Weird Pennsylvania: Your Travel Guide to Pennsylvania's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Matt Lake
2005

Weight:2.45lbs

Method of Disposal: Leaving in a Lending Library

We recently made the trip to Pennsylvania to see a couple of shelter foster/volunteers turned friends and, in the extremely brief time we were there, we did a whirlwind tour of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.  It was an excellent taster, and there is so much more I would like to do now.  

We had Philly cheesesteaks in Philadelphia.  Mine was vegetarian, of course, and absolutely delicious.  We explored Doylestown and New Hope.  We visited Frenchtown, Lamberton, and then New York City.  It was my first time visiting any of these places.

In Doylestown, there were three bookstores, and I absolutely loved them all.  We bought a new book at Doylestown Bookshop and then bought a whole bag of used books for less than $10 at the other two used bookstores in town.  I might have kept going if I were not flying, but I had added a lot of weight to our luggage already.  I found Weird Pennsylvania in a cardboard box on the sidewalk for 98 cents.  Yes, please.  What oddities could I find in Bucks County that even our hosts did not know about?

It was more paranormal and ghost focused that others I have read in the Weird collection, so there was much less I was enthusiastic enough about visiting than usual, but it was still interesting.  I was quite intrigued by the Rosicrucians and their pyramids.  The fact that Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln a part of that group added to the appeal and the mystery.  The secrecy and symbolism is somewhat irresistible, despite myself.

Anywho, I always love a good flip through the Weird books when I am traveling and, also, searching Atlas Obscura online.  As if there was not enough to do before opening up all the weird!  The world is so big and complicated, and it is endlessly amusing when you have time to look a little harder aka are not working all day every day.