Heading north or don't bump your head.

We left the Penn Lake house this morning about 9am. What a wonderful week it was. Stopped by a Wal-Mart and Wegman's to replenish our supplies. Last week, the camper was the supply closet for all sorts of things.
Our camping destination was the Upper Lisle camping area just north of Whitney Point, NY. The road leading to the campground is a very narrow, windy one. Around a bend, you abruptly come to a steel bridge. The 10'4" clearance sign grabbed my attention. I suppose that caused me to not see the 3 ton weight limit sign. At any rate, I climbed up on the roof and satisfied myself I had plenty of clearance to cross the bridge. The actual clearance is closer to 11'; maybe a tad more. After crossing the bridge, I saw the 3 tom limit sign in my rear view mirror. I know by my test, the actual weight limit of the bridge is something in excess of 7 tons. Both signs lied. However, on the way out, I'll not try my luck again. I'll find a different road.
The saga continues. After searching here & there and finding no campground, I stopped and asked a fisherman. He said the campground closed years ago. Strange because just last night I researched this site and everything looked OK. Tonight we're "camped" next to the bridge boat ramp.
It's all part of the adventure.

It's just us once again.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs
Messin' up the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

No. I guess I can't.

Penn Lake Family Get Together, July 9-16,2011 2nd post

Another series of wonderful days. The kids went swimming, played badmitten, soccer, frisbee, on & on. I didn't think they would ever wear out. Britta's fishing luck improved somewhat. She caught one nice bass and a number of smaller pan fish. All catch & release in Penn Lake. I gave Britta a case of hand-tied flys that Johnny made. They worked!!
Each night was a campfire & marshmallow roast.
The kids have a nice family tradition. At dinner, everyone takes turns telling their favorite thing about that day. A very nice way to engage everyone in the dinner conversation. My favorite was all the wonderful dinners and I didn't have to do all the cooking and cleaning up.

Nana having her nails done by Teagan(T)

Saturday we continue our trip to the UP of Michigan where we plan on spending the rest of the summer.

Penn Lake Family Get Together, July 9-16,2011

Saturday morning we left the Green Dragon "campsite" and made a final shopping trip to our favorite grocery store, Shady Maple in East Earl then to WalMart. We stopped at the Hickory Run State Park to dump the tanks before getting to Penn Lake where we rented a lakeside house for a week.
Most every year we make a point of it to get together someplace. It's important that the cousins, our four grandchildren, keep in touch with one another and, of course, we very much enjoy catching up with the girls.

Gopher patiently waiting for a piece of a smore to come her way. She knows Carol's a soft touch.

This is why we're here!

Oliver & Finn

The Green Dragon Farmer's Market & Auction

Here is where we spent the day.


Green Dragon

About 7 am, the trucks loaded with hay started rolling in. The hay auction is conducted at 9:00. There were a dozen or so trucks of all sizes, and perhaps a dozen bidders. The bidders are, I suspect, from the many dairy farms in the area. When the bidding is over, the buyers empty truck, or wagon, pulls up to the loaded truck and the hay is transferred by hand, bale by bale.

There are hundreds of vendors here selling things like locally grown sweet corn, blueberries, cabbage, tomatoes, etc., beautiful hand made furniture, delicious prepared foods,homemade pickles, soft pretzels (my personal favorite), every kind of homemade canned goods you can imagine, on & on. We thoroughly enjoyed the day. At least we did until early afternoon when the storms moved in. It's been raining steady since then. Not much of a day for all the vendors who were set up outside.

Starting at 6:30, there is a small animal auction. I saw goats, sheep, chickens, caged birds, rabbits, & pigeons being sold. A sign says no dogs or cats can be auctioned.  I wonder why you can auction a rabbit but not your neighbors nasty cat?  The sellers & buyers seemed to be exclusively Amish.

Our grandson, Finn, is collecting the "state" series of quarters. There is a coin collector at the market. He sells the state quarters for fifty cents each. I was able to get almost all the quarters Finn's missing, except for Maine. He didn't have any Maine quarters. I bought him the book for the new national park series of quarters which began production in 2010 and will run through 2021 as well as the first four quarters. That will give him something else to collect. When I was a kid, I collected stamps. A few years ago I gave Alex the stamp collection for when Finn gets a little older.

The bidders are the guys wearing the  straw hats & dark pants.

The parking lot for the Amish horses.

The VW is from California. Where else?


We're staying here tonight then heading to the house we rented for a week on Penn Lake to meet up with our three daughters & families.


Penn Lake rental

Fireflys

After the storm passed by, mostly south of us, the weather cooled off and we all sat outside until about 9:00 just chatting about this & that and watching the fireflys. We remembered how, as kids, we would catch fireflys in a jar. We were wondering what Gopher thinks about all this traveling. Her life is much more varied and interesting then your typical dog. I let her run loose this evening and threw her ball for her for a while. In her own way, she contributes a lot to our travels.

By the time the mosquitoes drove us inside, there were ten RV's camped here.

This is a picture of our campsite. We're tucked into a nice group of shade trees with a run just behind the trees.

A run, crick or stream? A gap, notch or saddle? Which is it?

We're parked next to the Red Run at the moment. That got me to thinking about the difference between a run, creek, stream, etc. The following is from Wikipedia. Now I know. Mostly it's a regional difference in what such things are called.

"Kill in southern New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey comes from a Dutch language word meaning "riverbed" or "water channel", and can also be used for the UK meaning of 'creek'.
Run in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Virginia can be the name of a stream.
Branch, fork, or prong can refer to tributaries or distributaries that share the same name as the main stream, generally with the addition of a cardinal direction.
Branch is also used to name streams in Maryland and Virginia.
Falls is also used to name streams in Maryland. Little Gunpowder Falls and The Jones Falls are actually rivers named in this manner, unique to Maryland.
Stream and brook are used in Midwestern states, Mid-Atlantic states and New England.
Crick is used in some parts of the United States."

Earlier on this trip we passed through both gaps & notches. I was wondering about that as well. Here again is Wikipedia.

"There are many words for pass in the English-speaking world. In the United States, pass is very common in the West, the word gap is common in the southern Appalachians, notch in parts of New England, and saddle in northern Idaho."

Yesterday & earlier today we just poked around here & there. Stopped by a roadside stand and bought some zucchini and sweet corn for next weeks family get-together.
Took a look at an old covered bridge that is being refurbished. Right now, we're "camped" in a field by the Green Dragon Farmers Market & Auction. We've been here before. It's one of those places we enjoy returning to time & again. You can pull onto their site anytime after noon on Thursday and stay until noon, Saturday. No charge. Right now it's us and one other RV. We'll be heading out first thing Saturday to meet up with the girls.
I have a weather alert app. on my iPhone. I keep getting these Air Quality Alerts. Code Orange means that "air pollution concentrations within the region may be unhealthy for sensitive groups including children, people suffering from asthma, heart disease or other lung diseases and the elderly." The main recommendation is to not breath any more then necessary, don't exercise, etc. Mostly this comes from coal fired plants in PA & WV. A truly clear day in the Susquehanna Valley is quite rare.
Just now I got a severe weather & flood watch warning for this area. Hopefully, it will pass us by. We're parked in the shade next to a small run/stream/brook, or whatever. If it starts to rise, there is some nearby high ground we can move to. Right now, the MyRadar app., shows the majority of the storm to the south but the thunder is very noticeable.
iPhones & such can get addictive real quick. A year ago I couldn't imagine what I would do with one if I had it. Now it's become a valuable travel tool.

Another nice day. As long as we don't get washed away.

On to Lancaster,PA

Independence Day was slow; not much happening in the park. The guy finished painting the house, a few fellows blasted away at the firing range, but not much else.
There is a lumber mill just outside the back gate of the park. At one end are several huge piles of logs, at the other stacks of finished lumber bring air dried. There are a number of State and National Forests in the general area. That tends to be the source of a lot of the logs. A common sign seen upon entering a national forest says "A land of many uses". The Allegheny NF contains over 600 operating oil wells. As you drive around the park, you would never know it. Never saw even one. Oil was first discovered in this part of PA. Today I learned that Pennsylvania means Penn's (as in William) Woods.

In the mid-70's I was the manager of a lumber yard.

Years ago it was very common for farmers to rent a side of their barn for advertising. Hadn't seen one in years.

Tonight we're staying at the Old Mill Stream Campground just outside of Lancaster. $45/night. This is the first, and most likely the last, commercial campground we'll stay at on this trip. Mostly we avoid them but there are no reasonably convenient public campgrounds around here. We were here about five or so, years ago. When we pulled in we saw another Lazy Daze. Turned out to be our friends Paul & Helen Huyser from Vermont. Paul & Helen are two uncommonly nice people. The sort of company we enjoy. Paul doesn't have much to say but Helen can talk the ears off a brass monkey. As the day wore on another LD pulled in, they yet another. Quite amazing really. After all, this isn't the Southwest, it's PA. We all went out to dinner together at the Good & Plenty Restaurant. Seating is family style on very long tables with benches. Dinner was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and several different types of veggies. All served on platters set down on the table. Just like at home, you just asked someone to please pass the corn or whatever. A fun way to have dinner.
Did a load of laundry and cooked a big batch of apple/pear/cranberry/pecan crisp; our favorite desert.Every night after dinner we have a small bowl of fruit crisp topped with a scoop of yogurt. A healthy, low calorie desert.
We enjoy PA Dutch Country. Tomorrow we're just going to poke around here & there.

Sunday, July 3rd

Not much activity in the park today. One guy showed up to paint the house and one guy was blasting away with a 22 at the firing range. I talked to the painter about the house. It was built about 1880 by the farmer who owned the property where the fairgrounds is today.
The campground hostess walked down to say hello. When I called last week to see if there was room in the campground over the 4th, she answered the phone. After she had spoken, I said, "You're not from PA are you". She answered, "No sir, I'm from Mississippi". No surprise there. I enjoy hearing the southern accent; it reminds me of home. As we travel the Country, we're always running into the different regional accents. Sometimes I need to listen real carefully to understand what's being said but have no problem understanding Mississippi. A year of so ago, we were in Canada. I was talking to a Canadian camping neighbor and said I was still brushing up on my Canadian. Eh? He said the "Eh?" was actually a very localized expression. It almost surely meant the speaker was from Ontario and probably not far from Toronto. Interesting.

The American Nomad


I asked the campground lady what brought her to PA. Her husband is a Cherokee Indian and they have a house in Oklahoma. By trade, he's a truck driver and she's a secretary. Not much work where they live in OK so they work on pipeline construction projects all across the country. Right now there is a natural gas line being built nearby. The park is being used as a staging/supply/living area. She works part time for the pipeline company and part time as the campground hostess. In return for hosting, they get a free campsite.
Later in the day, a couple from Georgia stopped by to chat. He saw my Florida Gator license plate when we drove in. He's also working the pipeline. He said in GA, it's not easy to find a job that pays much above minimum wage so they go where the good jobs are. This job should last until next summer. Neither he nor his wife, have ever lived in a cold & snowy place and are sort of excited but also apprehensive about it.
Last year we were in South Dakota and ran into the same thing. There is an oil boom in the Dakotas. People from all over the country head there for work.
One benefit of high oil & natural gas prices is the large number of good paying jobs created.

Today was cleaning & maintenance day. I even gave the camper a bath to get off most of the bugs & road grime. The washing turned out to be a double edged sword. The camper's clean, but the water is so hard, it left water spots everywhere as it dried. When we get home, the polish will remove the spots. When we're traveling, once a week everything gets cleaned & all mechanical and automotive systems inspected.


Another wonderful day, including the weather.

Alparon Community Park, Saturday

It was a very busy day in the park. The three of us took a walk all around the park this morning. A group of volunteers were scraping the paint from a very old house getting it ready for paint. There was a skeet shoot and picnic going on. Gopher generally doesn't like sharp, loud noises but she did OK. Pepper Auction company was conducting a big estate sale auction. The place was packed. Most of the stuff was flea market quality, but there were some nice hunting rifles and a very impressive assortment of old Lionel trains in their original boxes. There is a small museum on site as well as a few old buildings relocated to the park. The Farmers Market was somewhat disappointing after the one we have at home and others we've seen on our travels.
Once again, we're the only ones in the "overnight" section of the campground. At the other end of the park there are perhaps 20 seasonal sites. Not much really. Just RV's jammed together. Our end is much nicer.
The original travel plan was to leave here on Monday, the 4th. After thinking about it, we decided there would be too much traffic, and too many drunks out on the 4th. We'll continue south on Tuesday.
Plus this really is a nice place. I wonder what will be going on for the 4th? Fireworks maybe?

This is our view towards the fairgrounds.

Alparon Park, Troy, PA

We left Willow Bay this morning. On the way, we stopped by a very pretty city park. There was a walkway around the lake. Someone had erected a small stone memorial to Sargent Maholic. Another plaque said "A son, a husband & a father". Wonder if his parents, wife and children thought the Sargent died for some grand & noble cause? Wonder how they are all doing five years later? Do they still come to visit the memorial? I look at all the guys my age who died in Vietnam. And for what? Is the world a better place for their death? Vietnam is a trading partner of ours. Saigon a major tourist destination.

Our destination was the Alparon Community Park in Troy, PA. What a find this was. It's basically a complex with the fairgrounds, the community pool ($3/day) and a nice campground. We're right on the edge of a small creek. The other side of us isn't nearly as pretty, mostly buildings associated with the fairgrounds use. $20/night for water & electric. There is a dump station on site. Tomorrow there is a auction taking place. That will be fun.

We finally have a good internet connection. I uploaded a bunch of pictures to yesterdays blog post.

Willow Bay Recreation Area, Allegheny National Forest

Monday the 27th:
Todays mission was to check out different Forest Service campgrounds located on the east side of the Allegheny National Forest. I learned that the Allegheny’s are actually a part of the Appalachian mountain range which was formed between 500 million and 430 million years ago. That’s during the Taconic orogeny; whatever that is. We stopped at the Kinzua Beach picnic area located on the Reservoir. Gopher had a good swim. This has been the first alligator free, fresh water since we left home. A chance to wash off some of the dirt.

We drove through Red Bridge, Kiasutha, Dewdrop and Willow Bay campgrounds before deciding on Willow Bay. We have a very nice campsite right on Willow Creek. There are some sites directly on Willow Bay but they are all reserved through the 4th , in fact almost everything is reserved through the 4th.
The sun’s out today; a noteworthy event so far on our tour through PA . Mostly it’s been cloudy or overcast.

There is no cell phone or VZ data service in this area. I was looking at my cell phone and saw a missed call from the head nurse at the place where my Mother lives. Melinda doesn’t call to just chat, so we packed up and headed towards Bradford, the nearest town, expecting some bad news. About 10 miles from here we got cell phone service. My mother has an Alert One system; one of the, “Help ! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” devices. Melinda had called just to tell me the system was giving a low battery alarm. I called Elizabeth, the women we hired to help Mom when we were gone. All’s well. Elizabeth was one of our better ideas in quite some time.

Tuesday the 28th:
The three of us took a nice walk to the picnic area located on the bay. Gopher went swimming again. The water here agrees with her fortunately. Sometimes after drinking from a stream, she gets diarrhea a few hours later then I wind up dealing with that mess for the next day or so. During the walk, Gopher alerted to something. Her ears stood up, she raised her head high and started sniffing the air. In a few seconds, a deer came bounding out of the woods just in front of us. A dogs sense of smell really is amazing and Gophers not even a scent hound. The two weiner dogs we had for years, Balou & Bagera, would have picked that deer up a block away.

Wild flowers are everywhere. The blackberry bushes are loaded but need another week or two. We saw hills covered with mountain laurel as we drove here but couldn’t find a place to pull over for pictures. This is a beautiful time to be in this part of the country. A little sunshine would be a plus, but at least it’s not raining. In the woods, an assortment of mushrooms grow. A friend of ours, Gail, is working on her Naturalist Merit Badge. As part of the requirements, she has to identify and eat wild mushrooms. Here are pictures of two mushrooms I came across. Are they edible? Not by me they’re not.

More & more people are pulling into the campground. Mostly families. Two or three kids and a dog or two, per site, seems to be the norm. We walked up to the check-in booth to see about sites for the weekend. There are five still available. Tomorrow we’ll decide what to do. Stay put, or set out and hope for the best.
I was doing a little cleaning today; mostly dog hair. I’m still coming across red dust from last years trip to the Southwest. We both like that area, but the wind seems to blow constantly and it carries a powder-fine red dust that covers everything. We’re talking about heading to the Southwest again this year right after Christmas. We’ll see. Ginny will be in Florida by then, so it will be her turn to take care of Mom.

Wednesday, the 29th:

Woke up to a chilly, grey, misty rain type of day. We decided to go into Bradford to check phone messages, e-mail, do laundry & stop by WalMart. There is a wonderful bakery in Bradford. John Williams European Pastry Shop. I got a piece of apple strudel for us to share. We're trying to be good these days. Both of us have health goals. One big one is maintaining a healthy weight. We travel with our bath scale from home to keep track of our weight. We're both outside of the acceptable range so it's time to cut back on the calories. Years ago we were both fat people. We will never repeat that mistake.

Thursday, the 30th:
Took our morning walk to the picnic area. Some camping neighbors pulled in. Six RV's from an extended family group. They've been coming here each 4th of July for over 20 years. Real nice people from New York & PA.
If we wanted to stay here for the weekend there was room. As of this afternoon there were two vacant sites but we've been here long enough. We've enjoyed watching the families pull in, the children racing here & there,the barking dogs, on & on. Your typical, family 4th of July weekend. By tomorrow afternoon, this place will be pure bedlam. :-)

The campground.

d

The creek behind our campsite.

Eat this? Not me.

This one either.

Continuing west

The carnies started arriving last night and early this morning so we had to move on. Todays destination was the COE campground at the East Branch, Clarion River Lake near Wilcox,PA. Next weekend is the 4th of July; probably the busiest camping weekend of the year. We're checking our potential campgrounds that either don't take reservations, like this one, or have a good number of non-reservable sites. If we get a campsite on Thursday, we'll be good for the weekend.
This campground is OK, but nothing special based on our needs. The campsite itself is nice, but there is no special view and it would be difficult for Carol to get near the lake. We'll continue our search tomorrow when we drive through the Allegheny National Forest.
$15 w/o electricity, $20 with. Half price with the Old Age card.

On the way to the campground, there was a sign on I-80 that said this was the highest point on I-80 east of the Mississippi River; 2,230'. The highest point in PA is Mount Davis at 3,213'. Not much as the Western states go, then again, these mountains are very much older than the Rockies. They have had several million more years to erode away. Did you know that 60% of PA is in forest? I didn't. According to an article I just read, by 1900 there was no marketable timber left in PA. Everything you see today is second, third or fourth growth. When the loggers were finished clear cutting an area, they would leave behind the stumps, limbs & assorted trash. These areas frequently caught fire. When they do, they burn with such intensity and duration that the soil is sterilized for decades to come. Nothing but weeds will grow. Today there are laws that prohibit such destructive and short-sighted practices.
A few years ago we were in Minnesota and visited a Forest Service Visitor Center. About 1870, the timber interests in Minnesota were clear cutting mile after mile of forests. There was a drive underway in Congress to set limits on such practices. There was a quotation from the Senator from MN painted on the wall. It said "There is enough timber in Minnesota to last for all future generations". The legislation died. By 1900 all the marketable trees in MN were gone. We hear the same tune being played day after day. No quotas on fishing, global warming is a joke, restrain the EPA because toxic air & water isn't all that bad for you, plus it's very expensive to clean up. I suspect that fifty years from now we'll look back and just shake our collective heads at our short sightedness.

Snow Shoe, PA

We left Kutztown this morning about 8:00. We were about junked out. As I was getting ready to leave, I chatted with our camping neighbor. He sells Native American jewelery, mostly from the Southwest. Some they buy, some if from their personal collection. He said business was slow these days. People just don't have as much extra cash to spend. Tomorrow he & his wife head off to another venue.

Our destination for the day was the Snow Shoe City Campground (41.02498 -077.94395). $18/night. This place is totally unique. Something right out of the '50's & '60's. Virtually all of the park is occupied by full-time residents. The RV's in the photo are currently occupied. The newest RV is probably ten years old and there are a few that are ready for the dump. Everyone has to live somewhere. I suppose this is a few notches up from living in your van. Yesterday & today are Yard Sale days in the park. Lots of people have stacked their stuff curbside. If you're ever on I-80 in this part of PA, do yourself a favor and stop by for a night.

There is a small community ballpark nearby. Gopher & I walked over and took in a few innings of ball. It's not quite Little League level because the coaches pitch to the kids instead of having a regular pitcher. One kid hit a pop fly. Four kids surrounded the ball as it came down then stood there and watched as it hit the ground. :-) A batter hit a hard grounder to second base, The second basemen caught the ball with his face instead of his glove. (they're still learning the basics). It took all the coaches, assistant coaches and the kids mom to get the kid to stop crying so the game could get going again. The boy finally stood up and dusted himself off to a huge round of applause.

In 1976 my father & I shared the cost of a 19' Class C motorhome much like this one. It was on a Dodge based chassis.

Snow Shoe City Campground will be remembered as another fascinating stop on our tour of America. The circus is coming to town tomorrow. All twelve of the RV spaces have been booked by the carnies so we need to move on.