Xenophilia

Having had the freedom so cherished and celebrated at this time of year to have Friday afternoon off, I decided to make a roadtrip out of it. I had never been to the Johnstown/Altoona area and it had been awhile since my last venture to Pennsylvania, so that was my destination. The week leading up to this was a soggy week indeed, with flooding anywhere within a day’s drive of the DC metropolitan area, so I thought my afternoon sojourn might have been tabled. Luckily, though, the rain stopped on Thursday and it was mostly sunny on Friday and gorgeous, so in a gesture of irony I made my first destination Johnstown, the site of the devastating flood in 1889. Of course my agenda had beer written all over it, and to the JBC is where I was driving.

Luckily I was able to find the place, somewhat outside of town, up and over several hills and finally overlooking part of the city and a lovely green backdrop of rills and plains on a perfect Friday afternoon. I sampled their beers and had a very late lunch, watching the world passing by and reminiscing while I read Chasing the Sea, a journal-slash-history-slash-novel about Uzbekistan that in several cases mirrored my own experience and mentioned several landmarks that were thrillingly nostalgic. Anyway, this was “the life” as they say, but it was only 5 o’clock and still sunny when I was done, so being sober enough to hit the hilly highways again, I accelerated towards Altoona.

The name for this trip being the “Altoona trip” is somewhat of a misnomer as I really only spent about 30 minutes in the city. My motel and the beer establishments were all in points south, although my original plan had me heading back into town at night, but the length of the day and the beers (and the fact that my motel was less than a block from the nearest brewery) made it seem not worthwhile. Prior to the sun’s setting, I wandered around downtown Altoona where I happened upon a live music barbecue festival-sort of thing going on. Having just stuffed myself, I wasn’t in the mood for food, so I just wandered around and noticed a capsuled downtown, a bit forlorn but not as lonely as much of this-sized American cities. My efforts to explore downtown were short-lived, partly because I was not hungry, partly because there really wasn’t much to see, and partly because I really needed to use the restroom. All of this was an excuse to find a motel for the night too, so off I went towards Hollidaysburg.

After a roundabout sort of way getting there, I ended up in downtown Hollidaysburg. Having passed what seemed like a plausible place to stay the night and the road towards the brewery, I doubled back to check in at the Wye Motel, a ground-level rambler-style motel located apropos a the “Y” junction of Plank Road, US 22 and Patchway Road from the back. Since it was still light out and I wasn’t ready for dinner, after checking in and dropping off my bag I drove back to town and walked around the tiny square. I passed by a lively-sounding bar, but declined entry in favor of the U.S. Hotel down the road. I got back into my car and drove around a couple blocks and parked on a front street facing railroad tracks and in the distance another wall of rock and trees that Pennsylvania has in adundance. The wooden sign outside the bar portion of the historic hotel beckoned. Upon entry I discovered the typical milieu of a Friday night crowd although it was only about 8 o’clock. At least I got a seat at the bar and requested a food menu. I ordered a Speckled Hen on draught, which was actually my first. It had a cidery taste to it, but it was actually pleasant.

My dinner was a flamboyantly rich but bumpkinesquely named “Drunken Dip,” a take on the French dip sandwich but instead of the typical au jus, a thick and creamy marinated mushroom sauce accompanied. It must have been the thickest dip I’d ever encountered, but it was delicious. I was also so full after eating it, I winced at the realization that I hadn’t even been to the brewery that this entire trip was based on. I sat in a food-induced stupor as the evening’s cover band set up and began to play a rickety version of U2’s “One” followed by “Amie” by the Pure Prairie League. I failed to catch their name as the lead singer sheepishly announced it before a crowd of milquetoast imbibers, but after three or four songs I bid my seat adieu and onto my next destination.

It was probably the first time I’d ever parked my car at a motel and was able to walk down the road to a brewery. I know that the Stoudt’s Brewery, also in Pennsylvania, is a tourist complex in and of itself, with a hotel next door and absolutely nothing else around it. This was just an accident of proximate geography. I cut across the back parking lot of a mail facility in which postal workers were upending boxes of letters and parcels into larger bins and sorting machines. I mused to myself that there are actual humans working with the mail after 5:00. At the end of the driveway entrance past the lowly mailbox, gleamed the big red sign beckoning “Marzoni’s Brick Oven Pizza.” There may also have been “and brewery” in there, but it seemed that their focus was on the pizza, and after a sampler of all their beers on tap I concurred I was right. It’s not that their beer wasn’t good, but I wasn’t overly impressed except for the last two which weren’t on the regular rotation of the sampler menu, but a maibock and a special saison beer. But by then I was still full, exhausted from a very long day of work, driving and previous beer tasting, that despite the next-door convenience of this brewery, I was going to be content with just the samples and a one-way ticket to bed. Altoona’s nightlife would just have to be postponed.

For $45 I was impressed at the promised “squeaky clean” conditions of the motel. I’ve stayed in places much more spartan and paid more, but this was a good deal in a perfect location. I decided to try to catch breakfast on the road, so I hit 22 again this time to the glorious back roads of central Pennsylvania. Sunlight streaming through the trees, the cool air wafting through my cracked open windows, Death Cab For Cutie blaring through my portable CD player…this was a perfect day for driving! Spruce Creek, a sleepy hamlet nestled in the wrinkles of the highway burst in front of my eyes after a hairpin turn like the contents of a page from a pop-up book. I continued town after town, farm after farm, mountains jutting from the earth like moss-covered razors. My stomach beckoned me to stop, but nothing much was open or even available until I happened upon microscopic Aaronsburg and the little all you can eat buffet on the east side of town. Aaronsburg, it turns out, had been a Jewish settlement of sorts back in the day, but today they serve sausage patties, bacon and scrapple amongst other delicacies on the buffet, which just happened to be still open when I pulled in at 3 minutes to 11.

After stuffing myself with eggs, biscuits and gravy, and french toast, I hit the road again towards Selinsgrove. Horse-and-buggy traffic became more common, although not frequent. One small town seemed to have an overwhelming majority of Amish or Mennonite. One front yard sign read boldly, “Bush’s Lies Kill People,” the front yard manicured to perfection and the perfectly situated rocking chairs on the front porch implied a similarly tidy interior. Down the road in Hartleton, a sign proclaimed “old fashioned soda fountain,” and despite being full from brunch I couldn’t resist it. Upon entry to this general store, I was greeted with an array of homemade pasta, flour, spices, jellies and other Pennsylvania Dutch treats. The best part was they were dirt cheap. I bought a bag of cinnamon sticks for less than a dollar, a bag of natural cocoa powder for $1.50, pasta, some basmati rice for $1.93 and several large containers of spice for under a dollar each. It wasn’t until the checkout that I realized I had come in for a soda. “Oh, we don’t have that anymore, but the counter is still there.” Oh well, I was pleased with my purchases and ready for the final destination.

I arrived in downtown Selinsgrove with a rush of poignant reminiscence and undridled excitement. Would they be open? Would they have my favorite beer? Would I run into Meredith or her mother? Well, I lucked out in all cases, but had the third concern been a reality I would have said hello. I sampled several of their darker beers: stouts and porters, as well as a hefeweissen and a maibock. Finally, my favorite Scottish Ale was as quaffable as promised and I filled up my growler, took their last t-shirt from the display and along with four pint glasses emblazoned with their cool logo, I set sail for Rockville.

Route 11/15 is a straight shot from Selinsgrove to the western suburbs of Harrisburg. Along this route, I passed many familiar sights: a convenience store I once bought gas, the antique store in Liverpool where Meredith and I made several purchases, a place we once bought pumpkins from a farmer who was selling them from his pickup tailgate, the turnoff to her parents’ farm, Angie’s Restaurant where she used to work, and all the other buildings and houses we passed on our many trips up to the farm. It was therapeutic in a way, and I was actually able to look back on those memories as very pleasant. At least when we were traveling we were usually in good spirits. I continued along 11/15 past where we often had turned off to the east. I filled up at a gas station near Perdix where we would stop and get coffee at the cappucchino machines. I’d sworn to not get that type of coffee again because it is always so thick and sickeningly sweet that I felt my waist growing thicker with each sip. This time they had cherries jubilee flavor and my resistance was as low as my eyelids had become, so I succumbed to its inviting taste (I snuck a sample before filling my coffee thermos).

The rest of the drive went fairly quickly, as was not usually the case driving back. It didn’t dawn on me until I was in the midst of the traffic congestion of Gettysburg that the weekend before the 4th of July in a town that is quintessentially linked to our independence, would have been a place best avoided, but it didn’t take too long to get through the town and eventually on Route 15 to Frederick. It didn’t rain at all, and despite a significant number of hours on the road, I managed to see quite a bit and do a lot in just a 24-hour period. I made it home by 5, with plenty of time to have a nice evening and prepare for my next adventure on Sunday: New York City.