See you next month!

I had hoped to have both this week's quest and next week's lined up in advance, as I'm about to head out on vacation. But as usual, life is what happened while I was making other plans, and I just never got to it. I also didn't get to finish season one of the podcast as I'd hoped either. So I'm just washing my hands of the whole idea and calling it quits for the month, because there's only so much of me to go around.

The orange boys will be well tended in my absence, never fear. I'll most likely come home and find that they're more spoiled than ever. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to spend some of my time off catching up on my reading and - maybe - doing a bit more work on the novel I've been neglecting for a long time now. 

When I return, I do have some plans that I'll be unveiling, and the June newsletter will only be going out a day or two late. Until we meet again, good friends, I hope the rest of May treats you well and that you have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day. Thanks as always for joining me on my quests!

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.

Allentown State Hospital, Allentown, Lehigh County

As I mentioned last week, husband Kevin and I attended the marker dedication ceremony for Allentown State Hospital this past Friday. My longtime readers know that I usually do separate posts for the ceremonies and the markers themselves; however, this event was probably the shortest of its kind that I've ever attended, and it just made more sense for me to combine it with the history behind the marker. So as a result, this post may be a little longer than usual.

Phoenix Iron Company, Phoenixville, Chester County

The May newsletter is out! If you're not already subscribed, you can read it here. (But please consider subscribing.)

This Friday, May 3rd, I'll be heading to my birth city to attend the marker dedication ceremony for the Allentown State Hospital. It was originally supposed to be held last fall but got rescheduled, and I only just found out a few days ago that it was set for this week! They've scheduled a few more dedication ceremonies throughout the coming summer, so be sure to check the official calendar to see if any of them are happening near you.

Meanwhile, for the first quest of the fifth month, let's travel to Chester County and take a look at the history of a company which, like the bird for which it was named, emerged from its own ashes repeatedly over almost two centuries before finally closing its doors.

Grace Methodist Church, Harrisburg, Dauphin County

April feels (to me at least) like it's been about three months long. Then again, ever since the pandemic I'm pretty sure time has lost a lot of its meaning. In any case, I've got one more blog post for you before we head into the month of May, so let's take a trek to Dauphin County and learn about a building that served one very unusual purpose: saving Harrisburg's role as capital of the commonwealth.

Troxell-Steckel House, Whitehall, Lehigh County

I had hoped to be starting this post with the announcement that I've got a new podcast episode ready to roll. As it happens, however, I'm still waiting on YouTube's account verification and a couple other details. (I'm trying to clean up the audio quality.) So instead we're just getting straight into the blogging.

This will be a slightly odd blog post, at least by my own standards. I have two markers for the location, because the wording is just a little different on each, but I won't be sharing pictures of the actual farmhouse. That's not to say that I don't have pictures - I do. Quite a few, in fact, and I would love to share them. But it's a peculiar quirk of the Lehigh County Historical Society that you can't publish photographs of either the Troxell-Steckel House in Whitehall or Trout Hall in Allentown without their explicit written permission, and I just never got around to requesting the permission. Maybe they wouldn't mind, but then again, maybe they would, and I don't feel like dealing with any possible legal fallout. I'd rather play by the rules. Eventually I'll remember to write and ask for permission at a time when I'm actually able to do it, and I'll come back and add my photos to the post.

The Banana Split, Latrobe, Westmoreland County

My apologies to anyone who missed a post last week. We had two and a half days of rain around here, and as my longtime readers know, my body does not take kindly to that sort of thing. I was hurting pretty badly and I just couldn't focus. But I'm back this week!

Pennsylvania, among its many claims to fame, is known as the snack food capital of the United States. It's not hard to see why, either. We're the home of Hershey, Tastykake, Middleswarth chips, Sturgis pretzels (both Julius and Tom), and a whole bunch of other companies that make many of our favorite snackies. This includes ice cream products, from outfits like Yuengling. 

There's apparently something of a mild debate about the origin of the banana split. It seems that a number of communities across the country like to claim to be where the famous sundae was invented. However, our own Latrobe has the earliest claim, and has been certified as the birthplace of the banana split by the National Ice Cream Retailers Association. My sister Liza and I visited Latrobe last autumn to pay homage to Mister Rogers, and the marker for the banana split isn't far from his.