Pennsylvania Off the Beaten Path
No palm trees. No Mayan ruins. No medieval cathedrals or World Heritage Sites. Not even a beach (unless you count Presque Isle). Yet Pennsylvania manages to attract millions of tourists each year, so it must have some award-winning attractions, right?
Since editing a travel guide to the Commonwealth’s decidedly lesser-known gems (Pennsylvania Off the Beaten Path, 9th edition, 2006, Globe Pequot Press), I’ve compiled my own list of the state’s wacked-out winners. Digging for the profoundly odd, I found plenty of nominations (I accumulated about 80 pounds of brochures, maps and news releases in the process, and will probably never fully extricate myself from some tourism agency mailing lists). But since it’s Oscar time, it’s time to announce my awardees. The envelope, please.
Best Crowd Scene: The annual Pennsylvania Farm Show draws over 400,000 people to Harrisburg every January, to a free indoor state fair that awards prizes for everything from pigs to polka dancing. This year, attendees attempted to break the Guinness record for most people doing the chicken dance at the same time. Squash as big as Schwarzenegger’s bicep, two-story threshers, and sweet-faced kids leading sweeter-faced cows around show rings: this is an over-the-top, Zeigfeld-style agricultural extravaganza for everyone, not just farmers.
Best Historical Drama: My vote goes to the Erie Maritime Museum, the newest and best little museum in the state. The U.S. Brig Niagara is berthed outside, in full view, and the museum does a wonderful job of bringing the Battle of Lake Erie and the War of 1812 to life, for those (read all of us) who sort of forget the details. If you loved “Master and Commander,” check out this swashbuckling restoration from the exact same era.
(By contrast, Oil City’s Drake’s Well Museum may not be the state’s oldest, but is certainly its most fuddy: dusty old dioramas and a dull film starring Vincent Price as the petroleum-drilling king. Now that’s scary.)
Best Small Town Cameo: Pennsylvania has some beauts; Confluence in Fayette County and Carlisle in Cumberland come to mind. My award goes to Smethport, at the edge of the Allegheny National Forest. Its Main Street boasts a mini-Millionaires Row of restored Victorian homes and pleasant sidewalks, and the McKean County Courthouse exudes rectitude, right down to the Civil War Bucktail out front ( they formed the core of the Union Army’s Forty-Second Pennsylvania Regiment. )
Best Special Effects: Hands-down, it’s Gravity Hill, in New Paris. This bizarre Bedford County attraction boasts the ability to make things roll backwards...uphill. It’s just a stretch of deserted road past a bullet-riddled stop sign, but I can vouch for its magical effects on mini-vans, buses and beer. Worth a detour from the turnpike.
Best Blessed: St. Anthony’s Chapel in Pittsburgh is a repository for 4,200 Catholic relics from saints and popes, crammed in ornate, glittering reliquaries against the walls and naves. In the 1890s, St. Anthony’s was a sort of local Lourdes, where the faithful flocked to be blessed and healed by the church’s pastor (who collected most of the bones, skulls, and other body parts). Even in a city of churches, this one is completely unique.
Best Set Design: Pennsylvania empties out quickly. It brings to mind James Carville’s famous crack about the state being Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between. Those soulful, sole-survivor vistas abound, especially in the northern counties around the vast Allegheny Reservoir. A glimpse of that massive frozen lake on a brilliant winter day could incite snowmobile larceny. In the southwest corner of the state, the entire Great Allegheny Passage—the 100-mile bike trail that runs along the Youghiogheny and Casselman Rivers—also gets my nod. Gorge-eous.
Speaking of the GAP brings me to my final category:
Lifetime Achievement –awarded to the state’s short-line railroads-gone-bust, dozens of which have been renovated for tourist use. From Kane to Broad Top, you can practically hear the echo of some eager Victorian pitching a partner. “We could make a fortune with this lumber-- if we could just get it across this gorge!”
I haven’t yet found the right categories for other wonderfully weird stops, like the 1,500-item Pez dispenser museum in Easton or the Road Kill Cafe in Bedford County. But one thing’s for sure: there are no small parts—only small places. |
