My wife and I recently ventured to central Pennsylvania, home of a foodball-mad populace and caloric fave foods such as peanut butter-flavored pie and sliced Lebanon baloney. There are a handful of bed & breakfasts in the area, but they are typically pricey. The biggest of the big-name hotels in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital city, is the Hilton, but it was booked when we visited.
What to do?
We booked a Wingate by Windham - part of the group that includes Ramada, Days Inn and TraveLodge - in suburban Mechanicsburg. Or, rather, we thought we did. Upon arrival at nearly 11 p.m., road-weary and wanting to fall into bed, we were informed that we had cancelled our reservation, which was news to us. In fact, we had done no such thing. Someone cancelled our reservation but it wasn't us. Evidently, it was someone on staff.
The hotel was fully booked and there were no available rooms. Or were there?
Heads were put together. Supervisors were consulted. In the end, we got a room. Actually, it was in effect a suite, as we occupied two adjoining, rarely used rooms on the top floor of this nondescript modern building, barely removed from the busy, noisy Pennsylvania Turnpike. The rooms overlooked the hotel parking lot from above the main entryway. But, hey, we had an adequate bed and two empty refrigerators that we used for bottled water, juice and milk, and we had a place to stay.
The place is - how to say this? - odd. The lobby reeks with the smell of chorination, as the doors are left open to the hotel swimming pool. There is breakfast just off the lobby but it is decidedly bland: Think tasteless yet fatty, waxy miniature muffins, small cartons of cereal, borderline drinkable coffee and the like. It doesn't taste good but it gets you going. Staff were nice and tried to be helpful, though they had that undertrained quality common in roadside inns in the United States.
Well, you get what you pay for, right? We paid $69.30 USD per night for our king bed room, breakfast included, with no extra charge for use of the second room - which also meant we had a second bathroom and second smallish closet that allowed us to spread out. The hotel also offers free Wi-Fi and in-room microwave ovens.
The Wingate Mechanicsburg is painfully far from being a destination hotel, but if you're passing through and tired of driving, it's an option.
Wingate by Windham is located at 385 Cumberland Parkway, Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 236, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 USA. Tel: 717.766.2710.
Showing posts with label Pennsylvania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pennsylvania. Show all posts
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Friday, November 18, 2011
The Road to Penn State
STATE COLLEGE, PA. - The road to State College - home of Pennsylvania State University - passes through wrinkled, weathered mountains, down long valleys flanked by tree-covered ridgelines, past modest farmhouses with satellite dishes in the yard and, finally, winds down into a hill-ringed bowl called Happy Valley. The enormous football stadium - Beaver Statium seats nearly 108,000 fans - is overlooked by Mt. Nittany, namesake of Penn State's Nittany Lions sports teams.
These days, the road to Penn State - which I drove with my wife and relatives last weekend for a fraught football game against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers - is more like the road to purdition, and Happy Valley is far from giddy with joy.
As most people in North America know - and all fans of U.S. college football are aware - a high-profile former Penn State assisant coach is under arrest for alleged child molestation. Moreover, two senior Penn State officials are in custody for supposedly covering up the offenses and lying to a grand jury. The university president has been deposed. Penn State's legendary head football coach, Joe Paterno, has been fired. Some of the alleged abuse occurred while the accused worked for Paterno and several alleged assaults occured on university property. Paterno is not charged with any crime, but the famously morally upright coach has been slammed for following only the letter of state law, passing on information about the supposed assaults to his university superiors but not calling police, himself. He resigned, effective at the end of the season, but was fired just hours later. By phone.
It was an intensely emotional time to be at Penn State at last Saturday's game, on a visit I had planned long before the current storm broke. I visited a community suddenly - and, it can be argued, belatedly - introspective. I saw people deeply saddened about the apparent experiences of at least eight abused boys and determined to rebuild their university's honorable reputation. The Nittany Lions football team walked arm-in-arm onto the field at the start of the game in a slow processional and knelt at midfield with their Nebraska opponents prior to kick-off. It was a moving moment. Nearly all 108,000 spectators observed a long moment of silence. One jerk yelled out "Play football!'' "Shut up!'' a woman retorted. After a few titters, the huge crowd was absolutely silent. There was eloquence and dignity in the silence.
After that, the game - won by the visitors, 17-14 - seemed anticlimatic. People understand there is more at stake than football. For Penn State fans, it was a singular experience, partly because of the seriousness of the charges of child abuse and partly because Joe Paterno was no longer on the coaching staff he joined as an assistant in 1950. It's hard to overstate how revered JoePa, is he is called, is in Pennsylvania. Back in the '80s, I strolled into one of the many lackluster "family'' restaurants that dot the state and nearly walked into a life-size cardboard cutout likeness of Paterno. I almost expected the coach to show us to our table. Last weekend, after wandering through lingering fall color on PSU's leafy campus to the hugely popular campus Creamery, I noted that Peachy Paterno - vanilla ice cream with peaches - is still on the menu. Well, for now, anyway.
Today, more sad news: Paterno's family just announced that the 84-year-old has lung cancer, supposedly treatable. Let's hope so.
There's a lot of accountability to be established, a lot of healing to be done and a long road ahead for Penn State - and there's a lot of thinking to be done about the wisdom of falling in love with a sport, a coach or an institution without also bringing a measure of scrutiny along for the ride.
These days, the road to Penn State - which I drove with my wife and relatives last weekend for a fraught football game against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers - is more like the road to purdition, and Happy Valley is far from giddy with joy.
As most people in North America know - and all fans of U.S. college football are aware - a high-profile former Penn State assisant coach is under arrest for alleged child molestation. Moreover, two senior Penn State officials are in custody for supposedly covering up the offenses and lying to a grand jury. The university president has been deposed. Penn State's legendary head football coach, Joe Paterno, has been fired. Some of the alleged abuse occurred while the accused worked for Paterno and several alleged assaults occured on university property. Paterno is not charged with any crime, but the famously morally upright coach has been slammed for following only the letter of state law, passing on information about the supposed assaults to his university superiors but not calling police, himself. He resigned, effective at the end of the season, but was fired just hours later. By phone.
It was an intensely emotional time to be at Penn State at last Saturday's game, on a visit I had planned long before the current storm broke. I visited a community suddenly - and, it can be argued, belatedly - introspective. I saw people deeply saddened about the apparent experiences of at least eight abused boys and determined to rebuild their university's honorable reputation. The Nittany Lions football team walked arm-in-arm onto the field at the start of the game in a slow processional and knelt at midfield with their Nebraska opponents prior to kick-off. It was a moving moment. Nearly all 108,000 spectators observed a long moment of silence. One jerk yelled out "Play football!'' "Shut up!'' a woman retorted. After a few titters, the huge crowd was absolutely silent. There was eloquence and dignity in the silence.
After that, the game - won by the visitors, 17-14 - seemed anticlimatic. People understand there is more at stake than football. For Penn State fans, it was a singular experience, partly because of the seriousness of the charges of child abuse and partly because Joe Paterno was no longer on the coaching staff he joined as an assistant in 1950. It's hard to overstate how revered JoePa, is he is called, is in Pennsylvania. Back in the '80s, I strolled into one of the many lackluster "family'' restaurants that dot the state and nearly walked into a life-size cardboard cutout likeness of Paterno. I almost expected the coach to show us to our table. Last weekend, after wandering through lingering fall color on PSU's leafy campus to the hugely popular campus Creamery, I noted that Peachy Paterno - vanilla ice cream with peaches - is still on the menu. Well, for now, anyway.
Today, more sad news: Paterno's family just announced that the 84-year-old has lung cancer, supposedly treatable. Let's hope so.
There's a lot of accountability to be established, a lot of healing to be done and a long road ahead for Penn State - and there's a lot of thinking to be done about the wisdom of falling in love with a sport, a coach or an institution without also bringing a measure of scrutiny along for the ride.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Sis
My aunt Sis Armstrong had another, given first name, but absolutely no one called her anything but Sis. I suppose that's because this late-blooming, intrepid traveler felt like kin to so many people. Sis passed away the other day, an unconventional person from a conventional background, who had an insatiable curiosity about the great world.
Sis didn't travel seriously until late middle-age, but by the time advancing years kept her from the road in her early eighties, she had seen first-hand parts of the world she only glimpsed in photos and dreams during her younger years: Spain, London and parts of southern England, Italy, much of Canada and the United States. In her later years, she typically traveled on customized tours with the estimable group Elderhostel, where professors and other experts gave talks and led tours of places visited.
She traveled independently, too, especially after she retired from a career in retail and work for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A working-class woman who didn't go beyond high school and lived her whole life in the small city where she was born, she largely educated herself.
At age 70, Sis and my mother - who, at the same age, had never been on an airplane - flew from Pennsylvania to my home in California. Once on the ground, they trekked all over San Francisco on the city's less-than-stellar public transport system, never deterred by unknown territory or inconvenience. Sis walked right up San Francisco's famous, and steep, hills with robust strides.
When she was nearly 80, Sis went with a group from her church to the Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota, where she served as an unpaid volunteer teacher, building bridges between cultures. Inquisitive, intelligent, fearless and possessed of a keen social consciousness, she was a remarkable woman in many ways. Engaged with her community, she was known to many, a beloved figure. Sis was one of life's true travelers.
Rest in peace.
Sis didn't travel seriously until late middle-age, but by the time advancing years kept her from the road in her early eighties, she had seen first-hand parts of the world she only glimpsed in photos and dreams during her younger years: Spain, London and parts of southern England, Italy, much of Canada and the United States. In her later years, she typically traveled on customized tours with the estimable group Elderhostel, where professors and other experts gave talks and led tours of places visited.
She traveled independently, too, especially after she retired from a career in retail and work for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A working-class woman who didn't go beyond high school and lived her whole life in the small city where she was born, she largely educated herself.
At age 70, Sis and my mother - who, at the same age, had never been on an airplane - flew from Pennsylvania to my home in California. Once on the ground, they trekked all over San Francisco on the city's less-than-stellar public transport system, never deterred by unknown territory or inconvenience. Sis walked right up San Francisco's famous, and steep, hills with robust strides.
When she was nearly 80, Sis went with a group from her church to the Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota, where she served as an unpaid volunteer teacher, building bridges between cultures. Inquisitive, intelligent, fearless and possessed of a keen social consciousness, she was a remarkable woman in many ways. Engaged with her community, she was known to many, a beloved figure. Sis was one of life's true travelers.
Rest in peace.
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