Meeting the Real Phil

It's Groundhog Day! Though Phil is wretched from an artificial burrow to give his prediction to serve for the entire nation, I tend to think he would have seen his shadow here in Washington this morning. It's bright, not too cold, and promises to be an extraordinary day. I may have to go for a walk again and take notice of all of the plant life. But without further ado, I'd like to travel back in time to May 5, 2002.

On this fateful day Pooky and I started our awesome cross-country journey. Our first stop was in the town of Punxsutawney as we made our way across Pennsylvania. I had always wanted to see Phil on Groundhog Day, but decided seeing him on a non-business day was just as good.

We arrived around lunchtime and quickly found our way to Gobbler's Knob, the official weather predicting station. Not a soul was around save this highly suspicious man on a tractor mowing the field of grass. He stared at us like we were foreigner idiots. The area where they pluck Phil out of his "home" is very tiny. I tried to imagine a mass of people huddled around this little stage and it terrified me.

I wanted to do our own groundhog re-enactment, so I brought out our trusty Sheep. I placed him upon the official stump and took his picture. He did cast a shadow that May day, and I have no idea what it meant.

After photographing Gobbler's Knob we set out to find The Real Phil. When not working, Phil and some of his companions live inside of a little display room located in the town square inside of the library. Groundhogs are shy creatures, but with some luck I was able to take a photograph of one of the groundhogs. I assume it was The Real Phil.

By the time we saturated ourselves with roadside attraction goodness, it was time to eat some food. The town isn't that big, so we zoomed up and down the streets looking for a good place to eat. Considering the town is descended upon once a year, you'd think there would be some cute, themed restaurants. We couldn't find any. We had no idea what place might have been featured in Groundhog Day the movie, so we just picked a sandwich shop and ate. The food was ok.

Then we tried to find some groundhog souvenirs. Would you believe the town was devoid of them? I guess they only stock them for February 2nd! We went into grocery stores, drug stores, even a hotel gift shop claiming to have souvenirs, and all we found were scant leftovers. Apparently no one comes to the town if it isn't Groundhog Day.

We were on a schedule so not really finding much to see in the town we continued on our way, which was into Ohio. In Ohio we actually found some roadside attraction goodness, but I think we also stumbled upon the factory where they manufacture boredom.

Thus was our meeting of The Real Phil. Not as grand as being there on his one working day, but still scrapbook and blog worthy material nonetheless!