shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: November 2010
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html
Sunday, November 21, 2010. The Road to Pocono Downs. Champion butchers, Victorian beer barons, a lazy river ramble and some dreaded Yankee youngsters. Up above Allentown, Route 309 is an on-again off-again two-lane blacktop that winds toward the Wyoming Valley. Shiny diners, one-horse patch towns, practitioners of taxidermy, small family farms and the aftermath of coalmines dot the landscape. Don’t blink or you’ll miss the Joe Palooka monument along the shoulder of Route 309. Our destination is Pocono Do...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: The Road to Pocono Downs
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2010/11/road-to-pocono-downs.html
Sunday, November 21, 2010. The Road to Pocono Downs. Champion butchers, Victorian beer barons, a lazy river ramble and some dreaded Yankee youngsters. Up above Allentown, Route 309 is an on-again off-again two-lane blacktop that winds toward the Wyoming Valley. Shiny diners, one-horse patch towns, practitioners of taxidermy, small family farms and the aftermath of coalmines dot the landscape. Don’t blink or you’ll miss the Joe Palooka monument along the shoulder of Route 309. Our destination is Pocono Do...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: August 2009
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
Saturday, August 8, 2009. Ride a horse, wolf a dumpling. Take a gander at a map of the Commonwealth and you can’t help but notice that Bucks County, like Italy, is shaped like a boot. (Looks like it’s about to kick Philadelphia into Delaware County.). 8220;The number-six horse has been coming in a lot lately.”. That’s all we need to hear. The number six is a good-looking chestnut named Diamonds No More, and sure enough, our dumb-luck bet comes in. We pocket enough to head upstairs to the cl...On the menu...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: July 2007
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Thursday, July 5, 2007. Williamsport to Brookville – Little League dreams, bugle burgers and baseball bats. We come barreling off the mountain into Williamsport, swinging to the singing of Johnny Hartman. We’re tuned to 88.1 on the FM, cruising Route 15 to Green Dolphin Street. Williamsport has a jazz station! We’re up and off early, with a stop along the way for hand-cut fries and a cruise down the Elk Scenic Highway. Who knew the largest herd of elk east of Wyoming roams these thick woods? And right in...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: October 2008
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html
Monday, October 27, 2008. A Road Trip With Happy Horsepower. From Hanover to Hollywood (Casino) @ Penn National. The southern stretch of Pennsylvania Dutch Country actually lies beneath the Mason-Dixon Line. So we whistle Dixie as we head southwest toward the Susquehanna on a blacktop byway that goes by the name of Route 372. Hanover Shoe Farms sprawls over 3,000 acres, with 40 barns and 1,200 horses at peak season. The best time to get up close and personal with the mares and foals is springtime, bu...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: September 2008
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html
Friday, September 5, 2008. Strumming Martin guitars and strolling Jim Thorpe. We’re north on PA 191, a short stretch of working-class two-lane alive with trucks and tractors, flatbeds and four-by-fours. They rumble past stainless diners and glazed doughnut shops. Uniform and janitorial supply houses share the road with farm stands and car lots. It’s a patchwork cocktail of rural and retail filling up the Lehigh Valley. One fellow holds up the most beautiful thing we’ve laid eyes on. Mother-of-p...We spen...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: A Road Trip With Happy Horsepower
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2008/10/road-trip-with-happy-horsepower.html
Monday, October 27, 2008. A Road Trip With Happy Horsepower. From Hanover to Hollywood (Casino) @ Penn National. The southern stretch of Pennsylvania Dutch Country actually lies beneath the Mason-Dixon Line. So we whistle Dixie as we head southwest toward the Susquehanna on a blacktop byway that goes by the name of Route 372. Hanover Shoe Farms sprawls over 3,000 acres, with 40 barns and 1,200 horses at peak season. The best time to get up close and personal with the mares and foals is springtime, bu...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: The Lehigh Valley
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2008/09/lehigh-valley.html
Friday, September 5, 2008. Strumming Martin guitars and strolling Jim Thorpe. We’re north on PA 191, a short stretch of working-class two-lane alive with trucks and tractors, flatbeds and four-by-fours. They rumble past stainless diners and glazed doughnut shops. Uniform and janitorial supply houses share the road with farm stands and car lots. It’s a patchwork cocktail of rural and retail filling up the Lehigh Valley. One fellow holds up the most beautiful thing we’ve laid eyes on. Mother-of-p...We spen...
shunpikersguide.blogspot.com
The Shunpiker's Guide: December 2007
http://shunpikersguide.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html
Sunday, December 30, 2007. Where country roads lead to oil booms, simpler times and skydiving Aussies. A roadtrip through the Pennsylvania Wilds is best plotted with county maps. We’re driving old logging roads, dirt highways through 100-year forests, navigating by the direction of sunlight through stands of black cherry hardwood. We’re dappled in the ragtop, on the way to the world’s first oil well, and looking for oil-boom echoes from the 19th century. 8220;They blasted rock with nitroglycerine,”...
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