Kim and I left Harrisburg this morning, on our way up to Cooperstown, NY to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. Connor and his buddy Rob followed us on the drive up. Northen PA and NY seem to be a maze of speed traps, but we managed to keep our speed down and avoid trouble. The drive was picturesque countryside, though!
About halfway between Harrisburg, PA and Cooperstown, NY is a town that I think most of our friends will recognize, but few will visit ... Scranton, Pennsylvania! Kim is pretty fanatical about The Office, and her eyes lit up a few weeks ago when I mentioned that we might drive through Scranton.
The city is merely the fictional setting of the show, with all of the filming actually happening in Los Angeles -- except for the opening song which shows a few scenes of the real-life Scranton.
Moreover, many of the local references used by Steve Carrell and crew are real Scranton establishments. As we drove through downtown Scranton looking for the Penn Paper Company building, Kim excitedly called them out as we saw signs: Steamtown Mall, Lackawanna College and County, Lake Wallenpaupack. Wikipedia has a more extensive list (like Poor Richards Pub and Cooper's Seafood), but we didn't seek them out. Reportedly, none of the cast has ever actually been to Scranton (except for the actress who plays Meredith)!
We didn't spend a lot of time in Scranton, but we did pay our homage to the namesake hometown of our generation's equivalent of Cheers, MASH, or Seinfeld. And then we jumped back in the car and headed for Cooperstown!
:-Dustin
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