Crossing the State for Thanksgiving

     Ann Marie and I headed across Pennsylvania to join Chelsey, Jamie and Mateo for Thanksgiving. Both of us had been looking forward to the visit! We were going to share the holiday dinner with them and some of Jamie’s family. 

On our way, we came across lots of interesting views and sites. You can’t help but find these things as you explore Pennsylvania. The state is full of them. Here are a couple of the ones we came across, some for the first time.

A fork in the middle of the road in Centerport.

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it”  (Yogi Berra)

We did!

An old paddle wheeler sitting in an empty ditch, nowhere near ANY water.

The Midtown Scholar, a fantastic bookstore that is comprised of a group of interconnecting buildings, one of which used to be a theater in the 1920’s. Owned by the current mayor of Harrisburg and his wife, the bookstore sells both new and used books. There are hundreds of thousands of old books and it seems as if it has nearly as many rooms. You can easily get lost in here!

An old factory foundation where the town of Frankstown used to be located,

 not far from Hollidaysburg.

One of a few decaying and abandoned homesteads we passed.

The Rockville Railroad Bridge, the longest masonry arch railroad bridge in the world!

    Since railroads have been brought up, we also saw a derailed train in the mountains above Altoona.  We passed the Statue of Liberty…sitting on a bridge pier in the middle of the Susquehanna. I always watch for it when we head out to visit, there is a geocache hidden on the piling!  Someday I’ll get it! We grabbed a couple geocaches on our trip, but skipped this one. We stopped in Harrisburg, both coming and going. Neither of us had ever seen the Capital so we did a drive by while we were there. We also found a memorial for the people of Lily, a town that forced the KKK out of their community in the 1920’s.

    Pennsylvania has so many things to offer, you never know what you might find! These were all fun to see but the best part of the journey was spending time with the family!

    On the first day, we went with Chelsey and surprised Mateo at his school. Afterwards, we went home and played with his train set and read books together. It‘s such a nice feeling to forget your age and let your inner child out!  We drove his trucks and trains around on the table for what seemed like hours.

    The next day, on Thanksgiving, we played some more and after Mateo went down for a nap, Ann Marie and I went to search for a couple more geocaches. After we came home, some of Jamie’s family came over. We sat and talked, we snacked and then sat down together and ate dinner. We shared stories and laughed. The meal was lovely but the camaraderie was even better. To see how a family is growing gives us strength for the future. We listened, we learned and we loved!

    Seeing family we hadn’t seen in a while, hearing about both the victories and the disappointments in our lives, these are all part of the gathering. We took our forks, (from the table, not the road) and ate a wonderful dinner. We listened to each other as we shared our views and experiences. I can’t help but feel that everyone was thankful for all the wonderful things we have!

    I thought about those we lost and also about those who are on their way. I am thankful for those who have gone, thankful that I had the chance to know and love them, thankful for all the beauty and love they brought to my life! Reveling in the present, I played with my grandson and imagined how he will progress as he grows up, how he will accept and help his new brother. These are some of the things I couldn’t help but think about and give thanks for!

    On Friday we played with Mateo and then more of the Pittsburgh family arrived. The 7 of us did another round of the Pizza Bracket Contest. Jamie got pizza from 3 different shops and we voted on which one was best. (A shop called Anthony’s won this time) This contest has been in the works for years now. Someday, we will find out what the best pizza in the Harleysville area is!

    Saturday morning, we left and headed back. We were missing Mateo (and the family of course!) by the time we came to the stop sign at the end of the block! The warm glow of the holiday and the visit stuck with us. We headed home happy and content and thankful for all the things we hold dear!

The Mid-November Lunar Eclipse

    While most of my neighbors were sound asleep, my alarm went off. It didn’t startle me, in fact I was  dreaming about waiting for it to wake me! I jumped up and went to the front door and took a look outside. Clouds, just as I had expected! This is Pittsburgh and the gods of the weather don’t really like us astronomers.

    It was 2AM on Friday morning. (11.19.21) The entire country would be able to see most of the eclipse which was happening right now! Everyone except those who live around me it seems. The darkest portion of the earth’s shadow would be hitting the edge of the moon’s disc at 2:18. A few clouds didn’t matter; I was going out to see what was visible.

    I got dressed, pulling on some heavy socks and my winter coat and went outside to see what my chances were of seeing anything. Luck was with me, there were breaks in the clouds. The moon could be seen, a bit fuzzy but still seeable. Every so often a clear patch would drift past and the brightness of the moon increased dramatically.

    My camera and tripod were inside the door so I pulled them out and set up in the front yard. I had some difficulty in focusing on the moon since it was most often covered in haze. The camera lens was set at manual focus because of the clouds. I played around with the exposures as the conditions changed. Both the clouds and the shadow which was now starting across the moons disc altered the brightness. A couple of neighbors had their porch lights on but this morning, it didn’t bother me. I was watching an eclipse, not searching for faint fuzzies in deep space!

    The clouds moved across in front of the moon rather quickly while the shadow of the earth crept  across the face of the moon much, much slower. At times, when the moon was covered there would be a reddish colored ring which surrounded it. 

    My hands were getting cold from re-adjusting the tripod every five or ten minutes. It is made of metal and retains the cold quite well! I went inside to get my gloves. This is a benefit of observing from the front yard, I can quickly get the things I forgot!

    A short while before 3 the moon entered a clear patch between the clouds. The patch spread out and soon I started noticing stars. There were stars that couldn’t normally be seen during a full moon. Orion and Gemini could be seen along with Auriga and the Pleiades. I sat on my porch chair and just enjoyed the view for awhile, forgetting about photography and the eclipse.

    The clearing lasted about a half hour or so and then the clouds started moving back in front of the moon. I took a walk around the neighborhood to warm up a bit. The temperature was down in the low 30’s. I enjoyed the walk in the quiet; it reminded me of going out for walks with Red, my dog. We did lots of early morning walks together, he smelling everything and me with my head pulled back, gazing at the stars.

    Back at home I took a few more shots. The eclipse still had a ways to go but the moon was dropping down into the trees on the hill to the west of my house. To continue watching the eclipse, I’d have to move out of my yard.

    In some ways, luck was with me. The clouds covered the moon and I lost sight of it completely. Thick clouds continued to drift overhead, so I went inside to the warmth of the house.

    At 4:02, I went outside to see if anything was visible. This was when the eclipse was covering 97% of the moon, it's maximum. I couldn’t see anything. There wasn’t even a glow in the trees where it would’ve been. The eclipse was over for me.

    Inside again, I wrote a few notes. Looking at the pictures could wait until the morning. Then I crawled back under my covers and fell quickly back into my dreams.

Weeding with my Father

 

        I’ve gotten tired of wiping my nose. Drips form on it and drop down into the leaves and dead plants I’m clearing from the garden. Small snowflakes melt into the brown earth that has been uncovered. Yellow and orange leaves sit in a pile along with the lifeless stalks of flowers, remnants of the beauty of the summer gone by.

        Memories of my father and me cleaning these very same beds filter through my mind. The numbness of my fingers recall the pains of years gone by.

        “Why do we have to do this, they will all just rot away during the winter!” I tended to look at things the easy way. Perhaps I still do. I never gave any thought to the beauty of a cleared garden, the potential or the future of this small plot of dirt sitting in my front yard. These were thoughts that I can only imagine were running through my father’s mind.

         He knew how plants grew. He knew about their cycles, when they would bloom and what was necessary for them to grow strong and produce the beauty they held inside. He knew what needed to be done to produce a splendid crop of flowers the next year. He also knew the importance of making our yard look nice, even when the flowers weren’t in bloom.

        I was in my teens with so many things I could be doing. I thought of these days toiling in the yard as work that would never produce anything I could benefit from. It was work and work alone! I had no cares about the yard or gardens. This was something my father did and he did it well. I never gave any thought to learning while I was pulling weeds or raking the yard along with him.

        He was older and a bit infirm after various health problems. Our ideas rarely matched, clashing against each other rather than meshing. I was busy reaching out to the future and I had no need to embrace the past. My horizons were right in front of me. I was a fool!

        Some things he told me stuck with me, such as even weeds can be beautiful but a lot of what he said went in one ear and out the other. He knew the Latin names of the flowers and shrubs that he had planted. When he explained these things to me, I just didn’t understand. His wisdom overwhelmed my young inexperienced mind without my even realizing what I was missing.

        When spring finally arrives after a long white winter and the small bits of fresh greenery start popping up in the woods and gardens, I can’t help but enjoy them. I look forward to the views of these little slips of green hiding in the dark brown of the winter. Every year, I search for the first signs of these bright green sprouts, with that beautiful shade of green which we won’t see until the next spring, they give me a sense that spring is approaching, the cycle is continuing, summer will soon be here!

        Our gardens and yard always looked nice. They were weeded and trimmed and when the flowers appeared, their colors blended with those surrounding them. This wasn’t just through chance, it was from planning. Planning by someone whose knowledge was never truly appreciated until after he was gone.

        There are so many things I don’t know about my father. Most I have learnt after he was gone. There are so many things I wish I had asked him, but the chance has long since passed. The things I know, I treasure, so often they pop up when I least expect them.

        Clipping away at the flower stalks, my fingers numb from the cold, I return to the years gone by and wish that they had been different. Those were beautiful days, the gardens were bright and colorful but now they have passed and I have only the stalks, the dried leaves and sticks, the mulch for what will make the gardens beautiful in my years to come.

Memories of a Wild State

         It was the end of October, Halloween weekend, and Ann Marie and I decided to take a run to the hills, the hills of West Virginia! Figuring that the changing leaves wouldn’t be around much longer we made some plans and hit the road once again!

        On-line we purchased the last available set of tickets for a ride on the Cass Railroad and found a room to be our home away from home in Elkins. Seneca Rocks was our first planned stop, there were no tickets needed for this! We planned a slow trip, back roads if possible with plenty of time for photo breaks or side trips.

        The drive started with a stop at a local bakery for some donuts and a couple large cups of coffee. The car was fueled up and so were we. The weather didn’t look very promising; we never saw the sun on our first day. The windshield wipers were used most of the day.

        Nearing Seneca Rocks, it had tapered off to a very light mist. The road here is spectacular, there are places where you can look into the deep valley and see the roadway far beneath you. The valleys are steep and close, making the view that much more exciting. 

        In the parking area beneath the rocks we pulled out our hiking staffs, crossed river and started our climb. The trail is only a little more than a mile long but it goes up 839 feet! (Not that anyone is counting) The path is rather wide and well maintained and it is rarely very steep. We took our time and made it to the observation platform without any problems. We met lots of others making the climb including some with dogs. It was a nice wet Saturday, a perfect day to be outside!

        We have both made this climb before and I had climbed on the rocks also. Summiting the top of Seneca Rocks after a multi-pitched climb in my early fifties was one of those “mid-life” things. I was happy I did it, but once was enough. I’ll stick to the trails from now on. It was a good feeling to be able to still make this climb!

        The views from the top were mostly hidden by the cloud banks. Fog drifted past us, occasionally teasing us with quick looks at the valley below. While the views weren't as good as past visits, we still had that satisfaction of making it to the top! It seemed to take us less time to go down as compared to going up.

        While driving to Elkins we pointed out places we had eaten and explored in the past. We stopped a few times to photograph the mountains and to just absorb the beauty all around us. Most of these photos didn’t do justice to the scenery; the best photographs are the ones we hold in our memories!

        The next day we got in the car and headed south towards Cass. On our way, we were searching for a diner to get some breakfast. Fast food just didn’t cut it but that was all we saw. Chain restaurants and fast food, where are those old fashioned diners that used to be scattered alongside the highways?

        We stopped in the small town of Durbin across the street from an old railroad station. A poor excuse for a restaurant, (which was up for sale) provided our lunch. A couple tourists ate at flat tables by the window as locals sat drinking coffee and pop at the counter in the back of the large, unadorned room. The best part of this experience was that just as we finished with our food, a steam engine pulled into the station. While the passengers disembarked, I took pictures. 

        The train was pulled by a Heisler steam engine built in 1929 in Erie Pennsylvania. It was originally owned by the Hog Hollow Tile Company.

        Continuing on our way south, we drove through the community of Greenbank where the Greenbank Observatory is located. The huge 330 foot dish of the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope could be seen from the road.

        A short while further, we pulled onto the road that leads into the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. Less than a half mile into this road, we saw a Bald Eagle. It flew to a tree about 20 yards away from where we stopped the car. We were close enough to see how huge this bird was and how magnificent it looked. I can understand how it came to represent our country! By the time I got the camera out, he had flown away. Once again, the best shots are in our memories!

        In the town of Cass, we visited the stores and took some pictures before boarding our train. It was pulled by a “Pacific Coast” Shay engine. It was built in 1928 in Lima, Ohio for the Mayo Lumber Company of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was last used commercially in 1970 for switching cars on the Vancouver docks.

        We sat right in front of the engine. Personally, I think the sound of the steam whistle was one of the best things about the ride! When we first arrived, we could hear the whistle of a train leaving the station. It echoed through the valley bringing back memories of the other steam engines I’ve seen. It is a sound of the past! The sounds of the engine are loud but when the whistle sounds, the screech of the steam covers everything. It is a sound that resonates through your body! When looking at the whistle from where we were sitting, it can actually cause pain, but still, I looked. There are only a couple road crossings on the ride and I was looking forward to each one of them!

        The views of the mountains, whenever we left the cover of the trees were breathtaking! Watching the smoke swirling out of the smoke stack was mesmerizing. It wasn’t a “peaceful” ride, it was rough and loud and I found it tremendously exciting!

        After we returned to the station, we took a short hike to visit the ruins of the burnt down Cass Lumber mill. Originally built in 1902, it caught on fire twenty years later. After being rebuilt it was worked until 1960 when it was abandoned. In the 80’s, arsonists set fire to it again.

        On the way back to Elkins, we thought we had hit pay dirt when we came across a gas station with gasoline for only $1 a gallon! Just our luck, it was closed!

        The next morning we left for home. We passed more spots we recognized and stopped at a few of them to take pictures. Blue skies and sunshine accompanied us on our ride back home along with the memories of trips made in the past.

        During our trip the leaves were mainly brown and yellow but with the sheen of the rain on them, they looked great. In the mountains, the trees looked like carpets covering the valleys and folds of the slopes. The occasional red trees grabbed our attention, standing out from all the others! We saw so many familiar spots that brought back memories, it became almost a quest. What would we see next? In the process, we formed more memories for our future trips.

        The little bit of bad weather we experienced wasn’t going to stop us from having a great trip; it actually enhanced our visit to Wild West Virginia!