Molly Maguires

This is our history lesson for today as we drive through Wilkes-Barre Luzerne County in coal mining hills of Pennsylvania. The Molly’s were an underground society (haha – no pun intended) of Irish/Irish American coal miners. They were seeking better wages and working conditions, then some Pinkerton guy – most likely paid off by the mining companies testified against them and a bunch of people were arrested and hung in 1887 ish. For more info, go to wikipedia.

Last night we stayed at Ravensburg State Park south of the Williamsport area. We pulled in around 6:00 pm and set up the tent. We both agreed it was much better having our own stuff and camping versus the fleabag motel from the night before. Side note: we calculated our hourly rate for our stay at $6/hr.

As luck or lack of….depending on how you look at things, there wasn’t any water because of a broken water main … So the ranger stopped by later in the evening and gave us our money back. So far, pretty cheap overnight accommodations.

Another very important note! Pennsylvania does not allow alcohol in any of the state parks! AND dogs are not welcomed in every park AND if they are, then only on specific dog sites AND you pay extra for them!!! Hmmm – maybe we will rethink our plans and go disperse camping instead. It certainly will not be any different from the park we stayed in last night. Btw – we drank some beers anyway! Come on – we’re from Wisconsin and on vacation!

Our driving goal for today is somewhere around Portland, Maine. The problem with car traveling and not having a specific designation in mind until Monday…is where to go? There are just so many places and so many things to do and see, it’s really hard to stay focused on a single destination. It’s our first time exploring this side of the country so everything is new and exciting.

We were thinking of driving north via Vermont to avoid the metropolis of Connecticut, but after some deliberation we decided to travel straight to Maine and enjoy our travels one state at a time.
Maybe we can hit the White Mountains of New York or the Green Mountains of Vermont on our drive home.

We are definitely coming back to Pennsylvania. I’m starting out list now:

Worlds End State Park

Ricketts Glen State Park

Jim Thorpe

Gettysburg

Lancaster County

Yippee – in New York State!