With Groundhog day falling on a Wednesday, us poor working folks did not want to or could not take several days of vacation to travel to Punxsutawney for the Feb 2nd celebration. So we settled for a Saturday road trip to just look around town and see what was going on.
The first stop on our little adventure, was the County Cupboard where we met up with the rest of the “Groundhog Gang”, as I so dubbed us for the day. Jul (John’s sister), our friends Andy and Candy, and John I and had a delicious breakfast before heading out for Punxsutawney.
Since we were such a small group we decided to pile in John’s truck rather than take multiple cars. The drive started out OK but about a half hour or so into the drive it started snowing. The roads got a little slippery but we made pretty good time anyway. Several hours and a pit stop or two later, we arrived in Punxsutawney.
It was a little disappointing; there wasn’t much happening around the town. There were a couple of vendors in the park, mostly food and kiddie games and that was about it.
We stopped by the library to see Phil sleeping in his burrow looking all cozy and warm while we were cold and getting snowed on. Hmm what is wrong with this picture. We were told that Phil was in a “grumpy” mood and would not be coming out to great visitors.
We took a walking tour around town to see all of the statue Phils, guided by a local news reporter. It was very interesting to hear about how the statues were originally delivered and then modified by the artists. There are some very unique statues. Make sure you check out the photo album at the end of this post to see all the ones we visited.
It snowed, the entire time we were walking around town. I was STARVING by now and was ready to get out of the cold for a while. We stopped by the Chamber of Commerce to buy some souvenirs and ask about a good restaurant within walking distance.
After lunch we headed back into town to see if there were any new activities. There weren’t. We looked through the Phil’s brochure and found a couple of Phils that weren’t on the tour that we…ok….I….wanted to go see. We drove all this way, I was going to see some Phils and have some silly fun.
After that we took a trip to Gobbler’s Knob to look around. Again not much going on.
It was too early for supper so we stopped by a local bar for a couple of beers and another chance to warm up. After a couple of drinks and some socializing with the locals we decided it was time to start our journey home.
Our last stop was in Clearfield at Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub. Denny’s was a featured on Man vs. Food for its LARGE hamburgers. In particular the 3lb’er. None of us opted to order it, but we did get some unique hamburgers.
It was a neat little place, and I mean little, about 20 or so tables. That fact didn’t seem to deter people; the line and the wait were long.
Finally it was time to make our way home. The snow was gone, the roads were clear and we were home in no time at all. Maybe it wasn’t one of our most exciting adventures, but it was something to do, and sure beat cleaning house!
Click here to see all the photos from our trip.
