Starting Out the New Year

 

New Year’s Day 2022

    Here it is, the first day of the New Year. Ann Marie and I discussed what we could do and decided to take a drive into the country. "We’ll find a place that we haven’t been to before!" The weather wasn't inviting; in fact, it was downright miserable. But, rain and fog has never stopped us before!

    I pulled the Pennsylvania Gazetteer out. Ann Marie gave me a page number, I opened it up and dropped my finger onto the page. This was where we’d go, West Middletown, a community in the southwestern part of the state. That would be our ultimate goal, now whether or not we’d get to it…the afternoon would tell.

    We purposely didn’t pay much attention to the roads on the map. I found a couple geocaches in the area and programmed them into my handheld GPS. Once we got to Washington, we would just follow the needle on the GPS and as any geocacher knows; you can’t get to a cache by going straight to it. We’d see what roads we happened across to on our way.

    Driving past Pittsburgh, clouds were hanging at the tops of the buildings. Fog hung in the valleys and above the neighborhoods we passed, our windshield wipers were on continuously.

    We ended up taking a very roundabout route to the first cache. (The first of the year!) The roads we took were definitely “back roads”! The hide was near a historical “S” shaped stone bridge. Built around 1818, it was bypassed when a near-by intersection was redone. A plain uninteresting straight bridge was constructed beside it. Now grass covers its surface instead of asphalt. While we were there, we met a neighbor walking his dog and he told us a little bit of the history of the area. The house near the end of the bridge, built in the 1880’s, was at one time a stop for stagecoaches.

    Following the GPS’s arrow again, we followed lots of small roads, some dirt and some, supposedly closed. We found two more caches, the last one a micro, about the size of a pencil eraser. It was hidden beside a covered bridge. I had to look closely to find it…in the rain.

    We were getting hungry, and needed some coffee, the day was getting darker and the rain was coming down harder. As we drove around, we were watching for anywhere that we could satisfy either of these wants! Good luck with that out in the farmlands. Heading home was in our thoughts.

    We came to an intersection and across the road was a sign pointing towards West Middletown! We had completely forgotten about the town and our goal to visit it. So, naturally, we took the turn, laughing at the coincidence. We were only a mile or two away!

    The community of West Middletown is rather small, there are only about 100 people who live here. It was founded in 1795 and a lot of the buildings were built in the early 1800’s. Later research told me that the town is perhaps one of the most well-preserved examples of a 19^th century rural commercial community in Western PA.! Believe it or not, we passed a small building on the main street with a sign out front that said Coffee. We quickly turned around to investigate.

    Going inside we discovered that the store, Poor Johnny’s, sold both coffee and unique antiques! What could be better? The store was PACKED with all sorts of “stuff”. You name it and chances are, you could find it in there somewhere. It is orderly but there was no way I could have seen everything in this small brick building. Andrea and John, the proprietors, were wonderful hosts, telling us stories and the history of the town. We were served some GREAT freshly made coffee and we spent awhile exploring the three floors of their store. In ways it reminded me of going into an “olde cabinet of curiosities”. 

    If you are ever in the area of West Middletown, on rt. 844, stop in Poor Johnny’s for some coffee, good conversation and some wild picking. Ann Marie and I both walked out with a couple purchases.

    The store was definitely the highlight of the trip. We had no idea that by pointing a finger to a spot on a map, it would lead us to this cool find! This was truly the highpoint to our journey! Finds like this are what exploring is all about!

    We took a couple more small roads, through foggy valleys and past flooded streams and eventually got back to our home grounds. We were home by 6, just in time for dinner!

    The first day of the year, even though it was wet and foggy it turned into a great day. In fact, I'd have to say, it was the best day of the year! I hope yours went as well! 

Happy New Year!