Colleen Kane

Abandoned Borscht Belt 3: The Pines

Last October, I explored the abandoned site of The Pines resort in South Fallsburg, New York.

(Image via this wonderful collection of vintage resort postcards)

The Pines had 400 guest rooms, a golf course, tennis courts, a ski chalet, an ice rink, and two swimming pools. Its theater and nightclub hosted the usual Jewish Alps entertainers of the day such as Robert Goulet and Buddy Hackett. It closed in 1998 when a developer bought the property from the Ehrlich family. This article details the bankruptcy of that developer and possible future for the property.

The postcard above shows what The Pines looked like in the 1960s. As you might imagine, it doesn't look like this bright and tidy any more.

 

Frog Festival

You may have seen bumper stickers saying, "Keep Austin Weird." There aren't any such mottoes about Louisiana, and that's because weirdness in Louisiana is about as endangered as nutria. On Saturday, Kara and I went to experience some genuine Louisiana weirdness at the Frog Festival in the self-proclaimed Frog Capital of the World, Rayne.

We laughed, we made rude comments amongst ourselves about genetics, we wondered if perhaps we had licked some hallucinogenic frogs.

Road Trip: Kicked in Deez Nuts by History

I believe it was during a trip to Ireland or Scotland that one of my friends compared it to being kicked in the nuts by history. Perhaps the sentiment could be phrased more eloquently, but the same is true of my road trip through the Southern states back down to Baton Rouge. Only it wasn't just learning about history while visiting the sites. Some of this trip was like actually traveling back in time. Other parts of the trip involved laughing at yahoos other cultures, of course, or just place names such as Bucksnort, Tennessee, but regular readers were probably expecting as much.