Small town, PA: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

1. Last time we visited, I was perusing the local newspaper (published weekly, btw), and in the crime section read about how someone had vandalized a mailbox by moving it and then putting it back. So, crime . . . not much of a concern here.

2. We had an appointment to meet a realtor at 10am, and we left the house at 9:57. I'm pretty sure we were early. It's got to be a plus that one can arrive at pretty much any destination in less than 3 minutes, right?

3. I suspect I will get in good shape once we move because there is nowhere to go except the gym. Good for me, good for Chad. (Chad owns the gym and is married to David's cousin.)

4. Which leads me to the next item on my "pro's" list: lots of family. I don't think I can travel a 50 foot radius in any direction without running into someone related to David. (Fortunately, I like his family . . . otherwise, I could see how this could easily go on the "con's" list.)

5. It's pretty.



The Bad:

1. We wanted to go out to dinner with David's new partner and his wife on Saturday. The first restaurant we tried had closed. For good. The next one had a sign on it that said, "Closed for the Winter." Finally, we traveled about 10 minutes out of town to go to a place called Fez's, which was basically a greasy-spoon diner . . . kind of like Gabby's. Not that I minded - we had good food and a great time with Andy and Michelle. Just, seriously, I like restaurants.

(An aside: The menu at the diner said "Breakfast served all day," but when Andy asked the waitress if breakfast was really served all day, her response was, "Well, today it probably is. What did you want?" It seems that menus are just suggestions of things they may be willing to cook for you.)

2. Apparently, Pennsylvania is not only the Keystone State, but also the Limestone State. While looking at a house, Jason (married to another cousin) and the realtor casually discussed the radon detector in the basement. Seems limestone produces radon, so we're pretty much surrounded by carcinogenic gas. Just what one looks for in a hometown.

3. On Saturday we were stuck inside since it was like 10 degrees, so we decided to play a game of Monopoly, which is apparently a family pasttime. Well, we didn't have a Monopoly game, and there isn't exactly a Walmart or Target to which we can run and buy one. So, where does one buy a board game? At the hardware store, of course.

4. The son of the cousins we were staying with had pink eye (hey, the kids asked me to bring them home something from PA), and he had an allergic reaction to his prescription eyedrops. No problem; just get some Benadryl, right? Well, sure if it wasn't the late night hour of, um, 9:15. Everything was closed. Nowhere to buy children's Benadryl.

5. There are bats.

6. If you want to buy a house in the winter, it's a little hard to inspect the roof.

7. You can't buy alcohol in the grocery store. Or a convenience store. Seriously, you can't; you have to go specifically to a liquor store. I think they're missing the whole point behind a convenience store.

The Ugly:

Not really sure why anyone cares what kind of car they drive up there since they all look like this 6 months out of the year: