Hello from Harrisburg, PA! Melissa and I are celebrating our third anniversary by visiting the Pennsylvania state capital and nearby Hershey, Pennsylvania, for an extended (4-day) weekend. We drove up yesterday to the hotel (which is in Harrisburg) and have enjoyed a day of visiting Indian Echo Caverns, checking out the sights here in downtown Harrisburg, and having a fancy-schmancy celebratory dinner at The Forebay.
Tomorrow we’re planning to visit the Hershey Gardens, the Hershey Museum, Hershey Chocolate World, and finally the Hershey Park amusement park. Should be fun. In the mean time, read on to see bunch of pictures from here in downtown Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania State Capitol
While walking around after lunch today, we discovered that we were only a couple of blocks away from the Pennsylvania State Capitol building. It’s a pretty cool-looking place and, unlike the U.S. Capitol Building, you can actually walk around the property and—gasp—even walk up the steps. I miss being able to do that at the U.S. Capitol Building (you could, until September 11, 2001).
Regardless, it’s very awesome and photogenic, and fits in to the layout (and architecture) of the city pretty well.
Funky Sculptures at the State Capitol
As cool as the Capitol building was overall, I was a bit puzzled by the sculptures that sat on each side of the porch. Apparently the state government is all about naked parties!
Of course, in reality, the sculptures are by George Grey Barnard and represent mankind’s struggle for civilization (or something) . . . whatever . . . to me they look like a lot of naked people, some of which appear to be in compromising positions. I found them to be quite bizarre.
Beautiful Churches
All throughout the downtown area of Harrisburg are some of the coolest churches with some great, early-American architecture.
The two pictures at the top are of the St. Patrick’s [Catholic] Cathedral.
The 2nd row is the former Parish Church [Catholic] of St. Lawrence and the St. Michael’s Lutheran church.
The 3rd row is Pine Street Presbyterian and Grace United Methodist.
And that’s not even all of them; eventually I just got tired of taking pictures of pretty churches!
River Views
The Susquehanna River runs right through the middle of Harrisburg, visible from the steps of the capitol (right down state street) and bordered by trails and overlooks that run along the river.
Random Stuff
Just a couple of random pictures from around town.
The first (sorry about the poor quality) is a funky, tiny-little building that houses an ice cream shop. The second, nestled on a side street, is a boarded up building that has—in crude, spraypainted text—the words “Chinese Rest.” on the front (random!).
The second row includes a couple of great restaurant names emblazoned in neon. First, ‘Neato Burrito’. Second, ‘Sandwich Man’ (which makes up for having a less-cool name with a totally awesome neon sandwich man).