Lehigh Valley InSite

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.

by Moravian Book Shop

Lehigh Valley is home to plenty of history, including an occasional haunted story or two. This past Friday I was fortunate enough to be invited on Moravian Book Shop’s “Historic Haunts of Downtown Bethlehem” preview tour. The guided walk through the city’s Historic District blends factual information with reported tales of spirits, sightings and odd occurrences that have happened through the years.

I don’t mean for this post to be a teaser, but I’m choosing to omit some of the story details because I really don’t want to spoil the fun until you take the tour for yourself.

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.

MapNcompass

This past wednesday I finished a 10.5 hour hospitality and tourism certification program called “Destination Lehigh Valley,” which is conducted semi-annually by Northampton Community College (NCC) and Discover Lehigh Valley. The course is intended to provide new hires to the tourism industry with a greater understanding of the importance that superior customer service and hospitality have in our industry. With roughly 23,000 jobs in Lehigh Valley revolving around tourism, this course could really be beneficial for a lot of service industry businesses in Lehigh Valley.

David Schweiger, the director of the Hotel and Restaurant Management Program and Hospitality Career Institute at NCC (he might also hold the Guinness World Record for longest job title ever), conducted this certification in conjunction with Mike Stershic, President of Discover Lehigh Valley.

Fermentation Tanks 1

Some people might go so far as to say I’m a beer snob, but I prefer to think of it as appreciating the finer things in life. I try to purchase my beer from local breweries whenever possible, because there’s a certain sense of pride knowing that a great beer came from not too far away. I brew at home, so I enjoy inventive breweries, micro brews and those that think outside the box…so naturally I’m a big fan of Weyerbacher in Easton, one of the prime examples in Lehigh Valley. I’ve been a fan of their beer for a few years now and recently took the brewery tour with my dad and brother.

Our tour guide, John, was knowledgeable and passionate about beer. Their brewing operation is relatively small for a company with their stellar reputation. Their output isn’t great in terms of quantity, but they certainly make up for it in terms of quality. Weyerbacher seems to not want to settle with being normal, and that’s a-ok with me and my fellow beer enthusiasts! John went through the different steps, showed us their new-ish bottling line (can you believe they were hand bottling up until 4 years ago?) and brought us back around to my favorite spot…the bar!

Courtesy of C. F. Martin & Co., Inc.

My boss is a huge fan of Martin Guitars. He owns at least five of them and he’s been on the free factory tour numerous times (he says it never gets old). So one Friday, he took me to the Martin Guitar factory over in Nazareth to help me fulfill one of my New Year’s resolutions: Take a factory tour of Martin Guitar.

Our tour guide handed out individual headphones and battery packs for all of us in the group to wear, that way no matter where we were in the tour we could hear what he was telling us, and we were off.

Tour Guide

As a Bethlehem native and a Lehigh Valley expert (well, according to Facebook’s Lehigh Valley Expert Quiz), I would’ve sworn that I know Bethlehem inside and out. Of course, that was before I attended The Moravian Book Shop’s “Historic Haunts of Downtown Bethlehem” ghost tour.

Last Friday night, under the eerie glow of a full moon, a small group of us set out on a candlelight walking tour, eager to uncover Bethlehem’s ghostly secrets. Our guide, dressed in a black colonial gown, velvet cloak and sateen gloves, led the way with her Moravian star lantern and stopped at sites like the Brethren’s House, the Old Chapel, God’s Acre, and the Sun Inn.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about all the really cool old buildings throughout Lehigh Valley and how many of them are in the cities. Bethlehem is a perfect example, with its rich Morvaian background and industrial roots. But how can you appreciate the history of the 1744 Single Sisters’ House as you drive by it in a car? You can’t! And I’m too lazy to walk, so that means I’ll never get to really enjoy the local history, right? Well, that’s where Segway of Lehigh Valley comes in.

I had never ridden a segway before, but that wasn’t a problem; before heading out on the streets, I watched a safety video on how to use a segway and then had time to practice right there in the Segway showroom (in the heart of Southside Bethlehem).

New-year-resolution-cartoon-1

It was about this time last year when I started coming up with my “Things do in Lehigh Valley” lists. These three lists (Top 5 Plays, Top 5 Restaurants, Top 5 Overall) were my New Year’s resolutions for 2009. Since the year is almost over, I’ve decided to take a look at how I did.

Lehigh Valley Theater: Top 5 Plays for 2009: I was three for five in this category (although one of the plays I planned to attend was actually canceled, so I was actually three for four). Here are my reviews of the performances I saw at three fantastic venues throughout Lehigh Valley:

Blueberry Festival

For the last several years I have been a faithful attendee of the Annual Blueberry Festival at Burnside Plantation in Bethlehem. I first found out about it from a neighbor in my apartment complex when I lived in the city. All it took was one visit and I was hooked!

I think what I like most about this small summer festival is its homey quality. Burnside Plantation is a bit of the countryside in the city. The elaborate gardens surrounding the historic homestead have been meticulously maintained, which makes a beautiful stage for the event. I don’t think most residents even realize Burnside exists since it’s so well camouflaged by trees and the Martin Tower building on 8th Avenue.