The Axemann Cometh

What better way is there to celebrate a great American holiday like Labor Day than take part in two great traditions of Americana like playing mini-golf and eating large quantities of fattening food? Well, I certainly couldn’t come up with anything to improve upon that. I invited Andrew, one of the new meteo grad students, along to go mini-golfing with me and a few other people from my church (Ryan, Sarah, Ben, Adam, Leslie, Julian & Suzanne), and initially our plan had been to go to a course in Phillipsburg, but through some phone calls they found out that course had been closed for over a year.
So on to plan B, Adam’s idea of going to the course in Axemann. Yes, there’s a small town just outside of State College called Axemann, and no, I had never heard of it before. So we come across a sign next to the road pointing down a driveway to the mini-golf place, though it’s not the most attractive-looking property in the world: a cesspool on the right, tall overgrown grass, a run-down building with an old spraypainted sign pointing to the restroom (another more run-down shack), some silos, and a house just off to the left with a local who couldn’t help but stare at our group as we drove in with two cars. Oh yeah, and it’d be a shame not to mention the chicken that darted across the driveway as we drove in. Adam was the brave one to get out of the car to check out if the place was open at all, and as he was looking around the guy staring at us from the neighboring house shouted down with a thick redneck accent, “You lookin for mini-golf?” Adam: “Yeah.” Redneck: “It’s been closed for over a year.” That was actually a major relief, because I was ready to veto this place as soon as we drove in, and Ryan, Sarah & Andrew in our car all agreed that even if it was open, it wasn’t a place where you’d even wanna touch the clubs.
So I suggested that we try heading to the course at a campground just north of Bellefonte (which I’d actually suggested initially before Adam led us to the seedy Axemann course), and fortunately it was very much open, and very much not like a scene out of a horror film like Axemann. 🙂 The owner actually recognized me from the last time a group of us meteo grads went up there, and he started blaming me (jokingly, of course) for Ernesto and agreed to cut us a deal if I’d arrange for good weather on all future home football weekends this year, haha. Everyone had a good time mini-golfing (even Andrew with his horrible luck along the way), and I won a tie-breaker for 1st with Ben & Julian. Not that we were keeping score or anything. 😉
After mini-golf we hopped in our cars and drove over to Clearfield to go eat at Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, the second time I’d been to that place in just over two weeks. The wait for food took awhile (certainly well over half an hour, even more than 45 minutes I think … if I were Chris Allen I would’ve timed precisely how long it took, but oh well), but Denny’s is good enough that it’s worth it (and worth the hour’s drive out there). I didn’t feel quite gluttonous enough to get the pounder this time, instead I got a half-pounder, specifically so that I could get a piece of Reese’s peanut butter cup pie at the end for dessert. Mmmm, soooo good… The next time we go to Denny’s, Andrew said he’d for sure try the 2-pounder, that for the motivation of getting it at half price he’s pretty sure he could finish it. I’d have to be feeling a bit adventurous to do the 2-pounder, but I think I could give it the old college try at some point.
Daniel & I discovered today that Sports Cafe no longer has 25-cent wings on Tuesdays — they’re now 30 cents. What a travesty. First they raise their 49-cent cheeseburgers on Wednesdays that Frame is so in love with to 50 cents, and now this? They’re penny-and-nickleing us, who do they think they are, the Postal Service? Oh well, despite the modest increase in price and the usually poor quality of service (not to mention the dump it’s kinda turned into), getting wings on Tuesdays is firmly entrenched as a tradition for Daniel & me, so we’ll keep going every week. It’s definitely the high point of most any Tuesday. 🙂