Road Trip to Cleveland ~ A Stop in Scranton: June 7, 2024

 A Stop in Scranton, Pennsylvania

June 7, 2024

We left home just after 9:30 a.m. and headed for the Danbury Railway Museum, where Jeff checked out the new non-functioning train engine that had been delivered at 1:00 this morning.  He snapped a few pictures and chatted with one of the guys before getting back in the car for the true start of our road trip.

The skies were moody all day long, with small showers every now and then. 



We entertained ourselves and passed the time by listening to an audiobook by Malcolm Gladwell titled Miracles and Wonder. The book is culled from a series of long conversations between Gladwell and his friend Bruce Headlam with Paul Simon.  All of the sessions were recorded, and during each session, they would talk about Simon's work, pulling apart different songs and analyzing the creative processes that Paul Simon used during his over 50-year career as a songwriter and performer. Simon would pick up a guitar and play from time to time to illustrate a point he was trying to make.  Gladwell pieced together snippets of these conversations with other recorded materials - such as interviews Paul Simon had done with Dick Cavitt and conversations with other musicians. Gladwell added his own analysis of what he had learned in all of these conversations with Paul Simon.










It's a beautiful venue, and we had a delicious lunch before heading over to Steamtown National Park, where Jeff had a lovely tour of many trains, while I enjoyed reading a book while a cook breeze floated gently through the windows.


We checked into our hotel and took a bit of a nap before heading out to watch the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Railriders (a Yankees AAA farm team) take on the Norfolk Tides (an Orioles farm team).



We had great seats in row 3, just behind the visiting team's dugout.  The Railriders played a great game, winning by a score of 10 to 0! Just after we got there, a kid began shrieking, "Wets Go, Whale Widahs!"  Over and over again until finally, he stopped ... at least for a while. 


The skies continued their "moodiness," and eventually, the heavens opened, causing us to seek cover.  The game continued with occasional stoppages to replace the "cleat cleaning pads" behind the pitcher's mound.






At the end of the game, there were fireworks, which we watched as we walked back to our car and headed back to our hotel for a good night's sleep before the long day tomorrow.

All in all ... a perfect day!



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