I wonder what else I have been driving past my entire life at 70 mph?

Harrisburg is a city I have driven through over a thousand times, no kidding. Back and forth to college, back and forth to grad school, back and forth to DC, I have passed through Harrisburg on a bridge going about 70 miles an hour, and never, never, never in all those years have I gotten off the highway and explored any segment of the city.

Until today.

Motivated by my One New Place project and my beloved (but beleaguered) Washington Nationals, I timed my drive to Pennsylvania to coincide with a game at Washington’s minor league franchise—The Harrisburg Senators, where stars Bryce Harper and Steven Strasburg got their start.

If I had known how cool this ballpark (FNB Field) was, I would have been here years ago. It is brilliantly located on an island in the Susequehanna River, City Island, which Harrisburg has converted into a sort of playground. You can access it via car on a beautiful old bridge from center city, or you can walk across a converted railroad trestle bridge.

On the island, it’s all play and no work: Along with baseball, there’s a small railroad for children, a boat cruise, an arcade and something called water golf. We walked along the riverfront and ate on a cafe patio overlooking the river while listening to Jimmy Buffet. Island mode. Yeah. There was locally made ice cream and giant bobble-headed tributes to Strasburg and Harper. The baseball game was good too, except that we narrowly lost and there were too many Phillies fans. 🙂