Staying Local This Weekend

 

With all the driving that I have done over the past two weeks going to Scranton and Erie, this weekend I wasn’t about to sit in the car and go on another long road trip. However, we still needed to get out of the apartment so we settled on one of our nearby stand by destinations… Harvest Books in Fort Washington. And it actually worked out well as we both needed to pick up a couple cheap books to read. So, the destination was decided but we had to do something a little different so I began searching for a new place to grab lunch. After a few minutes of searching online and reading reviews, I found a place that looked pretty darn good.

We drove into Fort Washington at about 12:30 and continued down the road listening to Siri send us in the completely opposite direction. As we turned around we reloaded the directions and began heading in the right direction. With no actual store front or sign along Bethlehem Pike, we circled around the block a couple of times before blindly turning into the parking lot with the matching street address. Finally, we arrived at Hungry Bear Café.

 

It is a really small little café in the old train station building tucked along the side of the tracks but the friendly and inviting atmosphere and tasty options listed on the brunch menu more than made up for less than desirable location. After enjoying an excellent cup of coffee the food arrived at our table looking better than the high expectations set by the ingredients. Not only was the Brioche Benedict a tasty combination accented with homemade sausage and sautéed mushrooms but the pancakes we ordered on the side are, hands down, the best that I have ever eaten.

 

However, the most impressive and kind of surprising discovery was the Au Poivre Burger that my wife reluctantly let me taste. With all of the burgers that we have had in our lives, we didn’t realize such an amazing example of burger precision could be found in Fort Washington of all places. I am not one who usually votes online for various contests but I will definitely make an exception this time and vote for Hungry Bear Café in Philadelphia Magazine’s Battle of the Burger. We will be back to try more.

After lunch we headed over to our favorite book shop right down the street from the café. While prices have increased slightly, Harvest Books is still one of the best deals for those of us that still enjoy our books in a non-digital format. And there are always a few things that I discover that I can’t pass up, especially at $2.50 apiece. And it should be no surprise that I found a number of books on Freemasonry that I had to take home with me and a few that I will be purchasing at a later date (if they are still there). Of course, my wife picked up a couple of books as well so we both headed back to the apartment with some books that we will eventually find the time to read.

While it may not have been the furthest that I have traveled recently, it was still a great local day of travel and one that I was able to enjoy with my wife. Things should be back to normal next weekend, the long holiday weekend, when we will head back out on the road and explore a new Pennsylvania destination. With that said, I still have no idea where we are going to go. I guess we will have to find out next weekend.

This Is Not A Disney Movie

Well, there's your problem.

Trying to get to work on Monday was an absolute mess. What is normally a direct route that takes me forty five minutes to get to the office took me two and a half hours and numerous back roads. That annoying B, Siri, was actually very helpful yesterday and I was able to get to the office by ten. Today was more of the same as I tried to get to a meeting in Malvern which took me double the travel time than it should have.  

The cause of my delays was something that is becoming more and more common as the roads and highways around the city become more congested… accidents. These are the moments of mixed emotions. On one hand I am absolutely pissed at the mess that someone has caused and the delays that they have incurred upon all of us behind them while at the same time I am thankful that I wasn’t the one involved in such a serious incident that would shut down a multi-lane roadway.

What probably doesn’t help my mood during these situations is the fact that I am a regular talk radio listener and some of the things coming out of Washington are both appalling and enraging as the changed that was promised to so many people is becoming a reality. Unfortunately, it has come with lies and deceit that make the previous administration look almost passive in their initiatives. Trying to shove an unwanted program down our throats is one thing but outright lying to do so is a whole other level of wrong. Someone needs to let Obamapoppins that a spoon full of BS does not make the government sponsored medicine go down.

The latest radio tirades, usually when taking a breather from the healthcare fiasco, have been swirling around the falsified jobs figures leading up to the 2012 election. This is something that from one perspective seems to be the false persuasion of voters but, frankly, if you really believed that the job market has been improving and unemployment numbers have been correct then you have had your head up a certain orifice all along and false figures really had no bearing on your opinion anyway. It is interesting to hear how many ways the same topic can be rehashed though and I do give some of the personalities credit for some original takes on the subject.

I guess it could be worse. It may not seem like it when sitting behind a 1988 Nissan that hasn’t had an inspection since Clinton was in office but the fact of the matter is that we are alive to gripe about these things and we have enough of a mind, granted not much, to have an opinion. I have a job I love, I have a wife I love, I have my family, I have my brothers and Rotarians, and I have this blog to rant about such things. Things are actually pretty good right now. Some things could be better but there is not much to complain about at the moment. On top of that, at least I don’t live in New Jersey anymore. See, things seem to have gotten much better already.