Phil Elmore: Individual Authoring Services

Poconos 2003
A Travelogue

In September of 2003, my lovely wife Beth and I traveled to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. We've spent several happy vacations in the luxurious suites of the Caesars Pocono Resorts chain. This year, we booked a stay at the Pocono Palace, while resolving to visit local tourist attractions as well. It was a trip filled with pleasant diversion, unexpected adventure, and a surprising amount of wildlife -- from less-than-lifelike bears to much more animated woodland creatures.

DAY ONE

We traveled from Syracuse to the Poconos on a Sunday. The trip really reinforces to the average observer just how much nothing there is between New York and Pennsylvania. The landscape is almost entirely trees and the occasional farm (during one trip, I actually uttered the phrase, "Wow, look at all those barns down there"). It is not a long trip, however. In the Scranton area we laughed at the idea of the Anthracite Museum, picturing an entire facility devoted to staring at piles of coal. ("Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is coal. Take a good look.") Judging from the brochure we found at a tourist information center on the trip back home, the museum offers a somewhat morbid look at the history of our misunderstood friend, coal. Beth read aloud the impressive and interminable list of coal mine "disasters" and "incidents" chronicled at the facility.

The Poconos are widely known as a honeymoon and anniversary vacation spot. Each of the resorts in the Caesars chain also features a very large heart-shaped sign pronouncing one's entry into the Land of Love.

The Land of Love, whose borders are strictly patrolled.

When we checked in at Pocono Palace, we were offered a room upgrade. Those who've earned such rewards can stay, at no extra charge, in one of the higher-status rooms at the resort if they are available. We ended up staying in the Roman Towers, the most elaborate room offered throughout the resort chain.

The main building at Pocono Palace.

The Roman Towers, quite simply, spoiled us for all other rooms at the resort. Guests are greeted by vaulted ceilings that look to be 20 feet high, the fireplace-equipped great room dominated by a seven-foot "champagne glass" hot tub that is accessed from the second floor of the suite. There is the usual assortment of couches, a table, and throne-like chairs, a heart-shaped and heated pool (separated from the rest of the suite by a glass enclosure, which contains the chlorine smell one expects of well-maintained pools), and a massage table leading to the sauna room. The bedroom area features a simulated star field that makes for pleasant nighttime lighting, while the fireplace on the lower level burns only wax-composition "logs."

The hot tub at the center of our room.

The Roman Towers rooms are almost segregated from the rest of the resort, situated near the entrance and close to the pro shop and golf course on the grounds. (Several times I was passed by people in golf carts as we went from our room to the main building and back.) I found myself wondering if amazingly tall windows in the suite were Plexiglas or something, picturing errant golf balls winging their way towards innocent honeymooners having breakfast in their rooms. Our trip was, thankfully, free of Ping or Titleist projectiles.

At night, the Towers are lighted with colored lights (right), primarily red with a little green and yellow. It was very pretty. One has the sense, in the Poconos, of being cut off (and pleasantly so) from the rest of the world, free of mundane cares and trivial problems. Except for one specifically "family" resort, the entire chain is also couples-only, which enhances the feeling of vacation-only that permeates the low-key atmosphere.

That afternoon, while waiting for our room to be readied for our stay, Beth and I traveled the short distance to The Crossings, a very large outlet mall in the Poconos. The mall features, literally, a little bit of everything, from a log cabin-like Coleman store (where I perused the knives and flashlights) to outlets for clothing, music, books, and toys. The sprawling "campus" of the outlet mall makes for more than a little walking.

After returning to the resort and moving our things into our newly cleaned room (I later discovered from my sister that our very room, Roman Towers 706, was profiled on The Travel Channel), we dressed for dinner and an evening out. Dinners at the Caesars chain are held in their formal dining room. Varying from buffets to evenings consisting of the traditional three choices (beef, fish, or vegetarian), these are usually pretty good and are included in the cost of one's stay at the chain. The unwary, however, will be greeted with a less than desirable prospect: dining with strangers.

Typically, couples are seated at large round tables that accommodate several more couples. This obviously assists the serving staff in keeping down the number of tables and, one supposes, enables couples who enjoy meeting new friends to socialize with like-minded souls (or swingers). My wife and I, however, vacation to spend time with each other -- not with one or two sullenly silent married couples, a couple that laughs too often and too loudly, and a husband and wife team whose husband thinks his stories are far more interesting than they really are and who cannot shut up to save his life. (My sardonic sense of caustic verbal justice has brought me close to fights before. Romantic dinners aside, It is just a bad idea on principle to expose me to people who set off my desire to ridicule them.)

Here's the secret for all you future Poconos travelers. Arrive at the start of the dinner hour and immediately request, after giving your name to the greeter, to be seated at a table by yourselves. This is one of those "secrets" of the chain -- they won't force you to sit with others if you don't wish to do so, provided you don't get there at the end of the dinner period.

After dinner we drove the short distance through heavily deer-populated forests on twisting, hilly roads to Paradise Stream, the smallest and most intimate of the Caesars resorts. There we had tickets reserved at the front desk for the Lewis Black show. Black, best known for his angry "Back in Black" segments on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, is tremendously funny, so we were really looking forward to seeing him in person.

We reached the resort well after dark. The building was already rattling and vibrating to a show and party band called Something Else. Later I would learn, through direct experience, that the band is so-named because its members should be doing something else -- anything else -- other than playing music in public.

I stopped at the front desk. "Hi," I said pleasantly. "Phil Elmore. You're holding some tickets for me for the Lewis Black show."

The desk clerk patted his shirt pockets theatrically. "No, I don't seem to be holding anything, ha-ha, ha-ha."

I stared at him. He went to his list, found the tickets, and we made our arrangements for the show.

Inside, the noise of Something Else was deafening. Not only was the music too loud, but the band was, to put it mildly, awful. The ushers tried to seat us near the front of the stage, where our eardrums threatened to burst and we found the fumes of nearby smokers overpowering. (Pennsylvania does not have a smoking ban in public places as does New York. They seem to have no mobile phone restrictions, either, and apparently no helmet laws for motorcycles. New Yorkers wishing for a taste of dubious lost freedoms are therefore welcome to ride motorcycles across Pennsylvania, smoking cigarettes while phoning friends back in New York to gloat while shouting over the wind noise and squinting against the flying insects hitting their faces.)

We arranged for seats at a private table near the back of the auditorium, where would still have an adequate view of the stage. I writhed in agony as Something Else actually had the temerity to do a bad-Karaoke-style cover of War's Spill the Wine, a song perhaps best characterized as The Song Show Bands Should Choose Absolutely Dead Last As A Cover Tune. The band's lack of musical ability was matched only by their inappropriate volume and, unfortunately, the apoplectic twitching of the blonde lead singer, whom I believe was trying to dance while doing a very good impression of being electrocuted by her microphone.

At one point my wife and I switched seats so she would have an unobstructed view when the show started. "I couldn't see the blonde one before," she yelled to me over Something Else's butchery of a disco song. "That was a good thing."

Thankfully, Lewis Black finally made an appearance. He lived up to our expectations, his trademark "angry man" humor laced with the "f-word" and punctuated by a curious noise he makes by blowing air through his lips while shaking his face back and forth. Black does, in fact, swear more than a dockworker with Tourettes Syndrome who's just hit his own thumb with a hammer while stepping on a garden rake, which led us to wonder how he manages not to swear when on camera for television. I was surprised by the degree to which his act incorporates politics and even economics, but he did a great job of keeping the audience with him while making them laugh uproariously. By the time we left, my face hurt from smiling and laughing so much.

We stopped again at the front desk to get directions back to our own resort, as these are easier to follow than trying manually to reverse the directions given us previously. "Can I get directions to Pocono Palace?" I asked the clerk.

"I don't know," the fellow from before smiled broadly at me. "Can you?"

"You get beaten up... how often?" I asked. I was possessed of the urge to take him aside and tell him, "Look, friend, I know you're trying to keep it light, but the only thing stopping me from choking you to death is the fact that I'm in a really good mood and on vacation with my lovely wife." With our directions in hand and the clerk appropriately scolded, we returned to our resort for the evening.

Day One Day Two Day Three Day Four