Big shoes to fill

There's nothing that gives us a kick quite like the sight of extra large footwear along the open road. We've been lucky enough to spot a few along the way, so try these on for size (I take a 9 1/2):

 The big boot of the L.L. Bean headquarters store, Freeport, Maine.

 An extra large Timberland Pro series with the Titan Safety Toe, Pompano Beach, Florida

The Haines Shoe House of Hellam, Pennsylvania (being worked on by cobblers, er, contractors when we were there)

The Silver Slipper (size 0...you know how it is with ladies' apparel), at the Neon Boneyard, Las Vegas, Nevada

Signed in Penn.: Views from Quakertown, Pennsylvania and thereabouts

When the always-fabulous ModBetty of Retro Roadmap organized a roadtrip blogger summit last fall at Sines 5 & 10 in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, I had the opportunity to take some snaps of the exquisite old crusty signs around town on a beautiful sunny day. Hamlets like this remind me of Tommy Lee Jones's face... all craggy and melancholy and full of hard-as-nails character. I caught a few more hardscrabble veteran signs on my way to my motel in Allentown, another metropolis with some hard miles on it.

Keep fighting, Pennsylvania, you rusty old beauty. You're the Penn. ultimate.

A pigment of my imagination? The big paint can of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania

There's a giant can of Benjamin Moore paint near Exit 24 along Interstate 81 South in central Pennsylvania that will have the eccentric roadside attraction fan doing a double take (or coat, as the case may be). Seems a storage tank was transformed into a huge can of MoorGlo Soft Gloss to promote a nearby paint store. Trouble is, it's not so easy to access, so you have to snap away through the windshield while it whizzes past, unless you take the time to do it right, like our kindred spirit WendyVee at Roadside Wonders. She got a GREAT shot of it, while mine is more of the catch-it-while-you-can-without-causing-a-20-car-pileup variety. Always nice to see something large and goofy along the open road, especially an over-sized version of something mundane (fortified acrylic housepaint, notwithstanding). I won't whitewash it -- it's truly a brush with greatness and a stroke of genius that leaves us rolling in the aisles. Don't hue agree?

Mystery guests, enter and Sine in please

We road trip bloggers clean up pretty good. Left to right are the proprietors of FuzzyGalore, Roadside Wonders, Retro Roadmap and yours truly, Eccentric Roadside.

 Sines 5 & 10 of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, in business since 1912.

ModBetty of Retro Roadmap was there for the christening of the Eccentricmobile's bumper with one of her Retro Roadmap stickers.

At the invitation of ModBetty of the retro-tastic website Retro Roadmap, a road trip blogger summit was held last weekend at Sines 5 & 10, a 100-year-old dime store in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and by all accounts, a great time was had by all. In addition to Mod Betty, I got to meet WendyVee of Roadside Wonders and Rachel of FuzzyGalore, all folks I've been vicariously traveling with for the last few years. It was fun putting real faces to the virtual ones and sharing a few like-minded laughs together in a cool, authentically retro, eccentric-friendly environment. Good burgers at the lunch counter, too. Hope we can all do it again some time.

The lay of the land: Greetings from Intercourse, Pennsylvania

For a group of hard-working and seemingly humorless religious devotees, the Amish have a knack for giving their Pennsylvania Dutchland towns some hilariously eccentric names. Blue Ball, Bird In Hand, Lititz, Bareville, Mount Joy, Fertility...stop it, Isaac, you're killin' me! For sheer immature giggles, though, you'd be, er, hard pressed to top Intercourse. The town was originally known as Cross Keys, but at some point around 1814 the name was changed to Intercourse, most likely referring to the intersection of the two main roads through town. The Amish also used the word to mean fellowship, which has a nice friendly ring to it. Little did they know, or perhaps they did, that they were turning their earnest humble berg into the double-entendre capital of the world. Gift shops overflow with "I Heart Intercourse" merchandise and what tourist wouldn't want to remember friends and loved-ones with such tasteful and elegant souvenirs.

So with apologies to anyone with good taste, here goes the obligatory bad pun tag ending: Next time you find yourself among the upstanding members of the Amish country, pay a coitusy call and hump it over to Intercourse where you'll get the most bang for your buck. Cigarette?

I read the nukes today, oh boy: Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island

The training center is across the street...

...where they've courteously provided picnic tables.

The homes in the area are quite lovely...

...as is the rest of the scenery.

I was reminded of someone while snapping this picture of myself...

On an unseasonably warm and clear March day in 1979, a bucolic section of central Pennsylvania just south of Harrisburg was the site of the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident. The Three Mile Island power plant accident was a core meltdown in Unit 2 that resulted in approximately 2.5 million curies (that's a lot) of radioactive gas being released into the Keystone State's atmosphere. A combination of a stuck valve and human errors led to an emergency being declared and an evacuation of thousands of residents. The incident caused an international sensation, and President Jimmy Carter, in an act of either bravery or foolishness, toured the plant shortly after the accident to prove everything was under control. The cleanup took over 14 years and cost $1 billion. In the end, experts concluded the accident did not cause a greater risk of cancer among the residents and plant workers. A meltdown was prevented and Unit 2 was permanently shut down, but Unit 1 is still in operation today. The power plant is on Highway 441, an otherwise lovely country road along the Susquehanna River. You round a bend and boom, there they are, those famous futuristic twin towers, belching out, what one hopes, is steam and not Armageddon. Across the street from the towers is the Three Mile Island training center, a nondescript industrial looking building surrounded by some nice landscaping and a neatly manicured lawn. There are even some picnic tables with a view of the towers, for your outdoor dining pleasure. The Three Mile accident is so significant to Pennsylvania's history, the state has put up an historic marker that doesn't sugar-coat the events. On the same "George Washington slept here" type of plaque are the words "nation's worst commercial nuclear accident". And up until several years back, there was actually a visitors center with a gift shop (!) . What gifts, pray tell, did they sell there -- "Three Mile Island narrowly avoided a nuclear meltdown and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"?