July 9, 2023
Milkhouse Creamery, Drums, Pennsylvania
We arrived at this Milkhouse creamery (“homemade ice cream and quality dairy products”) farm store on a rainy day in July. Inside we found beautiful ice cream cakes, plain and flavored milks (such as orange) in glass bottles, snacks, beverages and plenty of seating at tables.
At the ice cream counter, there were flavors available every day, and special flavors offered for a limited time. Happily all flavors could be made into milkshakes.. There were plenty of sundae choices, so I ordered a PB explosion sundae with Hoof Prints Ice Cream. The ice cream was creamy and there were plenty of toppings on top – yummy.
Outside, Milkhouse had plenty so creative seating such as individual chair swings. We sat under an awning in the rain watching lightning and listening to thunder all around us, and enjoyed our sundaes.
In the area: We stopped here on the way home from a longer trip across Pennsylvania. We stopped at two sets of historical structures that could be considered “failures” each in their own way.
Concrete City, Nanticoke, Pennsylvania – in 1911, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad built new housing for its employees made solely of concrete, It was an honor for a given employee to be offered housing in the luxury duplex units built around a court yard with a swimming pool and ball fields. While it seemed a great idea to build super durable houses from concrete, the experiment was short lived due to the cold, drafty and wet indoor environments – the homes were therefore abandoned and sat idle for many years, Eventually an attempt was made to destroy the homes, but after 100 sticks of dynamite failed to cause any significant damage, they were left standing for folks like us to explore., We walked around the very wet and overgrown property and explored the inside the two story houses with basements. I did not find the swimming pool, but I did find a totally awesome and fascinating place to explore.
Abandoned Alvira Bunkers, State Game Lands, Union County, Pennsylvania
During World War II the United States government did nearly everything in their power to defeat the enemies. Thinking they needed space for storage of explosives, they seized a plot of land in Alvira, Pennsylvania and built numerous bunkers to store explosives. These igloo-shaped bunkers were built into into hillsides or covered with ground with heavy metal doors and ceilings designed as weak points to allow any accidental explosions to go upward. many of these bunkers were either not used or used for only a short time. Now the bunkers, which are on the state game lands are free for anyone to walk through. The first couple of bunkers we found were heavily graffitied and used as storage or hang out places. However, It did not take too long for us to find one that was nearly unadulterated and easy to enter. The empty space felt vast and echoed – very cool. While there were many, many more in the area, we did not search any further, but my guess there are many more interesting things to discover here,.
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