DESTINATION: Jarcy's Motel in Port Matilda and Victorian Bellefonte
TRAVELING COMPANION: Alaina
PHOTOS BY: Alaina and Travis

With Arts Fest finally upon us, many Penn State alumni may be looking for cheap accommodations here in the Centre region. That's why my friend Alaina and I decided to look into motels that appeared to be especially affordable on the unemployed journalism major's budget.

Keeping that in mind, we headed out toward Port Matilda to investigate Jarcy's Motel, a quaint little lodge just off the side of Route 322.

When we pulled into the driveway, this is what we saw:

Obviously, the place did not look like it maintained the standards of upkeep of such other fine establishments as Motel 6 and The Crappiest Motel In The World. The lights were on, indicating that someone must be around, but the assorted detritus strewn about the place indicated that someone was probably a coke fiend.

It looked so uninviting that we decided to play it safe and head next door to Clem's Barbecue to ask the locals what the deal was with Jarcy's.

Note: On the photo above, reverse the order of "RIBS CHIX PORK." Fun, huh?

I ordered the BBQ chicken as my "in" for asking questions about Jarcy's. Check out how much chicken they gave me and guess how much it cost:

...are you ready for this? $2.50. That's IT. And it was delicious.
I know who's going to cater my wedding!

After I ordered my chicken, Alaina asked the abnormally handsome man at the counter what the deal with Jarcy's Motel was. He said he didn't know and directed us to two vagrants hanging around in the back of the kitchen who didn't look like they were really doing anything.

"You don't want to stay there," one said. "There's a Holiday Inn a few miles down the road."

"Nah," I said, "we're just curious about Jarcy's."

"So you just drive around looking for weird places?" he asked.

I thought about explaining that we were trying to do the world a public service by getting to the bottom of the Jarcy's Motel mystery, but I refrained.

Another of the vagrants said he thought the owner of Jarcy's came to Clem's from time to time, and that we should just go over there and ask him about the history of the motel.

We decided to weigh the pros and cons of returning to Jarcy's:

PROS:

-Could be a great story.
-Could satisfy our curiosity.
-Could turn out that the Jarcy's people are nice and maybe they'll
give us cookies.

CONS:

-Could turn into an awkward social situation.
-Could get murdered.
-Could get sodomized and then murdered.

We decided that the pros slightly outweighed the cons, so we left the car at Clem's and walked down the highway to Jarcy's.

On foot, the place looked even shadier than before. As I approached the front door to request an interview, I noticed clothing strewn about the stoop and a tree branch obscuring the entrance.

Stepping even closer, I suddenly realized that I simply did not want to talk to whoever was in this house - so we cowardly turned back.

Although I ended up avoiding whoever was in charge of Jarcy's Motel, I do have to give them props. It takes a lot of cojones to just leave crap all over your yard and not even attempt to make it look at all presentable. Bravo.

Not ones to completely give up on a good sleuthing, however, Alaina suggested a trek into downtown Port Matilda to ask locals about Jarcy's.

Luckily, we happened upon a street-wide yard sale. Bingo! We could bribe people for Jarcy's information by buying their crap for 50 cents!

At the first house, some older women were chilling out on the porch. After looking at their first-generation Game Boy and lighthouse statues, I noticed a sign that said "Brownies: 50 cents each." I asked to buy a brownie, and while one of the women retrieved it, we pumped the other one for Jarcy's information.

"Are you two looking to stay there?" she said.

It was becoming increasingly apparent that Alaina and I were coming off as some couple who was looking to hook up for a few hours in the shadiest motel possible.

We said we were just curious, and she told us that Jarcy's had been closed for years now. She said the neighbors were really irritated that the place looked like such a dump.

After that, we headed across the street to another yard sale. I was attracted to it by the pile of board games, but upon closer inspection I found that the games seemed to be suspiciously geared toward Christian audiences.

I decided to lay down 50 cents for the board game "Conscience," which aims to help children decide the difference between right and wrong. The best part of this game is that it contains an optional overlay relating to sex topics.

Here are some of the listed consequences for having premarital sex:

-loss of innocence
-bad reputation
-teen pregnancy
-AIDS

Fun for the whole family!

After that, we went past the State College exit and headed to Victorian Bellefonte. We stopped off at a duck park to chill out with waterfowl.

There was a machine there dispensing duck pellets. We threw them in the water and immediately noticed that a bunch of huge, mutated trout were snatching them up before the ducks and geese had a chance to get them.

So I decided to stage an epic battle of the species by luring the geese toward the fish and then throwing the pellets in an area where they would have to battle for them.

Check out the exceedingly boring video on YouTube.

I decided to investigate why the animals were so crazy for these pellets in the only way I knew how: sample one myself.

Below you can view the four-stage progression of my experiment:

A - What could be more appetizing than a handful of rabbit feces?
B - Preparing to suppress gag reflex.
C - Tastes like death.
D - Thank God I had a brownie chaser available from the yard sale.

EXPEDITION SUMMARY:

Money spent: $3.50
Miles traveled: 44

Lessons learned:
-Do not try to stay at Jarcy's Motel.
-If you play a Christian board game, you will get pregnant.

- Travis Larchuk