There’s an entirely different country out there off the beaten path if you’re willing to look for it. It’s my favorite part of a road trip…just seeing what pops up along the way. A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip out to Pennsylvania for a concert. As we were driving through Lehighton, our friend Jess just happened to mention, “we have the world’s largest general store here – you have to check out the Country Junction.” I immediately perked up. Whatever the Country Junction was, it sounded like it was certainly my speed. She needed to get ready for the day’s adventure out to Jim Thorpe and eventually Bethlehem for the show. So, my wife Aura and I dropped her off at home to get ready and decided to see what this Country Junction was all about in the meantime.
I can’t verify the legitimacy of the “world’s largest general store” moniker. But, after taking a stroll through the shop, I’m certainly not going to argue with anyone who swears it is. I was expecting something close to a Buc-ee’s, but boy, was I wrong. It was about as “a little bit of everything” as you could possibly get. If we had driven on this trip up from Tennessee, there’s no doubt in my mind I would’ve dropped some serious dough and filled the car with items. Alas, we flew this time, so there was no stuffing a shopping cart. I’d like to go back when we have a car we can drive back to Nashville to stock up.
When you enter the store, you’re encouraged to “follow the yellow brick road.” Yes, it’s a Wizard of Oz reference. In fact, the Wizard of Oz motif will come up several times in your journey. One of the first things you’ll see is a display case featuring someone’s private Wizard of Oz collection on display. Various statuettes and figures encased in glass. The first thing you should know is that time moves differently inside the Country Junction – the whole store is laid out like a haunted house. It was one of the coolest shopping experiences I’ve ever had. You walk in one room and it’s kitchen supplies stocking the shelves. You turn the corner and walk through a door, and it’s candles in the next room!
It made for a sort of surreal experience. I can’t recall ever being in a store laid out this way, but we just kept following that yellow brick road to see what was next. When you first walk in the store, the first main area you’ll encounter is the arcade. It really reminded me of the old school arcade/bowling alleys we used to go to when I was a kid. Something about it screamed “Friday night in 1996.” At one point, I turned and saw a few of what appeared to be duckpin bowling lanes. I promptly told my wife, “this is where I’d be every Friday night if we lived here…and if they sold beer at this place…“
I turned the corner around the arcade and noticed an entrance to an Ashley Furniture store. That was weird. It was recurring, too. Every few rooms we’d enter, there would be a random door that opened up like a portal to that Ashley home store. It was as if it was calling to us. We didn’t need any furniture, and we have Ashleys down here, so we didn’t enter. It’s probably a good thing because it might’ve sucked us in for all of eternity. Why was it calling to us so frequently? What did it want from us? I don’t know.
After the arcade/bowling alley/birthday party area, it was time to really get into the meat and potatoes of the store. They had a couple of rooms chock full of food – the good stuff…homemade jellies, banana flavored popcorn, salsas, and dip mixes. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff. Shortly after, we encountered an entire pet store where you can adopt puppies, ferrets, and maybe other animals. I don’t know what all they had. There was a petting zoo outside, so hell, who knows? I couldn’t believe it. They were grooming dogs back there and I just kept thinking, “wasn’t I just looking at flavored popcorn a second ago?”
Most trippy was taking the turn out of the mammal area and seeing the walls lined with fish tanks. The blue glow of the lights made it feel tranquil, and I told Aura to snap a pic because it gave me such an odd feeling. The reason? At the end of this “hallway” in what we’ll call the “fish room,” there was a setup with lifelike velociraptor dummies. I didn’t understand the link between the two, but that’s what made it so wild. It felt like a place I’d visit in a dream I couldn’t wake up from.
Keep following that Yellow Brick Road. Occasionally, we’d be met with a display of characters from Wizard of Oz, taxidermied animals, or what I presume to be muppet Rolling Stones. It got to a point where I turned corners very anxiously, feeling as though something might pop out at me. Again, it gives haunted house vibes in terms of its layout. There was a lawn and garden room, home decor room, a boutique booth full of clothes, cowboy hats, toys, bags, stickers, snacks, kitchen items, grills and smokers….you name it, Country Junction had a room for it. We turned the corner once and saw carpet samples, realizing you could even consult with a specialist about getting your flooring replaced at this spot!
Somewhere along the way, we ended up inside an Ace Hardware. Yes, an entire store within a store….not like the Ashley Furniture situation where the portal was calling to us…we left one room and the next was an Ace Hardware. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but you got it…it felt like a dream. As if the properties of physics, time, and space didn’t apply here. They sold fireworks at the checkout lane, and the final stop before you get to that point was a bakery that sold delicious goods.
By the end of our journey, I thought about how well that Wizard of Oz theme plays because the whole thing felt surreal – like we’re trapped in a time loop lost forever – this store never ends. We certainly weren’t in Kansas anymore. We made a few purchases (gum, some sunglasses, and some stickers to commemorate the visit with). I desperately need a map of this place, though. If I had to guess, it’s probably something like this:
It’s such a cool place. All in all, it took us probably a solid 40 minutes just to briskly walk through the entire store. There’s a nursery outside to go with the petting zoo. There’s a restaurant attached to the front of the store. I don’t think there’s anything in that place you can’t find. Country Junction is absolutely what getting off the beaten path is all about.
For more on Country Junction, check out their website here.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, third on Football & Other F Words, co-host of The Hot Read Podcast, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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