Category Archives: Central Pennsylvania

View from top of ridge of small lake and mountains with fall colors.

Sensing Fall

#Pennsylvania State Parks, Central Pennsylvania, fall,

Wait, how did it get to be not only fall already, but close to the end of October? Is time speeding up? Maybe.

Last week was the most perfect of fall weather in South Central Pennsylvania. Sunny and into the 70s each day, with the colors, smells and sounds of the season fully awakening the senses.

Sound: The katydids, which had stopped their call and response at night during an earlier cold spell, started up again during the warmer nights. I love to leave the bedroom window open to the cool evening and let them sing me to sleep. Walking in the woods creates the shush-shush-shush of plowing through inches of crispy dry fallen leaves.

Shuffling through the fall leaves.

Smell: We purloined ripe red apples from the park’s small and totally untended orchard. No one cares, but you have to watch out for the wicked big hornets who also enjoy the fruit. Shaking the branches brings down a rain of apples; as they hit the ground they let off their sweet and tangy scent. They are not the prettiest of apples, with black spots, nicks from their tumble, and an occasion worm hole (sometimes with the occupant still inside), but they smell perfect. Apple sauce and apple cake planned in the near future!

Sight: Maybe not the reddest of years, but the oranges and yellows of the maples was intense enough. And the red oaks added their deep tones to the mix. Earth tones of the dried grasses, corn and soybeans contrasted with the bright leaves. We made the trek up to the overlook at Cowan’s Gap State Park to get the full effect from above. I always feel virtuous after this two-mile climb up the mountain and back down.

More sights in this group of pictures. Enjoy what’s left of fall and let it take your mind off everything else. I don’t think I need to elaborate on what “everything else” is right now.

A walk in Waynesboro, PA at that time of evening when the sun makes everything look even more intense than it is already.

A person in foreground at overlook over a fall landscape of small lake and mountains with fall colors.
The fall colors look good at least. Me, well, not so much.
Cowan’s Gap Lake in fall splendor.

Getting the Hang of It

Central Pennsylvania, McConnellsburg, The Pulpit, travel, Uncategorized, , ,

“Let’s go jump off a mountain!” No thanks. Standing cautiously on the very top a ramp that ends in nothingness makes me queasy. I take in the view, but step back to safety seconds later.

  • One wonders what happened to this gentleman.
  • Behold the giant thumb!

Visiting The Pulpit, a hang gliders dream launch spot near our vacation cabin above McConnellsburg, PA is a must to take in the splendors of south central Pennsylvania. The rocky promontory, located a little ways beyond the iconic biker beer joint The Mountain House, apparently got its name from a visiting preacher who expounded from the stony perch.

Up a small rock strewn slope, there are two wooden (and, to me, sort of creaky looking) ramps, one smaller than the other. If you go at sunrise, which I never do because I prefer my warm bed at that hour, you can face east and get a glorious view over the ridges. At sunset (the better option in my opinion), you get the view over the town, the farmland and to the western mountains.

One of the many interns who lived with us temporarily over the years, Anneke from Germany, came to the cabin with us one wintry weekend about ten years ago. We walked to the Pulpit and she met some intrepid hang gliders from the club that frequents the site. She fell instantly in love with the idea of learning to hang glide, or, she later decided, to paraglide.

If you think hang gliding sounds risky, paragliding is even more crazy. Instead of jumping off a ramp into nothingness strapped to some substantial wings, you jump into nothingness tethered to a wide parachute held precariously by a bunch of thin ropes. She successfully mastered this bizarre hobby, and last time I checked she was still alive and well.

The view is thrilling enough for me. Leave flying to the birds.

Monumental Moments

Central Pennsylvania, travel,

A visit to Gettysburg is certainly sobering. The main attraction of this small city in south central Pennsylvania (no matter what the tourist literature says about “fun activities for the whole family”) is following crawling traffic through a bucolic countryside to gawk at an endless series of soaring monuments commemorating men killing each other.

That is cynical, I realize. But realistic. The artwork and craftsmanship that went into these monuments is impressive. Standing among the tortured angels and stalwart fallen soldiers and officers on horseback, you are all too aware that thousands upon thousands of men (and some women too I suppose) died horrible deaths all around you.

War is hell, that is clear, and the Civil War battles fought in Gettysburg on July 1 – 3, 1863 were among the most hellish. Fifty thousand dead. Fifty thousand – dead.

It’s difficult to know what to feel. Proud of those who fought? In despair of so much loss of life? Glad that the Union was victorious in the end, and the States united once again? All – or none – of the above?

When we got to the towering Pennsylvania Monument, despite the number of people ambling around the fields and climbing the stairs to view the vista, it was relatively quiet. Until a thundering boom resounded through the staircase; a cannon fired by a park interpreter. Just one boom, but it shook the building, and the psyche of the assembled visitors. For one awful moment, pride, despair and victory seemed irrelevant. Survival seemed foremost.

Maybe, in the end, that is the lesson we take away from a visit to Gettysburg. The deep, basic struggle for survival, and empathy for those who didn’t.

Tracking a Ghostly Trail

Central Pennsylvania, Rails to Trails, Walk in the woods, , ,

The paths of old railroad tracks trace history, and since some of them have now been turned into walking tracks like the Lower (rhymes with “flower”) Trail in central Pennsylvania, you can take a stroll through the past.  The interpretation is spotty (there are a few signs, and a sort of helpful brochure), so much is left to the imagination. Industry and settlements once thrived along here — now there is just an overgrown ditch where  the canal preceded the railroad, and the graceful arches of the stone bridge are mossy and almost obscured.  It is hard to believe that this track once carried countless people and tons of goods aboard panting steam trains.  On a Tuesday early afternoon, it is so quiet that you can almost hear the ghosts whispering, until a distant chainsaw growls or a lone cycler whizzes by.  We walked part of the trail along which “the remains” of a stone company town were supposed to be evident.  As you can see by the photo above, “evident” is a relative term.  We wanted there to be more than one blank-eyed roofless grey building blending in with the forest so badly that we thought we saw several, only to discover from another angle that it was just more trees and gray underbrush playing with our fantasy.  (Mood music from Twin Peaks rose in my mind.)  Despite the  occasional creepiness, the Lower Trail is a pleasant place to spend a couple of hours.  To catch the mood, I am going to attempt my very first audio clip of one of the babbling brooks along the trail, under the stone bridge.  Close your eyes and think calm, if slightly disturbing, thoughts of the spirits that must inhabit these woods, and of structures that have melted into the forest so completely that only their shadows remain.

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