The old stomping grounds

After the funeral and the...after party? whatever the gathering post-funeral is called, my sisters, my brother & I took a drive through the Irish Hills.  During our youth, this stretch of US 12 was home to several tourist attractions, including, but not limited to, Stagecoach Stop, Prehistoric Forest, Mystery Hill & the Irish Hills Twin Towers.  My sisters and I worked at Stagecoach Stop.

Stagecoach (as we called it) was an 1890's Wild West town, complete with cowboys, a train ride and of course, a shoot out on Main Street. The place was loaded with antiques - it was as authentic as it could be, in that respect.



I spent a lot of my time working in the ice cream parlor above.  This is also where the gunfights took place, with one cowboy (the lookout) falling from the roof after being shot.  I did time in the saloon, which was really just a restaurant (with sarsaparilla!) and the General Store, where we sold Frye boots and some really nice cowboy hats alongside the plastic feathered tomahawks and cap guns.  By the time it was over, I had worked pretty much everything but cook and cowboy.



I cannot stand a dirty window now, because of having to keep all of these fingerprint free. It was a never-ending job.



Stagecoach closed in 2007 after 43 years in business.  I made $1.30 an hour when I started at age 13 and by the summer going into my senior year of high school, I was up to $1.80. Whether it was because we were under 18 or only seasonal, the owner was not required to pay us minimum wage.  I still felt rich.

We popped down the road and stopped at Prehistoric Forest, also closed.  It was as hokey as Stagecoach, but with dinosaurs. The only time I spent here was in the parking lot, visiting my high school boyfriend who worked here. While there was a "professional courtesy" along the tourist strip, I really had no desire to visit here other than to see Scott.



People made a day of this, though...visiting all the attractions.



If you had any money left after all of that, you may have ended up at the Irish Hills Dairy Bar, where I found this sign.  As you can see, there were a lot of attractions back in the day.  We have a lot of lakes, too.

There were loads of revived memories that day, between family & friends that I hadn't seen in years and the drive along 12.  We've reached that point in our lives that now we're the "old guard".  My dad's family has stayed close and it seems they are continuing the traditional weekly card games and potluck get togethers and I like that.

So the old stomping grounds haven't changed much, really.  Times have changed. Cowboys aren't heroes now and who wants to see that dinosaur up there after Jurassic Park? Wilkes-Barre does have shootouts, but not the fun kind like this.

It really was much simpler back then.

Aaaand, I'm old.