REMINDER: Spring 2015 Blog Fest is Friday, May 1

The Spring 2015 edition of Blog Fest will be held at the Red Mill in Pittston (340 S. Main St., Pittston, PA 18640) starting at 6:00 PM. This is both a gathering of bloggers and a chance to connect with candidates for political office. Do you have some cause, pet peeve, or item of special concern that you'd like to make sure gets some attention? Not happy with where things are heading, or how things are getting done? This is your chance to buttonhole the candidates of your choice and make darned sure they know what the electorate thinks! Plus you get to meet up with other folks you may only know from their blogs! This Friday at the Red Mill in Pittston!

About the header images for October 29 and November 5 and 12

I've been slacking off a lot on posting information about the header photos for the last three weeks. While I still have a few minutes, I wanted to try to make up for that here.

The image for October 29 was this striking sunrise view from Sweet Valley Sunrises, the Tumbr blog of co-Administrator Michelle Hryvnak Davies.

The image from November 5 was a picture I took one morning last year on the pedestrian walkway along the Nanticoke-West Nanticoke bridge.

The November 12 image is courtesy of Cheri Sundra, who posts her work at her site http://cherisundra.com/. This girl riding a dinosaur may be familiar to anyone who frequents Route 11 in Plymouth. The figure is mounted on the sign for Pete Broody tires, and is worth pulling off into a parking lot just to get a better look.


We're always looking for new images to post as the NEPA Blogs header. If YOU have an image that presents some aspect of life in Northeastern Pennnsylvania, please send it to us here at nepablogs@gmail.com and we'll post it as the header!

About the header image: October 22, 2014

Our first submitted header image in a very long time comes from Nicole Karr of the Springbrook Shop and Studio (http://SpringhouseWoodshop.com) and depicts the annual Benton Fly-in in Benton, PA, which took place on October 18. Nicole has posted more great photos here.

We LOVE photo submissions. NEPA is filled with great photographers and great photo ops. Grab some images and send them to us at nepablogs@gmail.com so we can use them as the image header and show all of NEPA your skills!!

About the header image: August 13, 2014

The header image for Tuesday, August 12 is of the stage of the Vintage Theater (aka the Vintage) at 326 Spruce Street in Scranton, on the ground floor of the old Hotel Jermyn. The Vintage, the site of countless theatrical, literary, musical, and artistic exhibitions - including numerous events mentioned on NEPA Blogs - will be closing its doors for good after its final event, a goodbye party on August 30, 2014.

I have written about my personal history with the Vintage here. The Vintage is posting information to its Facebook page, as well as a special event page for the goodbye party. And the Vintage is going down swinging: there are several events scheduled before the farewell party. You can see a list here.

So: plan on being at the goodbye party on August 30 at 6:00 to show your appreciation for all the Vintage has given to NEPA. And try to make a few of the events before then! On August 31, it will be too late.


Send in your header photos to nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: August 6, 2014

Oh, no! It's the beginning of August, and that means Summer is almost over! What do you have left to accomplish on your Summer to-do list? Take in a baseball game? Go to the shore? Maybe visit a zoo? Fortunately, Northeastern Pennsylvania has its very own zoo. Claws 'n' Paws Wild Animal Park in Lake Ariel features animals from all over the world, and unless you've got some very expensive travel planned for faraway places, this may be your only opportunity to see some of these animals up-close and in person. Whether you're concerned with the conservation of these animals in their natural habitats or just want to see how long a giraffe's tongue really is (it's really, really long), a zoo like Claws 'n' Paws provides an opportunity to connect with wildlife in ways that isn't possible just by reading about them or looking at pictures.


Do you have a photo you'd like to see featured as the NEPA Blogs header? Send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: July 30, 2014

Last October I decided to go out and photograph the sunset from the Nanticoke - West Nanticoke bridge over the Susquehanna River. The sunset was nothing spectacular, but I realized that Venus would be showing up low in the West as twilight turned to dusk. (It's visible in this image, though just barely - nearly dead center, to the left of the central vertical girder, to the right of the fourth rivet from the bottom in the big girder.) In trying to capture Venus, I accidentally captured something beautiful as the sodium vapor lights caused the white-painted girders to show up in a false deep rust color, in sharp contrast to the sunset colors of the sky.

If you have a photo you'd like to see used as the NEPA Blogs header, send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com. Thanks!

About the header image, July 16, 2014

This past weekend's "Supermoon" was only marginally brighter and larger than last month's full moon, and next month's will be even bigger and brighter, but it would take some doing to detect the difference visually. Still, that didn't stop a lot of people from trying to see the difference. I got a few good pictures of the moon, just as I try to do every evening that there's a visible moon. But I had to shoot fast, in between huge banks of clouds drifting across the sky. I took the shot above in a fit of exasperation, trying to document what I was up against. I looked at the result and realized it looked pretty good anyway!


If you have a photo you'd like to see used as a header, send it to nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: May 14, 2014

This week's header image is the third of three that came from a photo expedition around Scranton. It's just a cluster of old brick buildings on Franklin Street as seen from Lackawanna Avenue. But they seemed to radiate a sense of loneliness, of obsolescence, of having long outlived their usefulness and being replaced by new buildings all around.

At once I am reminded of children huddled together out of fear, and of trees trying to outcompete each other for the sun. The ancient, faded ad on the side of one building is especially poignant; for much of its existence, the ad has been obscured by its neighbor, unseen by ins intended viewers.

These buildings have now been repurposed, their insides modernized, but their skins of bricks have been left as they were laid down, brick by brick, row by row, course by course, until a four-story building came into being. But how much longer will they continue to stand? How long until they are just piles of rubble, forgotten pieces of Northeastern Pennsylvania history?

Send your header photos to nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: May 7, 2014

"That building must be haunted!" my friend insisted as we drove past the old North Scranton high school at the intersection of Main Avenue and Greenridge Street in Scranton. Haunted or not, it's an example of a style of architecture that could not exist today in a public building. It's been spared the wrecking ball for now, and is currently occupied by a small business that does ...something. But whatever they do, they've kept the old school from being demolished, so we can all continue to speculate on its current state of supernatural infestation.


Send your header image submissions to nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: April 30, 2014

This week's header image comes from blogger and photographer Mike Burnside. Mike took this image of a once-sleek and ultramodern pay phone while on one of his rambles through the Pennsylvania countryside. ("I like the sort of faux space-age football helmet with the rural decay," Mike notes.) The image caught co-administrator Michelle's eye, who secured permission from Mike to use it as a header image. Unlike most header images, the photo for this one has not been cropped, but simply framed in a way to make it fit the header image dimension guidelines. The original can be seen here.


Do you have an image from NEPA that you'd like to have used as the NEPA Blogs header? Send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: April 23, 2014

Across from the Route 6 entrance to the Viewmont Mall in Scranton is the Fashion Mall, a small-ish strip mall holding a surprisingly large number of stores. Once upon a time the most remarkable things about this mall was the waterfall that flowed down from the mountainside into which the mall is built just behind some of the stores and was easily visible from the parking lot. In the quarter-century since then, though, things have changed. The mall appears to have expanded, the cut-out into which it is built seems larger, and the falls seem to have been rerouted and rotated ninety degrees. They are no longer visible face-on from the Fashion Mall parking lot, but can be seen from the entrance to the Viewmont Mall. The best place to see the falls - aside from actually climbing them, which two guys did as I was trying to take this photo - is from a grassy area on the side of Route 6 in front of the Firestone at the Viewmont Mall. This past Saturday I set out to photograph a few things while I was spending time in the Scranton area, including the falls. I parked my car behind Firestone and climbed the hill - there is a short, steep way, or a long, shallow path - and set myself up by a small tree. I attracted more than a few odd looks from passengers in passing cars, most of whom probably didn't even realize the falls are there.

Is there some feature of NEPA that you've captured in a photo and want to share with everyone else? Send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com and we'll use it as soon as we can!

About the header image: April 16, 2014

Temperatures flirted with the eighty degree mark this weekend, followed by heavy rains during the day Tuesday and snow Tuesday night! Welcome to Spring, NEPA style! Andy Palumbo (http://andypalumbo.blogspot.com) took this picture just a few weeks ago at Lackawanna State Park. Remember when we're deep in the depth of Summer just how brutally cold this Winter was!


Do you have a photo we can feature as the header image on NEPA Blogs? Email it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: April 9, 2014

We live in a world powered by electricity. Whether that electricity is generated by burning coal, natural gas, nuclear fission, wind-powered generators, or enormous banks of solar panels, it has to be transmitted from the places where it is produced to the places where it is consumed. Andy Palumbo (http://andypalumbo.blogspot.com) captured this image of two generations of power transmission lines running parallel to each other in Clarks Summit.


Do you have a photo we can feature as the header image on NEPA Blogs? Email it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: April 2, 2014

As feared, March this year came in to NEPA like a lion and went out like a different lion. Actually, it came in like a drunken thug who'd outstayed his welcome at the bar, and went out like a drunken thug who'd outstayed his welcome at the bar and was finally getting kicked out, and decided to get in a few last licks on the way out, and who might pop back in later to make everyone's life miserable, just out of spite.

Still, as this beautiful image shows, March wasn't all snow and ice and falling trees. Mike Burnside (www.burnsidephotographic.com) captured this amazing photo at Harvey's Lake on March 27. Here are the particulars:

• Harveys Lake. Looking toward Sandy Beach from  41.22.14N by 76.2.23W
• 5:53:13PM EDT, Thursday, March 27, 2014
• Sony SLT-A65V with Tamron 18-270mm - 1/100sec @ f/4.5 18mm ISO 100
• Flash did not fire

Exhibition quality prints available at a reasonable cost.

If you have any photos that capture the special beauty of NEPA, please send them to us at nepablogs@gmail.com and we'll use them as the blog header for a week. Thanks!

About the header image: March 26, 2014

March, they say, comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, or comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion. Or, as John Belushi once pointed out on Saturday Night Live, comes in like a lion and goes out like a different lion. One thing's for sure: March is a turbulent month, full of wild temperature swings and highly variable weather. Sometimes the weather produces effects like this "curdled sky" I photographed over Nanticoke back in 2012.

An uncropped version of the header image.
It looks ominous, but it didn't amount to anything,
  if I recall correctly. Click to enlarge.

Is Spring truly here? Or is Winter going to hold onto NEPA for another month or two? Send your photos showing the signs of Spring's arrival (or failure to arrive) to nepablogs@gmail.com, and we'll use them as the NEPA Blogs header image!

About the header image: March 19, 2014

It's been a heck of a Winter: brutal, sustained cold, record-breaking snowfall totals, and snowfall after snowfall with no thaws - or even melting - in between. With Winter drawing to a close this week, dare we begin to turn our thoughts to Spring? The little crocus is one of the first blooms to emerge in the Spring, and this crop of crocuses was photographed at St. Mary's Cemetery on Middle Road in Hanover Township back in late March of 2007. When will the crocuses emerge this year? And how long until they are followed by daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, forsythia, and all the other early blooms of Spring?


If you have a photo that captures some aspect of life in NEPA, we'd like to feature it as the NEPA Blogs header! Submit it to nepablogs@gmail.com!

About the header image: March 12, 2014

While meeting with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective at the Vintage in Scranton this past Saturday, I noticed a mask mounted on a post outside the window I was facing. I excused myself, ran out to grab my camera from my car, and came back to snap some pictures. It's not every day that the universe hands you a photo op like that. From the colors I assumed this was a leftover Mardi Gras decoration, but the other members of the group (who had noticed it before me) informed me that Conor, proprietor of the Vintage, had told them that it has been hanging outside for many months. Yet somehow I had managed to not notice until now!

It is, how you say, "Creepy," no?

Like anywhere else, NEPA is full of little details easy to overlook but waiting to surprise you. Keep your eyes open, and who knows what you might see!

Have you spotted some detail of NEPA, creepy or otherwise, that you'd like to share? Send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com and we'll use it as the header image some week!

About the header image: March 5, 2014

This week's header image comes to us from NEPA Blogs co-administrator Michelle Hryvnak Davies. It's a four-wheel-drive vehicle - a Jeep - stuck in the snow in a driveway in Sweet Valley. Like the Jeep, it feels like we are all stuck in the snow. WE ARE ALL STUCK IN THE SNOW BECAUSE THIS WINTER WILL NEVER END AND IT'S HORRIBLE JUST HORRIBLE AND IT WILL NEVER END AND...

Sorry. I'm OK. Really. I...I just need a moment here.


Submit your header images to nepablogs@gmail.com.

About the header image: February 26, 2014

NEPA is seeing its first real winter in several years in 2014. Oh, previous years have had some snow, and some stretches of cold, but nothing like the extended period of subfreezing temperatures that we endured from early January through mid-February. And snowfall after snowfall - none of them measuring up to things like the Valentine's Day Storm on 2007, but when you consider that each one fell before the previous one had melted at all, the total effect was enormous - and, in the cases of collapsing buildings due to overloaded roofs, disastrous.

The effect on the roads of NEPA has been pretty disastrous as well. Since we've gotten away for several years without any major extended freezes, we've also gotten away without too many pothole eruptions. That ended this year, and it seems that all the potholes that should have formed in previous years (but didn't) decided to make their presences known in 2014. If you can make it through the rest of this winter without any pothole-related damage to your car, consider yourself fortunate.

The picture for this week's header comes from Scranton photographer and blogger Frank Dutton (http://frank-dutton.blogspot.com/). Normally he takes pictures of waterfalls, trains, and other scenic aspects of life in Scranton, but recently he captured this ginormous axle-breaker on the Harrison Avenue Bridge in Scranton. Potholes are as much an aspect of life in NEPA as anything else, so this image illustrates well the situation many folks in NEPA are faced with. Do not despair, though - when looked at from another point of view, it becomes clear that this is indeed the Pothole of Love! (One of them, anyway.)

Do you have a photo that reflects some aspect of life in NEPA? Send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com and we'll use it as the header image for a week!

About the header image: February 19, 2014

Yet another snow picture, because THE SNOW NEVER ENDS. This is yet another from Don Williams, the Susquehanna River Sentinel (http://srs444.blogspot.com). Like the image featured two weeks ago, it shows the sun rising over a snowy field, but this time the field is totally covered. This image was taken on the morning of Valentine's Day. Even still yet more snow has fallen since then!

If you have an image you'd like us to feature as the week's header for NEPA Blogs, drop us a line at nepablogs@gmail.com. Thanks!