Tuesday, June 27, 2023- Pocono Outlets and Scranton PA

     

     On our way down to New Jersey, the girls spotted the Pocono Premium Outlet mall, and wanted to stop there on our way back.  Julie found the Pioneer Diner, known for all-day breakfast near the outlets, so we had a sort of brunch there.  We then went to the sprawling outlet mall nearby.  While Emma and Julie did some shopping, Dad and Abby rode the escalators, up and down, again and again, maybe a dozen times.  Abby also rode a coin-operated fire engine and didn't want that ride to end either.  Once Emma had her fill of the outlets, we continued on.

     When we passed through Scranton, Scott and Emma wanted to tour the sites from the tv show, The Office.  First we had to get a brochure, so we stopped at a visitor center.  There were a lot of interesting old buildings in this smallish city, but it was hard to drive around in.  We didn't end up stopping at many of the sites, but we did go to a mural of Dwight Schrute.  We also stopped at the building of the Pennsylvania Paper Company, which is featured in the opening credits.  Today, it has a "Dunder Mifflin" sign on one  of its faces for tourists like us.  We knew that the actual office building from the show was somewhere out in California, so we weren't disappointed that we couldn't visit there.  We considered going to the Poor Richard's Pub, where the finale of the show was shot, but it was too early to eat dinner and we wanted to get home so we ended up skipping that and leaving it for another day.

     We drove on, passing through some very intense rain storms that only lasted for a short time.   Traffic was backed up on the expressways, so Scott made use of his map-reading skills to take us through northern Pennsylvania back roads on an alternate route that probably saved us some time.  We had dinner at another nice family diner in New York and made it home before dark.