Photo of the Day (10.7.08)

by Grant Martin on

I happen to be in Pittsburgh this warm fall Tuesday, sitting in a convention center looking out at the mountains around the Pennsylvanian city. Even since I came to visit my friend Al in Shady Side I’ve been fond of Pittsburgh, and now that I’m back five years later I still feel the same warm affection for the city. Or maybe that’ just the Yuengling I keep drinking.

Flickr user(s) BrettandMariLynn took this tilt shift photo (don’t you love them?) of a church nearby here.

Have any cool photos you’d like to share with the world? Add them to the Gadling Pool on Flickr, and it might be chosen as our Photo of the Day.

Pennsylvania hotel breaking all the rules

by Meg Massie on

When inspectors from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture responded to a consumer complaint at the Holiday Inn in Lancaster County, they were surprised by what they found — but given the hotel’s laundry list of offenses, perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a shock.

When the hotel’s walk-in refrigerator failed, they moved its contents to a guest room for cooling. The room’s air conditioner was turned all the way down to 65 degrees — 24 degrees higher than the maximum temperature allowed by state public health guidelines. This is but one of many ridiculous incidents that begs the question: Why is this Holiday Inn still open?

On the same day of the food inspection, Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement officers searched the hotel and found that it was selling liquor without a license, and had been doing so for over a year, when ownership changed hands and the new owners never sought to renew the liquor license.

The problems don’t end there.Treasury officials say the hotel has failed to pay taxes since July 21. There is no way to know how much the hotel owes, because those figures come from the hotel’s monthly reports, and guess what? Those aren’t accurate or complete, either. However, the state Department of Revenue recently placed a lien on the property for $29,259.28 in unpaid sales taxes for November and December of 2007.

Employees paint an even grimmer picture for the Holiday Inn. They say paychecks have been late and have bounced, and they have been paying insurance premiums out of their paychecks, yet the hotel isn’t actually carrying insurance. One employee found this out the hard way when he went in for surgery and was told he didn’t have insurance, even though he’d been paying for it through his employer.

Housekeeping employees have been instructed to rinse out and reuse disposable supplies in guest rooms. This includes refilling used shampoo bottles and — ew — rinsing out and reusing trash bags. The job market in Lancaster must be pretty dismal for these workers to stick around.

On top of everything else, utilities and cable have been shut off at the hotel due to failure to pay bills, and the building has failed fire code inspections as well.

What does a hotel in Lancaster County, PA have to do to get shut down?!

More crazyhotels:

Can you finish the world’s largest burger?

by Meg Massie on

Have you ever heard of Clearfield, Pennsylvania? Neither have I. But it’s not much of a detour off Interstate 80, right in the center of the state, and the little town has a pretty amusing claim to fame.

Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield is the home of the world’s largest hamburgers. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, here is where you’ll find the “largest hamburger commercially available,” and if you can finish it, you’ll have a place in the record books, too.

Owner Denny Liegey has been challenging customers with his behemoth burgers since the early 1990’s. The pub challenges begin with a 2-pound burger, which seems tiny compared to 3, 6, and 15-pound versions. Those who finish their burgers (one challenger per burger, or two for the 15-pound “belly buster,” and there’s a time limit, of course) get their name and picture in the restaurant’s hall of fame, as well as a t-shirt, certificate of completion, and a discount on their bill.

According to Denny, only one person has ever conquered the “Ye Olde 96er,” which is 6 pounds of beef and 9 pounds altogether. This challenger was just “a little, skinny college girl from Princeton!”

The largest burger ever cooked at Denny’s was the 123-pound monster pictured above. Read more about how Denny makes his giant burgers here.

So, do you think you could eat the world’s largest burger? Perhaps a better question is why would you want to try?

The big burgers require several hours of preparation time, so if you’re going to take on the challenge, call ahead. Good luck!

The longest national park?

by Iva Skoch on

I’ve been to Washington DC more than a few times now, but I can still be surprised. And it happened again this weekend.

It turns out that DC is the ending point for a very special national park: the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, where it dumps into the Potomac River.

Unbelievably, the canal starts near the Pennsylvania border, in Cumberland, MD, more than 185 miles away, and ends here in DC, in the Georgetown neighborhood. And, yes, you can bike or run the entire length.

The C&O Company formed in 1825, started digging three years later, and finished the canal twenty-five years later, at a cost of $11 million. By the 1920s, the traffic had ceased, a victim of competition with the railroad. It uses 74 locks because of the 605 foot elevation change over its length, and it had up to 500 boats regularly operating on it, mostly moving coal in the 1870s. [Check out Quick Road Trip: Washington, D.C. Part Two for a first person account of a ride on the canal boats.]

Next time you’re in Georgetown, head down to the canal and take a stroll. Just don’t forget to turn around before you end up in Pennsylvania.

Big Mac Museum Pays Tribute to a Sandwich and a Man

by Jamie Rhein on

Can you say two-all-beef patties-special sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a sesame-seed-bun really fast? If not, try Big Mac. This is it’s 40th year anniversary. Already? It’s true. Frankly, I haven’t really given sandwich creators much thought–except for the 4th Earl of Sandwich who is credited with making the first sandwich ever. The guy who created the Big Mac, Jim Delligatti whipped up that special sauce 40 years ago. It was first served in Uniontown, Pennsylvania to customers who paid 45 cents for one.

To commemorate the grand occasion, there’s a new restaurant museum that pays tribute to this burger creation. The Big Mac Museum in North Huntingdon, PA is 40 miles north of Uniontown. If you want to see the world’s largest Big Mac, head here. It’s 14 feet tall and 12 feet wide. There’s also a bronze bust of Delligatti. If you have a hankering to get a bust of yourself in commemoration of your life, creating a sandwich is one option to get one. But, I’d guess the sandwich can’t just be any old thing. It has to grow in stature to be a cultural and economic icon.

If you think you might head here on the way to somewhere else–why not?–here’s a link to Huntingdon’s park and recreation page. There’s a fishing derby next weekend AND a map with nature trails among other things.