Baker Mansion, Altoona, Blair County

Those of you who follow the blog's Facebook may have seen a post from me a few days ago, which I've since deleted, about how I was contacted by a literary agent who was interested in my work. It was a scam. I'm addressing it now because I want to warn fellow creatives about it - the company, Sourcebooks, is legitimate, and Anna Michels really is their senior editorial consultant. However, they've had a number of instances of people being sent spoof emails in recent months, wherein authors and illustrators are being approached with possible offers of being published by the company. Long story short, if you get an email from someone claiming to be with Sourcebooks, unless it comes from an email address ending with sourcebooks.com, it is not legitimate.

Fortunately, I did a little research before I responded to the email or did anything more than reporting it as spam, so no harm done except to my ego. I'll live. Just be careful out there!

Moving on, I realized that it's been a long time since Kevin and I went to the city of Altoona for his birthday. A lot has happened since then; sadly, Leap-the-Dips has been officially closed, because Lakemont Park has shifted its focus to things like picnics rather than amusement rides. It was already closed when we were there, so we didn't get to ride it, but since then it became official that it will not reopen, or at least not any time soon. I was looking through my folder of photos from the trip, and I realized there was one more marker I photographed while we were there that I haven't profiled here on the blog yet. Seems like a good time.

Wyoming County

Happy New Year!

It's only been a week since we bade farewell to 2025, but the weather has made it feel like much longer. Today isn't so bad, nor was yesterday; the previous several days, however, with their painfully low temperatures and biting winds, were another story. I was not built for winter and have not been feeling my best.

Still, I'm here and I'm looking forward to a new year of blogging. It's going to be a busy one, with the books and other important things happening. The country is turning 250 years old! Naturally, Pennsylvania is a big part of that, so I'll be doing my best to participate where I can.

But for today, a blog post. Last summer, as my readers from back then may recall, my emotional support silly man and I took a road trip up north for his birthday, and one of our stops was the seat of Wyoming County. We admired their beautiful courthouse and collected a few markers and here's some of what I learned as a result.

Pennsylvania Railroad Shops, Altoona, Blair County

Hello and welcome to the second-to-last MQ adventure for 2025! I still can't believe this has been the seventh year of quests, and I really appreciate how many of you have joined me for my adventures in history. I have one more regular post lined up for next week, and then in December I'll be doing the annual wrap-up where we look at statistics and fun facts. After that, as my longtime readers know, I'll be taking the rest of December off because of my day job being in retail.

This week we're heading back out west to Blair County to look at trains. I do like trains.

Gemeinhaus, Bethlehem, Northampton County

I'm once again starting to run out of my stock of markers! I haven't had the opportunity to do a great deal of marker hunting this spring, though I'm hoping to get out next month and collect a few. My best friend Andrea and my sister Liza are both interested in accompanying me on an excursion to Concrete City up north, and I have a handful of other destinations on my radar, so we'll see how that goes.

For this week's quest, I'm venturing back to Moravian Bethlehem, one of my favorite historical places, and showing you around the beautiful Gemeinhaus. When I last had a visit from my dear friend Rachel, who moved out of state, she requested that we spend a day in Bethlehem, where she had grown up. I was more than happy to oblige, and she took me around several of the places she knew best. That included today's destination, where she used to work as a tour guide.

Eckley Miners' Village, Weatherly, Luzerne County

Recently I did something that I haven't done in a while. As I mentioned last week, the PHMC held a free admission day this past Saturday at all of the historical sites they personally superintend. Well, it happened to work out that nobody was available to go with me for one reason or another, so I ended up going all by myself to my destination of choice up in Luzerne County. I don't often go on quests alone, mostly for health reasons, but I had a great day with beautiful weather and was even able to make a couple side quests to collect additional markers.

My main objective was to pay a visit to Eckley Miners' Village Museum, which I have long wanted to see; and after carefully navigating some hairpin turns up into the mountains, I reached my destination in time to join the 11 a.m. walking tour. Our tour guide was a wonderful retired miner who has been doing research about the region for more than fifty years. He was lovely (I regret not getting his name) and I learned a lot from him. I apologize to my mobile readers, because I took so many pictures in Eckley that this post has more than the usual number.

Charles Demuth, Lancaster, Lancaster County

Happy New Year! It almost feels strange to be updating the blog again, but in a good way. As it turned out, taking a hiatus in December was probably the best thing I could have done, since my regular job was (and still is) a bit topsy-turvy. This unfortunately meant that I didn't really get to go much of anywhere, and I definitely didn't get to collect any new markers. But even so, it's good to be back. I hope all of my readers had a wonderful holiday season.

Meanwhile, for today we'll take a run back to beautiful Lancaster, where I hope to be in several weeks, and learn about a local artist and his unique local roots.

Henry Chapman Mercer, Doylestown, Bucks County

Back in June, on a much finer day than what my area is experiencing currently, my best friend Andrea and I took a ride down to visit Doylestown, in Bucks County. I can't tell you why I'd never been there, although I'd driven through it a number of times - usually on the way to Peddler's Village. Anyway, as it turns out, Doylestown is adorable and very... I think the word I want to use is quaint. We had a really delicious meal at La Dolce Vita da Franco, where we sat outside in a little walled dining area; highly recommend, would eat there again. But our primary objective was to acquaint ourselves with a length of Doylestown colloquially known as the Mercer Mile.

The Mercer Mile gets its name from a man who designed three very distinct buildings. I think I would have liked this guy, because we seem to have a lot in common. This includes, but is by no means limited to, a love of dogs (my "little brother" is sitting beside me as I write, because I'm dogsitting for my parents) and a love of castles (I don't have one of those, but he did).

The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Dauphin County

For reasons that probably don't need to be explained, I haven't been able to travel to today's subject and take pictures. But last fall, my parents were in the city of Harrisburg, as I mentioned in my post about the Underground Railroad, and they got a few pictures of markers for me while they were in the vicinity. Today my stepdad joins the ranks of the blog's guest photographers, and hopefully, he and I will both get to make a proper visit to the subject in the relatively near future. Whenever I'm finally able to go, I'll come back and edit this post to add more pictures - I promise I'll let you know when that happens.

"Pennsylvania," says one of my sources for today's post, "is a history-minded state." That, of course, is why I'm here and why you're here with me.