Last year, when I turned 75, I wanted to celebrate all year by doing something each month that I had never done before. This year, I wanted to retreat, to go back in time. When John suggested we go to the Cedar Run Inn for a birthday overnight, I was all in.
It helps when your birthday coincides with the best time to drive through Penn’s Woods. The drive up to Cedar Run through the backwoods of Clinton County was spectacular, with John navigating via a vintage map from the ’60s? ’50s? There was no date on it. Just lots of forest roads that don’t appear on today’s roadmaps, much less on cell phone GPS.
Before we launched, we squeezed in a dinner at home with the final sample bag of Grandma’s Frozen Noodles, sourdough version. Tossed with labneh, sautéed maitake mushrooms, and the remaining blanched lima beans from the Cape May festival, then paired with a crabcake and a bright wax and green bean salad, it was a fine dinner the night before we left.
The morning walk at Oak Hall Regional Park foretold the colors ahead, and the trees got better and brighter as we wound north.
We checked in to Cedar Run, dropped our bags, and headed out to catch the view of the Grand Canyon from Leonard Harrison State Park, since our dinner reservation wasn’t until 7:45. The visitor center was closed but very much upscaled since our previous visits when our kids were young. And Wellsboro looked just as charming. The diner was closed at that time of day but the Spotlight bar seemed right out of the ’70s, and we watched some young men playing shuffleboard while we had a drink at the bar. At $11.00 for both a G&T and a Maker’s on the rocks, it’s a bargain.
Dinner at the Inn brought back memories: 5-year-old Joe and 3-year-old Al having their first fine-dining experience, tasting then-chef Randy’s inspired dishes. Who knew crab could go so well with blueberries? It was 1984. Cuisine was just starting to blossom. The current owners of the Inn, Charlotte and Stanley Dudkin, bought the operation from Randy and Peggy when they relocated to the DC area, seeking better schools for their own child and more culinary opportunity for the creative chef. Charlotte and Stanley have been there since 1989 and keep it in impeccable, time-warped order.
After breakfast the next morning, we enjoyed sitting on the porch and looking at the façade of the only other business in town, the general store, which was closed until later that day. We liked seeing the phone booth, phone removed, and thought of the old days when that was how you called out. The Cedar Run Inn still has no Wi-Fi, so we were as unplugged as we always were while staying there. It was great.
Driving through the forest roads was like traversing a “leaf globe” of fluttering yellow and orange leaves. For 45 minutes we were in a dream-like state, passing no one. And then things changed. We hit the fracking pads and suddenly shared the narrow gravel road with semi-trucks hauling equipment and water. The drivers were all courteous and well-paced, but it changed the vibe for the last half of the drive.
We decided to head to Worlds End State Park, another place we used to go to with our kids when they were young. We drove over the “Death Bridge” in Hillsgrove (our sons’ name for it; not related to actual dying), where John took the kids and their friends for terrifying rope swinging and jumping, and we landed in Forksville for lunch at a sandwich shop near a classic PA covered bridge.
Big Mike’s Steaks and Hoagies was a slice of South Philly. The steak sandwich that we shared was excellent, if messy, but the best part was chatting with Mike on the porch afterwards. He told us about growing up in South Philly (“I had to walk two blocks to see a tree. The only grass I saw was coming up between the cracks in the pavement.”). He told us how he came up with friends in high school to camp at Worlds End and fell in love with the area. He explalined how he and his wife bought the Forksville General Store in 1999 and decided to open a sandwich shop (“Because these people around here, they didn’t know how to make sandwiches,” he said, in earnest). He has loved life there for the past 27 years, raising two girls and pursuing his authentic Philly steak and hoagie mission.
Driving on to Worlds End, we saw the CCC cabins along the Little Loyalsock Creek that looked exactly the same, with families pulling in for a weekend of deep woods fun. John remembered a vista, and we drove to High Knob, where we had taken a photo of our tow-headed toddlers draped over the log rail. The log rail is now a proper fence, but the view is just as jaw-dropping. We marveled that we were the only ones there.
We started to wind our way home and took the highways, arriving in Williamsport around 5. Just when I thought the day could not get any better, we went to Franco’s Lounge on the main drag. I had been hearing about the place for decades and had never been. John got out and hit the button to see if we could get in (it is, in fact, an operating speakeasy) for a drink. The bartender relented when John said he used to work with Tony, the patriarch who has since died, but told us we had to vacate our seats by 6:00 as the place was fully booked. We agreed.
Tony’s offspring run the iconic bar now, and Fred and Maria were most welcoming. No wonder people want to come here. It’s like you are in the family. Enjoying our drinks at the bar, I couldn’t help but read the menu and be tantalized, especially when I saw the food coming out of that kitchen. We ordered a clam appetizer to share and got it in time to truly enjoy Uncle Amletto’s dish of steamed cherrystones with herbs, garlic, and celery, served with hunks of Italian bread for sopping up the tasty sauce. These people know how to cook and how to eat.
We were home by 7:30 on birthday eve. The next day I had the pleasure of a morning walk at Oak Hall with Nina, where we thought to connect at the No Kings march in State College in the afternoon. It was low key, but perfect. Last year I attended the big DC No Kings march, and that was a benchmark. We marched down College Ave, up Beaver to the municipal building, and then marched ourselves down to Benny’s for a slice of pizza, but what a perfect slice it was!
And then that evening we gathered for a double birthday party. Kim and I share the day, and our COVID-pod people made sure we were well feted. She and I had the day off and prepared nothing, just enjoyed the event.
At the end, John took the paella pan off the wall at Joann and Bob’s house and pledged to make a paella.
Will he do it? We shall see…