February 2nd, 2012

 Yes, we actually went to Pennsylvania to see Phil!  We left around 1 am , drove 2 hours and got to the local grocery store parking lot a little after 3 am.  We bundled up, used the porta-potties, and followed the growing crowd to the....school buses!  The town must make all of its revenue on this one day.  School was closed as all the local buses were used to drive people about 1.5 miles to Gobbler's Knob.  We finally made it!  Having NO idea what to expect, we didn't bring a blanket or lounge chairs to sit on.  It's basically a big field with a slight decline to a stage.  A group of about 15 girls was singing and dancing on stage...The field is broken up into Families/Students.  The weather was amazingly mild for the beginning of February, but it was still pretty chilly.  After about an hour, we decided to ride the bus back down the the ONE McDonalds in town to warm up and use the bathroom again.  The big kids played on Andy's phone and Mitchell wandered around smiling at people and begged for food.

Finally, about 6:30 we headed back up to the hill, to have about the same seats we'd arrived at 3:30am for.  :)  The entire presentation was much more traditional than I would have guessed, having never seen it on TV.  There is a Groundhog Society composed of men dressing in top hats.  The ground hog is woken up from his holding area inside of a big tree stump.  Then Phil speaks groundhogese to the president of the society and tells him which scroll to read.  ((imagine this with much seriousness))

 Sadly, Phil DID see his shadow and we are (supposedly) in for 6 more weeks of winter.  (As it's now the end of March and we've had 8 record-high days, I think Phil was woken up a little bit early.)  As soon as the scroll was read, everyone groaned and was herded back to the buses.  There were over 18,000 people there on this Thursday.  We went back to have an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at the Salvation Army (assuming that you wanted to wait again in the 30 minute line).  Then we walked around the square for about 20 minutes.  We all deemed it time to return home!

 On our way out, we saw Phil back in his home - a corner of the local library.  I thought that was a great place for him to hang out!  Above : these little groundhogs are all over town, dressed up in different costumes - very cute!

We were expecting a bigger town and more events, but we were so excited when we returned to the little grocery store to use the facilities before heading home.  There was a kids oreo-stacking context that began in 20 minutes!  Andy videoed each of the kids and hopefully can post them.  Fun Day!  Definitely one to cross off the bucket list...