07 April 2010

Charmed by Jim Thorpe

There's a town a few miles away from where we picked up the plane named Jim Thorpe.  When I was looking for a place to stay that would be convenient to the airfield, I found the Inn at Jim Thorpe.  The hotel was originally built in 1833 and burned down in the 1840s and was rebuilt.  (reminds you of Monty Python a little doesn't it?)  It turned out to be the perfect town to celebrate the purchase of a beautiful airplane.

It was only a little after four when we got to the hotel, but since we never got around to lunch we were simultaneously starved, dehydrated, wound up with excitement, and exhausted.  The restaurants didn't open for dinner until five so we had to kill a little bit of time before we could satisfy our hunger.  Everyone we met in Jim Thorpe was very friendly.  We talked to the owner of a railroad paraphernalia store for about a half hour as he told us all about the history of the area.

Jim Thorpe was originally built on coal and railroad money, and is the county seat of Carbon County, Pennsylvania.  The town was originally named Mauch Chunk which means something like "bear on the mountain side" in the local Native American language.  The town definitely feels like it's straight out of mid-nineteenth century America - you can imagine industrial barons making their home there.  Apparently 13 of the nation's 26 millionaires lived in Mauch Chunk before WWII.  The main street through the center of town was called Millionaire's Row.

Millionaire's Row

When Jim Thorpe died in 1953, his widow decided to bring his remains to Mauch Chunk, where they built a shrine in his honor and renamed the town for him.  For those of you who don't know (which included me, 24 hours ago), Jim Thorpe was a Native American football player.  In the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, he won gold in the decathlon and pentathlon.   Apparently any local old timers are still called "chunkers".

After wandering through a few stores, we made our way to a restaurant called Moya, where they had just started serving dinner.  The restaurant was fabulous - really good food, impeccable service, and an atmosphere that was just the right mix of classy and comfortable.  By the time we finished dinner, we'd taken care of dehydration, hunger, excitement (at least for the moment), and all that was left was exhaustion.  And yet it was only 6:30.  So we decided to walk around town and reinvigorate ourselves before considering whether to go back for some espresso and desert.

The walk was really nice.  I've seen tourist information call Jim Thorpe the Switzerland of Pennsylvania, and I can see why.  The town managed to remind me simultaneously of England and southern Europe, while still feeling distinctly American.  It was a charming combination.   We heard that there's a strong Irish contingent in the area.  As the man told us, "You know when you see a five year old running around with the name Seamus, that people here take their Irish roots seriously."  Indeed.

The next morning I took off in another direction with camera in hand.  This is one of the mansions on a road going up the hill out of town (too ritzy for the Millionaire's Row).



There was a sign out front advertising murder mystery dinners there.  Talk about a perfect setting.

Well, I ended up sharing far more about Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania than I ever expected.  But it was a beautiful place and it had a fascinating history.  The people there were universally welcoming, and the hotel and restaurant were top notch.  It could be that I was wearing rose colored colored glasses after a day of buying an airplane, but it's a place I would love to come back to, and a place I'd recommend to anyone who's in the area.

Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why I'm so excited about the airplane.  While I do love flying with Tim, just for the sake of it, I also love that it'll give us the opportunity to go explore new places.  Tim gets to fly and I get to wander around taking pictures and sketching, and try to figure out what makes a place tick.

You can see more of my pictures of Jim Thorpe here.

Stone Wall

2 comments:

Meredith said...

Enjoying the pictures! Always loved your eye, Carrie! Have to say, it is also so interesting to try to guess if an entry is you or Tim! Per typical, in being an old married couple, you've started to sound alike :)

Anonymous said...

great posts guys and congrats on the first leg of the odyssey! maybe it's time to duct tape the flip cam to the wing spar and get some in-flight video.
- paul