Sometimes, things don’t go exactly as planned. But them’s the breaks.

As you recall, we started in Scranton PA.

The thought was to get to the Anthracite coal mine tour when it opened at 10 this morning, get on the first tour, and be done by 11 or so. But we didn’t get there until after 11 and couldn’t get in the mine until the 12 nooon tour. The 12 o’clock tour didn’t start until after 12:30, and we left the tour gounds at 1:50 and had not had lunch yet. So, as you can imagine, the rest of our day was affected.

Scranton was at the center of anthracite coal mining and for a century anthracite coal was at the center of home heating (and much more). This particular mine was operating for over 100 years and was restored and open to tourists by Lackawanna County. You ride a tram 300 feet underground and walk about a half mile underground, while you are told about the mining process, and a difficult process it was, made more difficult by the lack of labor protection laws and lack of management compassion.

Temperature in the mine? Think Sitka in July.

Some photos from yesterday:

Because it was after 2 and we had not eaten lunch, we stopped at the first place we saw, Mr. Ranchito, a very casual Columbian restaurant, where we were the only English speakers (and that included the staff). Our meals were not to write home about.

Our next goal was to get to Hobart NY, a small town about 2 and 1/2 hours from Scranton where there are 8 used book stores. Most are closed on Monday, but that was okay, because how many can you see at the same time?  But of course, by the time we got there, all were closed. So, it was a long and for the most part beautiful country road, but to no avail. We drove another 30 minutes to Onteonta  where we were lucky to find a room as there is a lot going on there, including move-in day for the local SUNY and a fire fighter convention.

The last, and only other, time we stopped here, we had a delicious meal at an Italian restaurant called Toscana. But, keeping with the post-mine tour day, it is closed on Monday. But, we went to another, and trendier Italian restaurant, Dazzo’s. An A+ dinner from a restaurant that gets 4.8 on Yelp. We split a black bass special (roasted purple potatoes, asparagus and sauteed red peppers) and a burrata cheese artichoke flavored home  made ravioli, served with a butter sauce and crispy fried onions. Could not have been better.