It's Groundhog Day!

I started off a little late thanks to the misadventures in my previous post, but all was not lost. I was still able to meet some great folks, see the prognosticator of prognosticators and mail a postcard or two, or four.
When I finally got into town, it was well past dark and I was just about frazzled. I have been losing weight over the last year, but still have highly sedentary image of myself. I was very nervous about not being able to physically enjoy this experience that I built up to over the past six weeks and end up looking like a fool (well I do look/act like a fool, but that I earned) and let myself down. My first stop was the souvenir shop run by the chamber of commerce. Lots of nifty stuff in here. Hats, gloves, puppets, plates, bags; pretty much if you can squeeze a groundhog in it, on it or near it, it is in that shop. The only things I picked up were a few post cards to fulfill obligations ( HI BRIAN!! ), a couple of commemorative coins, and a coffee mug. My biggest regrets were that I did not pick up a groundhogese dictionary nor one of Phil's definitive guides to meteorology.
Having my new found treasures in hand, I trekked the two and a half blocks through town to Barclay's square, the center of the festivities (not the knob, where the formalities occur).

I wandered around here for a half hour or so looking at the celebration tent, complete with DJ Mad Maxx spinning Ke$ha, LMFAO, and Travis Tritt, in that progression, kids dancing with reckless abandon, and parents that looked like they would rather be home asleep; the local chainsaw artists carving groundhogs for any unsuspecting log they could sneak up on.

And I was solicited by a deal I could not pass up. I should have, but could not. Kids for the library were selling cookies a buck apiece with all proceeds going to the local bookhouse. They had standard cookies, and Phil-gobs. They lured me in with tell ya what I will let you have two for a buck. I verified there were no nuts and picked my gobs out and went on my merry way. The info table at the tent had guides with times and events for the next few days and a map of region where each of these were around town. So I located the drug store hoping to grab some blades for a top notch shave the following day this was back at the other end of main street about 4 blocks away. I found the store, and the blades, but $8.97 for 10 house brand blades seemed a bit ridiculous so I passed and headed back to the truck.
The thing about a Phil gob is that it is a Phil gob. The only thing that kept cycling through my head was the scene in Accepted when Glen presents Glen wads to Barnaby and he states that it has 'every delicious flavor in every bite'. These were not quite so exotic, but not bad either. Mostly, they were two pieces of devil's food cake with cream in between, much like a lumpy Suzie Q. While I enjoyed my gobs, I pulled out the event schedule and map. I had about two hours left until the start of the movie, but I did not want to be that guy that traveled five hundred miles to go to Groundhog Day and then did not get to see the movie because he did not find the theatre until after they had no seats left.

The theatre was back at the other end of the main street and two blocks over. Once I found it and went inside I found my nervousness was baseless, but that there was a super secret and oddly dream fulfilling activity going on in the theatre after the show. The movie was free, but for $5 you could stay there at the 'crash pad'. You brought the blanket, pillow, or sleeping bag, and they supplied you a heated room with a floor until you woke up to go to the knob. All of the economy at the festivities/formalities were cash only, so I had to walk back a block and get in the drive through line for ATM. Went back to the theatre and paid my money and got to cross of another thing from the happily-ever-after list that I was not expecting.
Quite a few families made up the bulk of the sleepover crowd, and it took me back to my childhood and going to the drive-in double features in the station wagon. Before the first show, our folks would encourage us to run around as much as possible hoping to wear us out and that we would fall asleep at some point during the first movie or intermission (I rarely did. Probably should not have seen poltergeist at five or six, but hey whaddya going to do). There was a family of four at the show which had one of the cutest kids I have ever seen. She was maybe five more likely four and wired to run. She kept stretching how far she would run up the aisle until her parents noticed and call her complete name out for her to get back down to the front row. And she wasn't just running. She had her arms out in front of her like a mad zombie dash. whenever she got called down she would act very skulky and put out. This lasted all of fifteen to thirty seconds then she would be off again. There was another group just off to my left that brought four inch futon matresses, and another that had apparently been travelling a lot in the last year, hitting Minnesota, New York, Iowa at least that I overheard.
After the movie, I did my best to sleep. I have always had trouble sleeping, but I did sit there for a good half hour with my eyes closed and I just could not pass out. Since it was now 1240 and the buses were due to start queuing at 0300, I decided to try and find the post office and take some pictures while I waited.

Lines started forming at around 0200 for the bus tickets and I got there at 0214 right behind a girl who was warned by her teachers that if she missed school because of the groundhog, she would be suspended. The way they did tickets was a little silly. There were two booths and they had no separate line for the people after they got tickets so the staties lined us up right in front of the booths. This worked for the first ten of us. then were were lined up in between the booths, had to explain to people there there were two lines, that the end of the line was right next to us, but they wold have to go around the booths once the line started moving.

I was on the first bus out, so I hope things got better after we left, but I doubt it. They loaded us onto yellow school buses and drove us the mile and a half up to the knob. I got a couple of pictures of the set up, but just as they entertainment portion started, my camera battery died.

I stood in the second/third row for the entire event, and got to meet some really great people, a few that were not so nice (well they were upset about JoePa, not other than that they were really nice) and the governor passed less than three feet in front of me. This was only the second time in the history of the Punxsy celebration that a sitting governor has shown up. I incited an ooh and aah session during the fireworks, and got to hear first hand it was going to be Winter until March 21st. 18,000 people showed up, the town is normally one-third this size at 6200. So getting off the knob took a bit of doing and nearly an hour long wait for the bus. I mailed my post cards and off to Clarion.