We abandoned JP with my mom to visit the Frazetta Museum in Stroudsburg, PA as a belated birthday gift for Bren. I only knew Frazetta as “some artist Bren likes” so it was interesting to learn more about him. He basically invented this genre of fantasy art—it seems a little cliche now but did not exist until he started making it—and influenced tons of other artists, including George Lucas. There was a wall of early works from his childhood and he really was born with that special something. It seems he didn’t have much of an ego and probably didn’t think what he did was all that remarkable—when something comes naturally to you, you usually don’t think it is. 🙂

This is a little random but I appreciated that there weren’t any pieces where the dude was in full armor while the lady was inexplicably naked, which you see in a lot of fantasy art. In his world everybody is mostly naked all the time, so it seems fair. 😉

The museum is run by family so we got a nice tour from his daughter-in-law who said that she only knew him as Dad/Grandpa and she was herself only a recent fan because she learned about him as an artist through running the museum. It’s interesting how people can have such discrete sides of their personalities.

It was a nice visit and of course Bren was over the moon (and spent a ton of money at the gift shop).

Stroudsburg was a cute little place. We had lunch at Sarah Street Grill, which I would eat at again. They had beer from nearby ShawneeCraft brewery. Of course I had to try some; Dad would be so disappointed if I passed up the local brew. 😉 I had the Sunkissed Blonde Ale and I liked it—it was a little citrusy which is something I like. Alas I am not a beer expert so it’s basically just “like” vs. “didn’t like.” 😛

We did a short trip to Big Pocono State Park. I’m sure there were other hiking trails available but we just drove to the summit and did the short drive around the top. That’s about the max for me when it comes to hiking. It was very pretty!

I didn’t take any photos of the place we stayed, the Stroudsmoor Inn, except for this tiny house. The place was OK—definitely a little time capsule-y. It was also an oddly difficult place, like…we asked about the bakery and were told it was not on-site. They gave us directions, we went, it was closed. When we returned, the person who gave us directions was surprised and asked when it closed. When we told her 5pm, she asked us what time it was. We were like….it’s after 5pm. The next morning for breakfast the door to the restaurant was closed and somebody told us breakfast started at 8am and we were like…it’s after 8am. My #1 feedback is they need to get some clocks. We also asked about the on-site spa but apparently it’s subcontractor situation and that entity had cut back their hours. So no spa for me. 🙁

We had dinner at their restaurant and uh, it was fine, but it wasn’t $167 (including tip & drinks) fine. It reminded me of Mo’s in Baltimore—clearly this place was considered fancy and luxurious 30-40 years ago but now it’s stuffy and wayyyy overpriced for what we got. The food was just OK. The atmosphere was “the softest of soft rock” on the radio. We were right under the speaker.

The apple pie was genuinely good, probably because it came from their off-site bakery. The muffins and scones at breakfast were also very good. So A+ on the bakery. And I will say that the staff were excellent. Each person we interacted with was awesome. Overall, I wouldn’t stay there again but it wasn’t a bad time.

Oh we also stopped at Pocono Candle and they had these giant pumpkin candles. I appreciated the commitment to the theme but didn’t like the scent enough to get a GIANT CANDLE