sauce stained wife beater and pajama pants with fire on them. He looked pretty damn awesome.
After the break we hopped off the extension and onto 78. Again, drive straight and try not to die. It was on 78 last year that some friends and I got a flat tire on our 14 hour epic journey to Vermont. I did NOT want to repeat that one. 78 is also trucker central. They were EVERYWHERE. The road is narrow and the trucks come barreling down. (side note, I will give a dollar to anyone who counts the amount of times I've used the word trucker in this blog. I'll find a new obsession soon, I promise). We passed a fancy looking brewery and wondered if it was the Yuengling one. Turns out it was the Sam Adams brewery. I thought they were New England based.
After another 45 minutes of driving we reached our exit. I was excited to see that it was the same exit as Cabela's hunting store. For anyone that doesn't know Cabela's, stick around until the end of the entry. Let it be known that my family takes at least one trip a year there, usually on New Years Day. I told my friends that we should totally stop because there was a "mountain of dead animal" inside. To my surprise my friends were adamant that we by no means stop. I expected a little bit of hesitation but they were completely opposed to the idea. I was a little taken aback.
We drove down the highway to Pottsville. Post-industrial Pennsylvania is fantastic. I really love it. The old towns and landscapes are really awesome. We saw some great old churches, houses and stores. We finally pulled into Pottsville and were prepared to be depressed. Much to our surprise, Pottsville was awesome. The downtown was by no means abandoned. There weren't the typical nail parlors and tattoo shops that you usually see in cities past their glory. Everything was neat and people were out and about looking successful. We drove up to the brewery but we still had quite a bit of time. We decided to keep driving and look at some of the houses. WOW. Absolutely spectacular houses on the hill behind the brewery. I assume some of them are related to the Yuengling's but they can't all be. It's a small brewery, not enough to provide this much wealth. Really stunning old mansions. Ari and I , the Cities majors of our group, were going nuts. Ari was excited that it was a city built into hills, she claims that's the key to revitalizing cities, hills. Not sure why, but I'll let her have it. I was just going nuts with the houses. Nicky was simply humoring us and agreeing that it was a cool city.
After a few loops around the blocks it was determined that a bathroom was once again needed. We parked outside the brewery and wondered how much time we should put in the meter. Two quarters and a nickel got us two hours and a couple of minutes. We decided that if the tour lasted longer than that then the tour guide must be terrible and unable to condense her information into a respectable time.
Once inside we milled around the gift shop with the rest of our tour group. I had thought that it cost money to go on this tour, but I was mistaken. It was free. For those of you keeping track at home so far in this trip we have paid for gas and a shoofly pie while also getting two factory tours out of it. We wondered what we should buy Paige as a souvenir. Denim jackets were on sale, as were place mats of dogs smoking and drinking Yuengling. Unfortunately we ultimately decided that we didn't love her enough to spend money on her. If she loved us she would have risked being fired to miss work and come with us.
Our tour guide was a perky middle aged blonde woman named Vicky. Fantastic tour guide. While she lacked the emo sarcasm of the Herr's factory guide, she did actually sound like she wanted to be there which made the tour a little less awkward. What did make the tour awkward were our fellow tour members. She gathered us in the bar to give us basic information on the beer. Since Yuengling is such a regional beer, there are often people on the tour that come to the east coast specifically to come to the factory and get the beer because they can't get it where they live. One man had been to the factory "at least a dozen times". He lives in St Louis, Missouri. He travels to POTTSVILLE, PA, simply to take the free factory tour. That's dedication. Our tour guide and the rest of our group were clearly creeped out by this news.
The brewery was pretty awesome. It's not their main brewery anymore, but they still brew and bottle beer there. The best part was the cave, which was located underneath the building. That's where they used to store the beer before refrigeration because it was a constant 50 degrees throughout the year. The coolest part was that during prohibition the government came in and bricked off all of the entrances to the cave with the beer inside, so you can still see the bricks sticking out where the cave was walled off. Very, very cool.
After the tour we went back to the bar to sample beers. I've really only had Yuengling lager because that's what they give you at bars when you ask for a Yuengling, so it was cool to try the other flavors. One of the beers that they had that day was a bock, which apparently was the first Yuengling bock brewed since 1975 or something. Clearly we had to try that. It was very good, glad I got a taste of it. I had imagined that once we got to the bar we would all sit around and everyone would enjoy a beer and become friends with each other. No one would look at us, let alone talk to us. Very segregated group. That made me sad, I love tour groups where everyone is friends by the end. Not the case. After about a half hour we realized that it was just us and our tour guide left. Whoops, looks like we closed down the bar (we were only allowed two samples, we just drank slowly I guess). We thanked our guide and asked for a recommendation for a place to eat in town. She told us a couple of places but the only one that stuck out was a pizza place because we had all seen it on the way in and thought "mmmmm, that looks good". Once it got the natives seal of approval we were on out way.
We put another quarter in the meter just to be safe and walked down the hill into town. We passed the old Yuengling dairy, which was where they sold ice cream during prohibition and into the 1980s. Past a monument to some famous war hero and down through the center of town. Again, really cute town. After a slice of pizza and another bathroom break we were ready to hit the road again. We said goodbye to Pottsville, the little city that won our hearts, and headed back out toward Easton.
What? Why the heck were we going to Easton?
Ari was going to be going to Pittsburgh the next day with fellow Doc Night member Drew, also known as her boyfriend. Drew lives in Easton when he's not fighting crime on the mean streets of North Philly (I'm not being sarcastic this time, they are very mean streets) and I convinced Ari to come with us to the brewery by bribing her with a ride to Drews. This saved her a long, uncomfortable bus ride.
Right before we hit 78 we had to make yet another bathroom stop. This means we got to stop at Cabelas hunting store. We pulled in and Ari and Nicky began to freak out at the absolute massive size of the complex. I was giddy with excitement, I couldn't wait to see the look on their faces when we walked in. Their reaction was more than I could have hoped for. Upon entering they stopped, and all I could hear was muffled mutterings of "oh...my...god...". Standing before us was a giant fake mountain covered with taxidermied animals of every kind. We raced off to the bathroom before coming out to explore. As we made our way around the mountain Ari kept questioning their authenticity. "They can't all be real....no way...some are fake!". I assure you Ari, they are all real. We reached the African Plains exhibit, my favorite part, where Ari began questioning the clerk about whether they were real or not. The clerk broke my heart with the news that only two animals weren't real, the elephant and the rhino. Sad face, I always thought the elephant was real. Still, all animals on Dead Animal Mountain were real to Ari's amazement. Ari continued to question her on how much the collection would cost. The woman made a face and said "How would I know, I just stock the shelves". Touche.
We took a whirl through the aquarium before leaving. Ari was amazed "Why would anyone pay for the Natural History Museum and the Aquarium when they could just come here". She should work in marketing for Cabela's. While I succeeded in getting them in, I couldn't convince them to go see the gun library. They drew the line there. Oh well, I tried.
We hit 78 and prepared to go all out for the final stretch. After about a half hour I found myself surrounded by trucks with many more in front and in back of me. I told Ari to throw Convoy into the CD player and had what was without a doubt the COOLEST three minutes of my life. Riding in a convoy while blasting Convoy, totally awesome. Eventually I let them pass me because I didn't want to get stuck in trucker hell for the whole trip, but it was totally worth it for that stretch.
Around Allentown we hit traffic. Apparently Allentown gets rush hour traffic. I didn't realize that many people worked in Allentown. We inched along as I watched my gas meter fall faster and faster. Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez. We were never in danger of running out of gas, but I didn't know how long we would be in traffic. We saw a Ramada Inn off of the highway that offered a comedy club. How would you feel if you were getting started in the comedy business (or worse, had been in it for awhile) and you were told that you had a gig at the Ramada Inn just outside of Allentown. This is why I don't want to get into comedy. Up ahead another hotel was offering Thursday night karaoke. We all let up a yell after the previous nights events but ultimately pass. We needed to reach Drew's house, and fast, I wanted to get home by nightfall.
We finally made it to Easton where we found Drew's house very easily. He lives right behind a Dunken Donuts. How he can live there and not be 500 pounds is beyond me. I mean right behind one. Maybe by now he hates them. His house can only be described as adorable. Very patriotic, blue with red and white trim. We dropped Ari off then went to go get gas. Traffic was really building up by this point and getting out of the gas station was a bit of hassle. It also didn't help that we realized we had gone in the completely wrong direction. Whoops. Turned around and tried again. This time someone cut me off and I couldn't make the turn. Turn around for try number three and...made it. BAM. Back on 78, we were becoming close friends.
And then there were two. Nicky and I settled back to make the long trip home together. She was fading fast, I could tell, sickness does that to you. I had driven so much in the past few days that I was also fading. I had to make sure that the music on the radio was upbeat and poppy at all times. Not hard to do in my car. That final leg back on the Northeast Extension was a killer. We got the giggles at anything we said. A big billboard appeared that said "What have you done for your marriage lately" Nicky slowly responded "Very little...." *minute of silence* "to nothing". I focused so hard on the road because I knew if I allowed myself to laugh I was going to drive us off the road. In that moment it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. I remember thinking "This is the funniest moment of my life". Exaggeration? Maybe, but the delivery was perfect. We pulled into Bryn Mawr, trekked up the stairs and went our separate ways.
Spring Break 2009 was short and sweet. I went home the next day and promptly got the plague that Nicky had been suffering from. I did get to do my traditional trip to Terhunes farm with Stanky (but not Kelsey, sad) which also involved the traditional war between Stanky and the cat. (Picture refuses to upload, will be up soon)
I spent all of Saturday afternoon asleep on the sofa and most of Sunday afternoon watching college basketball. I'll write more about March Maddness later in the week, but just let it be known that this is my absolute favorite week of the year. I tend to lose interest after this week, but right now I'm pumped.
Now I'm back and completely overwhelmed with work already. Such is life. I probably should have taken care of some of this over break. I took some pictures for my trucker presentation...that's enough.
Hooray for Yuengling!
Sounds cool and secretive...it isn't
Freshly canned beer!
For next year's Christmas card
The cave!
Yum, free samples
The spring break crew, minus Paige, sadly
Ari gives dead animals the thumbs up. My camera makes people look dead
Another picture of me as a bear killing Nicky. It's becoming a trend
A quality spring break!
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