It’s been months since Rich and I visited one of our favorite lunch spots, The Tipsy Turtle near Pittston, PA. This cold, lazy Saturday was just right for a nice drive and a two-hour lunch. We shared Turtle Bites (hot sauce, with Inferno sauce on the side!), southwestern eggrolls and turtle tornados, a French dip sandwich, and plenty of Storm King Imperial Stout on tap.

Properly stuffed, we were then ready to travel farther down Route 315 to the Sunshine Market in Laflin in search of the elusive Quaker Multigrain Oatmeal. As we approached an intersection, Rich cried out “The Muddy Moose!” He really didn’t know; he had just seen a sign alongside the road, with only “The Muddy Moose” and an arrow pointing to the right. So, of course, I turned right at the intersection. Could it be another bar/restaurant, like The Tipsy Turtle?, we wondered. We followed the winding road past developments and old mining structures until, at an unlikely intersection near a coal company, we spotted the Muddy Moose Country Store. Gifts (many of them moose-related) were all around, and the parking lot was busy for such an out-of-the-way location. We went inside, bravely stepping past the “Beware of Attack Moose” placard on the door.

Inside were all varieties of moose items, from stuffed moose to moose candy to moose-themed clothing, as well as plenty of other gifts. We wandered from room to room in this old miners’ boarding house, following the well-planned layout and looking for moose tracks everywhere we went. Rich liked a beige stuffed moose, and I just couldn’t pick a favorite. We spotted the “muddy moose” himself upstairs in the bathtub.

It may not have been a bar, but this shop provided us with plenty of smiles and laughter to last the rest of the night!