Phil (part three)

We are now downtown....and it is cold and it is snowing!  We walked through the Barclay Tent area (the downtown area green).  There were vendors for both crafts and food.  There were a lot of Groundhog "stuff"!  We were cold though, so we went into the one hotel that Punxsutawney has and they had more vendors - we bought Groundhog cookies, Ground "hog" jerky, Groundhog t-shirts, hats, greeting cards and a bunch of other things!!  Then to the library to see Phil in his real home.  He lives at the library year round!!!

My brother read about the Hall of Fame induction and wanted to see it.  Since I love the Weather Channel, of course I wanted to see it also.  It was now about 11:00 and we were starving since we ate breakfast at 4:00 am.  We went to the local coffee shop/diner.  It was sort of like the one in the movie, but not really......The food was good, so we went back downtown to find the Weather Discovery Center.  It was a fun place for the kids.  Cristina was able to be a meteorologist on the green screen and they had a bunch of other hands on activities on weather.  The Center is in the old post office building and has a lot of history.  The induction was held in the foyer area and there were probably about 100 people.  It was a tight squeeze, but we got there early and got great spots to watch.   We had no idea that Phil and the Inner Circle (top hat) was coming also, so we were very excited!  

The Induction of Jim Cantore into the Hall of Fame.  My niece had the best seat in the house, on the floor in front of the podium!!

This is Danny Rubin, the screenwriter of the movie, Groundhog Day, with my brother and myself.  We got to talk to him as he stood with us at the induction.

Here is my brother Chris after the induction.  They wouldn't let him hold Phil, but he got close to the cylinder chamber that they keep him in and got his picture.  That was really fortunate!!

It was probably around 2:30 and we are pretty exhausted, so we decided to say goodbye to Punxsutawney and head back to our hotel.  At 3:00, I took a HOT shower and we all napped until 5:00.

We went out for dinner at 6:00 (we had to find a non-smoking restaurant)!  We came back to the room and what did we watch?????  Groundhog Day, the movie!  (of course!!) :0)