Day Trip to the Poconos

A few weeks back, I came across a youtube video about the quaint village of Jim Thorpe in the Poconos, described as "The Switzerland of America."

Having spent a lot of time in Big Sky, I can say the Rocky Mountains are more geographically like Switzerland than Pennsylvania, and the buildings in the video did not look that much like Switzerland to me, but it looked like a nice day-trip destination.

I sent out emails to family hoping to generate some excitement, but no one seemed particularly interested in going on a late autumn weekend trip there.  After all, gold, red and orange fall leaves seem to be everywhere in the northeast at this time of year, including our own neighborhood.

Julie happened to hear a local news reporter say that it was the last weekend to see fall colors in the Poconos and asked if I wanted to go to visit Jim Thorpe on Saturday.

I quickly said yes, and we made plans to leave at 6:30 AM the next morning.

When 6:30 rolled around, I had not yet poured my second cup of coffee, and it was still dark outside, so I convinced her to go off schedule, feeling we still had plenty of time to make the estimated drive of less than an hour and a half each way and still be back before granddaughter Emma's ice show demonstration event.

On our way, Julie suggested detouring to check out a ski resort near "The Switzerland of America."  Makes sense.

However, having been there now, I would say "The Gateway to the Poconos" is a more apt nickname.

We circled around the parking lot where Blue Mountain Resort happened to be hosting a "Seasonal Rehiring Event" to staff for ski season.  Anyone who can't find a job these days is just not looking.

A nice lady named Cammy saw us meandering along in our Ford Escape with Montana license plates and walked across the parking lot to ask, "Can I help you find something?"

A quick reply that we were new to the area and just seeing the ski resort to possibly return in winter after 40-plus years skiing in the west, she asked if we wanted to be ski instructors, tempting us with the promise that if we worked 16 hours a week, we would receive free ski passes.  We politely declined, stating truthfully that we doubted our potential as ski teachers.

It was a compliment of sorts to think we looked athletic enough to be ski industry professionals.

We meandered through the base area locker room complex out the back doors to see the chair lifts and slopes.

Blue Mountain Resort does not have ski runs nearly long as those to which we've become accustomed in the wide open western mountains, but the infrastructure seems to be in good condition.

We drove up to the top of the mountain, which Cammy said was beautiful.  We indeed found very nice views and a small complex of eateries and shops, including an inviting outdoor bar/restaurant, which was not open mornings but is apparently open afternoons and evenings year-round for the views.

On our way out, we stopped to take some panoramic shots down the mountainside.

Proceeding toward the exit, Julie exclaimed, "Stop!   Did you see that?"  Following her directions, I backed up, and we saw some kind of critter climbing up a tree.

Raccoon?

Skunk?

No, it was a porcupine!  We didn't take a picture, but it was a very neat experience, the first porcupine we've seen in nature.  And the mountaintop views, as Cammy said, really are beautiful.

Soon, we made the meandering 30-minute drive to Jim Thorpe.  We took a slow cruise down the main drag, drove up a hill to turn around, and seeing no available curbside parking proceeded back to the parking lot by the river back near the city limits.

Obviously we weren't the only ones to think of going to Jim Thorpe for the reported last day of fall colors, with the mega-huge parking lot already maybe 75% full well before 10 AM.

There's a scenic train ride into the hills that departs every hour, and a line stretched in front of the rail ticket booth.  Lots of fellow day-trippers milled around in the same general area.

Entrepreneurs sold baked goods and souvenirs from carts, and the tourist information office next door was crammed with travelers, creating quite a hubbub.

Too crowded for us, but we quickly learned which restaurants would be open and what their hours were, deciding to walk back along the historic street we had previously driven down to check out cafes.

We noted that Molly Maguires Pub --- which had a menu that appealed to us at reasonable prices --- was almost directly across the street from the train station.

This part of Pennsylvania was steel and coal country until the late 20th Century, when heavy-handed environmental regulations combined with slave-labor competition overseas to shutdown heavy industry in the USA, outsourcing it to cheap producers in Asia, which flaunted our American standards.

You're probably familiar with the lyrical lament of Billy Joel's classic Allentown, and that city is indeed nearby.  Interestingly, the song came on Sirius radio on our drive home.

Like many towns in the Rust Belt, Jim Thorpe fell into disrepair as monetary capital flowed out like a tide.  Small businesses dependent on a clientele of miners and factory workers failed, resulting in vacancies like many cities and towns have more recently experienced in the wake of Covid-19, but this de-industrialization was believed to be a more permanent change.  As President Obama famously said decades later, "Those jobs are not coming back."

However, the attractive architecture of buildings from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries lured other entrepreneurs to take the risk of refurbishing to start new ventures catering to the tourist trade.  Based on the turnout by the train station that would soon find their way down the street on the day we visited, their visions have paid off.  

With lots of antique shops and quirky stores, it is the kind of place that definitely would have appeal for a young adult crowd seeking a cool, hipster experience as well older folks in pursuit of nostalgia of days gone by.

A cart offering big hot pretzel rolls for $4 tempted us with that fresh-baked bread aroma, but we decided to hold out for an early lunch.

An olive oil shop with free tastings looked interesting to me, in light of having enjoyed visiting one in Tarrytown with Amy once which we quite enjoyed, but that wasn't for Julie.  Because I have done one before, we strolled past, despite the electronic-latched door operated by the shopkeeper clicking open to beckon us in.

We entered one bookstore that had an intriguing selection of vintage books, but the price tags were not at all like a discount used bookshop like we had encountered previously.  It was more like the fictional bookstore in Copenhagen of Steve Berry's protagonist Cotton Malone.  Well, not quite that expensive, but $45 for a wear-worn mid-20th century book seemed pricey to me.

A vintage "Letterpress" printshop with a twist intrigued us with a warning they made adults-only cards.  An admonition to not take pictures of greeting cards was heeded by us and presumably everyone who speaks English, which made up the majority of tourists that day, though we were the only ones in the store when we visited.

Rather than Hallmark sentiments, there were lewd jokes or, as so often seems to be the case for newer generations, the use of the F-word as if that somehow makes the most mundane into something witty as well as funny or more significant.  I would guess the under-40 crowd would buy handfuls of these $6 cards after a few drinks.

We passed Jim Thorpe Opera House, where it seems a steady stream of classic rock cover bands fills the bill rather than the works of Verdi or Mozart.

Perhaps you wonder why this lovely village is named Jim Thorpe?

It was named after a great native-American athlete who rose to Olympic fame in the early 20th Century. His Olympic track and field medals were stripped away when it was learned that as a poor boy, he had accepted pocket change for a couple of seasons of semi-pro football.

As a sports-crazy sixth-grader, I checked out a book about him from the library and watched the 1951 Burt Lancaster movie, Jim Thorpe, All-American, on TV .  I was quite moved by his story. 

Thorpe died in 1953.  The next year, the mining town of Mauch Chunk changed its historic native-American name to honor the great native-American sports hero.  The only probable connection is that teenage Thorpe had attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where he was coached by the legendary "Pop" Warner.

The town bearing his name is not big, which is fortunate, because there are few places to park on a busy day other than the lot where we left our Escape.  It cost $12 to park for the day.

Oddly, once we had left the hubbub of the tourist information center, we saw few other tourists as we browsed the storefronts.

We made it back to Molly Maguires and were seated just after they opened at 11.  

Molly Maguire, incidentally, is not the name of the pub's original owner.  Molly was an Irish widow who fought against rich Englishmen taking away Irish property during the Great Potato Famine.  The ramifications of that famine included the immigration of 1.5 million Irish men, women and children to America.  Many of them sought work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania.

The Molly Maguires were a secret society of Irish coal miners who protested religious and racial discrimination, low wages and dangerous working conditions in the Schuylkill Valley mine.  Their weapons were sometimes fists, sometimes strikes.  Big brawls could break out and get totally out of hand.  Their battle cry was, “Take that from a son of Molly Maguire!” 

The bar of that name was at the base of an old brick, multi-story building with the fading name Switzerland Hotel written in white letters near the top.  We were able to be seated as soon as we walked in, and our waitress was on the ball.

Adorning the wall near our booth, an old poster read "The Switzerland of America" with a picture of the town we had just walked through.  I could see the videographer had not coined the phrase after all.

I ordered a Mauch Chunk Lager with a Pastrami Reuben Sandwich, while Julie went with white wine and a Steakhouse Burger.

Both meals came with a heaping side of French fries, as would be the case in Ireland.  Everything was delicious and very filling.

By the time our food had arrived at about 11:30, there was a line out the door.

As we left, we saw that the queue had stretched quite far down the block, indicating perhaps that the 11 AM scenic train ride had just unloaded.

Walking along the path between the parking lot and the river, we intentionally carried on long past our car, knowing we had finished our day in Jim Thorpe ahead of schedule.

We watched the train chug back into town following one of its hourly scenic excursions.

We had time to have some afternoon coffee and take a nap (not necessarily in that order) before going to see our beautiful, talented granddaughter Emma skate with her Synchro team.