Day 1 Part 2 – Eckley Mining Village and Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub

Eckley is an abandoned mining town out in anthracite country, where the coal company built housing and town infrastructure for 1000 people. You can drive right into the town and it’s definitely eerie. It’s creepy because it’s abandoned, but actually slightly creepier because somewhere in there are still 19 current residents. The effect is that there are a bunch of buildings that are clearly trashed, some that are clearly inhabited, and some that show signs of use, but not exactly civilized. The decrepitude is interesting from a mining history standpoint as well, and we got a bunch of photos of busted up mining cars and this amazing building that we think is a refinery of some kind.

We took pictures of the houses, too, which included some spooky abandoned kitchens and one crawlspace that was left open from the outside. Nobody took me up on my $100 offer to crawl in there and pull out a souvenir, probably because I almost definitely would have locked them in for some period, just like that old prospector in the Brady Bunch Ghost Town episode. Anyway, for an improvised stop along the way, Eckley is highly recommended by Team Manatee, so keep it in mind if you ever find yourself on the road to Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub.

No relation to the Denny’s we all know, Denny’s Beer barrel pub is the home of the world’s largest burger. You can’t order the world’s largest burger, but you can order one that is a mere fifteen pounds. They also feature the 96er, which refers to the fact that it’s 96 ounces. If you can all eat six pounds without dying you get a t-shirt. Honorable wall-plaque mentions are available for 2 and 3-pound feats of fortitude, but I hardly see the point in commemorating that kind of mediocrity.

We didn’t take the big beef bait, but that’s not to say that we got off without some kind of novelty spending. They had a card on the table that claimed that you could order one of their specialty beers and keep the glass. You could also order a frozen drink and keep the giant hand-painted burger-shaped glass that it came in. There was also some hand-painted scribbling that mentioned that all “logo” glassware cost extra. Apparently this meant that you had to ask for the burger glass with the drink if you wanted the glass. Deech didn’t realize that until his frozen “Highlander” something-or-other showed up in a different glass, which was also a souvenir. The waitress acted like it was entirely obvious and he should have known better, but if you ask me there’s no way she’d never had that discussion before.

Jay volunteered to drink the first one and Deech ordered another – with the burger glass this time. At that point we discovered that the Highlander thingamajig, was not good – a barely drinkable slushy thing – and as cool a souvenir as it is, Deech’s burger glass is pretty much a monument to his being taken in by roadside profiteers. However, it does make for great pictures.

The two hour drive to our motel got us there about midnight and all I remember is passing out instantly upon arrival. It was a long day that started out sleepy, and though the accommodations were somewhat spartan I was basically unconscious for the entire stay.