I once worked with a man whose wife’s idea of “roughing it” was a Holiday Inn without a swimming pool. He liked to hunt and fish. She, obviously, did not. The result was infrequent family trips to the forest, a problem for which 59 Pennsylvania legislators have a solution.
Close your eyes and imagine Caledonia State Park with a Sleepy-Time Motel & Conference Center, swimming pool and a paved parking lot adjacent to Thaddeus Stevens’ forge, and meeting rooms named for the trees and critters chased away by construction. Camping areas are replaced by a theme park, including a water flume or two wending their way past Stevens’ furnace. A shuttle service carries folks to a wide spot on the Appalachian Trail, where they enjoy box lunches provided by conference center tour guides.