Lehigh Valley InSite

Liberty Bell Museum

Of course we learn about the Liberty Bell in school, but how cool is it that it was kept hidden during the American Revolution right here in Lehigh Valley?!

In my quest to become more familiar with the area, I finally got the chance to visit the Liberty Bell Museum in downtown Allentown. The Museum, which offers free admission, contains permanent exhibits dedicated to The First Defenders, the Declaration of Independence, and a replica of the original Liberty Bell. It even has the identical crack painted on it!

Blast Furnaces

The week before last, my fellow Discover Lehigh Valley staffers and I took the “Along the Lehigh River: The Rise & Fall of Bethlehem Steel” tour. As you might imagine, the tour consists of an hour-long stroll of what remains of the Bethlehem Steel plant on the south side of the city. We were led by our guide, Loretta, whose father worked in the plant for over 40 years.

We had a special guest with us that day; Sheila Scarborough from Tourism Currents, who was in Lehigh Valley as the featured speaker for our 2011 Annual Meeting. This was the perfect opportunity to show her a side of our area that is not as well-known, unless of course you grew up here or currently live here.

Marathon Volunteers

If you have never had the urge to volunteer, get out and give it a try because it can be one of the most rewarding experiences you’ll have. I had the opportunity this past Sunday to volunteer in the inaugural Delaware & Lehigh Heritage Half and Full Marathon. Being a novice runner myself, I was excited to see this run. I’m always impressed with the time and effort runners put into their training and the result of their hard work.

You see runners of all shapes and sizes, running experiences and levels of exuberance along the way. But rest assured no matter what level of runner one is, there is a common sense of great self-accomplishment in all when the race is finished. And that’s just beautiful to witness.

Mack

Our Annual meeting was yesterday at the Mack Truck Customer Center. FYI, yes there are still things made in the USA and some of those things are made right here in Lehigh Valley.

The Mack Truck Customer Center has it’s own showroom, where you can see Megatron from Transformers 3 and tour a great museum with the history of Mack Trucks right there. The Museum is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m..

Sunday, Sybil and I went to the opening of Fulfilling a Prophecy: The Past and Present of the Lenape in Pennsylvania. This is the Lenape Nation Cultural Center’s new permanent exhibit and it is located in the Bachmann Publick House at Second and Northampton Streets in Easton. The Lenape Nation was the Native American tribe located in eastern Pennsylvania along the Delaware River. The exhibit is supplemented by a Lenape exhibit at The Sigal Museum further west on Northampton Street.

Located on the second floor of Bachmann Publick House, you are directed to a brief video explaining the Prophecy of the Fourth Crow. Proceeding down the hall you enter the exhibit itself. The exhibit focuses on the Prophecy of the Fourth Crow. It is a showcase of artifacts, photographs and objects organized around the four prophecies. Another room holds the Lenape Trading Post, with handmade clothing, gifts, cards, books and music for sale.

Stay & Investigate Ghost Hunting Guide Book

The children have ventured back to school throughout Lehigh Valley and the air has become brisk. October is upon us and that means the month of ghouls and goblins and Halloween. Discover Lehigh Valley has just launched a brand new Stay & Investigate program that highlights haunted and “true life” horror stories throughout Lehigh Valley.

Check out LehighValleyHaunt.com for a list of the areas creepy locations including Museum of Indian Culture, Wydnor Hall and Buckeye Tavern to name a few. If you are traveling to the area to take in this experience you are going to need more than a day so we have you covered. From the Holiday Inn and Conference Center in Breingsville to the TownePlace Suites by Marriott in Easton, you will find a convenient place to stay throughout Lehigh Valley.

The Liberty Bell Museum

After lunch with some co-workers on Tuesday afternoon, we decided to stop in at the Liberty Bell Museum (622 W. Hamilton St.) in Allentown since I hadn’t been there yet. It’s located in the basement of the Zion’s Reformed Church, that huge building with the red doors. I’d walked by it plenty of times, but the FREE admission sign (which is apparently every day!) drew me in.

If you don’t already know the history of the Liberty Bell in Lehigh Valley, I’m going to give you the quick rundown…

civic night

I think the last time I was at The Civic Theatre in Lehigh Valley was during elementary school to see a Christmas play or something. I wonder a lot of things about myself back then. Why did Pokemon seem so cool? Did anyone who told me they believed I could play in the NBA actually mean it? Who thought showing The Ring to an easily-traumatized coward was a good idea? And now I can add another question to that list: How did I not realize how awesome The Civic Theater is?

I went with my film major friend Pat to a screening of Terrance Malick’s The Tree Of Life, which included a “talk-back” with one of my favorite professors from Muhlenberg College afterwards.

No. 9 Coal Mine Hospital

This past Wednesday I took a driving tour of locations in and around Lehigh Valley that are to be featured in our newest Stay & Save deal for visitors called “Stay & Investigate”. With the long history of inhabitants in Lehigh Valley, there’s bound to be a few accounts of paranormal / haunted activity in some of these buildings (many of which date back to the 17th century).

A few locations in particular caught my attention; the Old Jail Museum in Jim Thorpe and the No. 9 Mine & Museum in Lansford. Unfortunately, the Old Jail Museum is closed on Wednesdays but I still got a few nice photos of the exterior and got to visit the beautiful town of Jim Thorpe. Upon leaving, I headed west to the No. 9 Mine to get there in time for the last tour.

Lost River Caverns

Call me old fashioned, or stubborn even, but I don’t have air conditioning…not in my car or in my 100 year-old apartment. And since I have yet to reach millionaire status, I haven’t gotten around to installing a pool in my apartment either. So when summer comes each year, I look for fun and affordable things to do to beat the heat. One way I recently found is to take a trip to Lost River Caverns in Hellertown, and at 52° all year it’s perfect for cooling down in the sweltering heat.

Lost River Caverns is a series of beautiful underground chambers in a cave that descends 100 feet below the earth’s surface. Over the course of roughly 250,000 years, water slowly dissolved the limestone, forming winding caverns and leaving behind stalactites, stalagmites and picturesque crystal formations in its wake. Lost River Caverns is named for the “lost river” that flows through it, which is aptly named since the origin and destination of the river remain a mystery (They’ve made several unsuccessful attempts at getting to the bottom of it, including sending out 150 ping pong balls with their name and phone number on them).