Oh my word! It’s here! The best holiday of the year! I love Groundhog Day…it signals the beginning of the end of Winter, my bane! This year, we decided to make the trek to Punxsutawney, PA, the home of the Seer of Seers, the Prognosticator of Prognosticator, the world famous Punxsutawney Phil!
This year, for my birthday, Emily gave me a trip with the family of my choice to the one true Groundhog Day celebration. We drove in last night and I had a terrible time falling asleep. I was like a little kid on Christmas!
This morning, we drove into Punxsutawney and actually found great parking right away. There is still much snow on the ground so we sloshed around to the main square where we saw all sorts of sights. We saw wood carvers and magicians and all sorts of tourists. The first thing we bought were awesome wool Phil hats so we could easily be identified as “tourists”. Punxsutawney is all about Phil so there are groundhog statues and paintings all over the place! We took pics of a bunch of them. There were all sort of families were around so we had no problem finding people to take our picture.
Phil’s Inner Circle were all about town and were quite friendly and approachable. We talked to a few of the fellows, probably for 10-15 minutes. They are great salesmen of the experience and I really appreciated their helpfulness in figuring out what we needed to see and do!
Jim Cantore and the Weather Channel crew were around and also very approachable (not while on the air of course). I asked him to take a pic with me, the two most handsome bald people in Punxsutawney (and maybe all of Pennsylvania) this weekend. He was very nice and kind to allow us to get pics.
Gobbler’s Knob, the location where Phil makes his prediction, is open ahead of the big reveal so we got a chance to walk around and actually touch his chamber. I was trembling like a little girl from the excitement!
We bought all sorts of souvenirs and walked all over town. I am so excited for tomorrow morning! We plan to get up around 3am to make the trek to Gobbler’s Knob on this best birthday trip ever!
That is so exciting! Great pics and how fun to get to see the groundhog in the morning too! I’ll have to show these pictures to my son as he is very excited over groundhog day also. Happy Birthday!
How cool is that?!! Looks like a great time!
It sure looks like Emily found the perfect gift for you. Now you owe her big time, especially after the throwing knives for Xmas. I hope you all enjoy THE DAY.
You and Jim could be brothers! Did you give him props for his knee kick to some photobombers groin that made the news a few days ago?
I made it to that town about five years back on a work related stop. Unfortunately I didn’t get time to look around but it seemed like a pretty down to earth town.
Emily sure knows the way to your heart! Love the hats!