Originally Posted by
Tom Bombadil
Sorry, I've already been there once. No one ever goes more than once.
Hey, in between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre there is Old Forge, the self-confessed pizza capitol of the world.
Wilkes-Barre is the home to Planters Peanuts and Cable Television. In addition, just south of Wilkes-Barre is Ashley, the childhood home of the actor who played the professor on Gilligan's Island. I think I heard once that QVC started here too.
The Wilkes-Barre area is home to two major coal mine disasters, and there is a museum where you can take a trip down into a coal mine. A tour where every guide used to be a coal miner, but since coal mining stopped in the area in about 1960, it is now mostly the children of coal miners.
Wilkes-Barre has two four year colleges in their city limits (Kings College and Wilkes University), and two more campuses that consider themselves the Wilkes-Barre campus (Penn State Wilkes-Barre and Misericordia University). There is also a 2 year Community college in Nanicoke, with locations in Wilkes-Barre, Old Forge and other places.
Within a 30 minute drive you can drive past wind generators, a former coal generation plant that now runs on natural gas, and a nuclear reactor (I can see the steam cloud from my back porch on a clear day)
South of Wilkes-Barre is a site where some of the first concrete housing structures were built... they no longer exist, but there is a sign.
Wilkes-Barre Scranton hosts an arena football team, minor league hockey team, and the AAA affiliate of the New York Yankees.
Every Year Wilkes-Barre is one of the stops on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra tour.
There is an international airport, a horse track with a casino and a nearby Nascar track... There is also an annual hill climb called Giants Despair that is pretty famous for those into hill climbs.
There is a great little bike store in down town Wilkes-Barre too!
I tend to only ride what they call flat around here (rolling hills anywhere else) but if one wants climbs, we have hills that are real challenges (note the hill climb referenced above for one of them).
Within 2 hours drive you can be in Philadelphia or New York City... and half way to Philadelphia is a velodrome (which hosts two big bicycle swap meets every year).
If one were to float down the Susquehanna river (the longest non-navigable river in the US), you would pass two major nuclear power plants, the second one would be Three Mile Island.
But, enough about Scranton/Wilkes-Barre... Anyone want to borrow a bike?
