The Ground Hog

On February 2nd, every year, I play a song by Brave Combo, Groundhog, Groundhog.



It may be the only song that's appropriate for the holiday, other than maybe Sonny and Cher's I've Got You Babe.

This year, I played it on June 16th as we pulled into Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to see Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog. It was day 1 into the 14 day Great American Roadtrip, traveling from Maryland, across the Mid West, into the Rocky Mountains to see the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, and then back across America, with a family of 6, including 4 kids, in a Honda Odyssey. The kind of trip Chevy Chase movies are made about.

Yellowstone was a trip I had promised my kids from the beginning. Having traveled a lot, most of the sites on the trip I had seen before, but I wanted to see something new as well. The Ground Hog was something new I hadn't seen.

After doing extensive research on Phil (he has a website: http://www.groundhog.org), we planned to see him in his home, Phil's Burrow, an exhibit at the library. Pulling up in the minivan, we all jumped out eagerly excited to see the great and wonderful Phil.

The parking lot we parked in was the other side of the building from Phil. We raced around the building all waiting to be the first. Coming around the corner we saw it, Phil's Burrow.

Peering through the glass that was dirtied over the years by the thousands of fans of Phil fans wanting to catch a glimpse of the meteorological guru who has always correctly predicted the weather for over 100 years. Was that him? No, that was a rock. There he is! Yes, it was him.

Hidden in the burrow, barely visible, was a ball of fur. Looking carefully, another ball of fur in another burrow. Phil lives with his wife Phyllis and while I don't know which was which, we had done it. We saw Phil.

Being on a family roadtrip, we spent the next 45 minutes running around the town square trying to burn off energy before getting back into the car and driving another 400 miles to South Bend, Indiana where we spent the night.

One of the travel site reviews said that it was just a ground hog behind some scratched Plexiglas. That was true, but it wasn't just any ground hog, but Punxsutawney Phil.