CLOSE_BY MINI TRIPS

Both look great, hamburger. Osso, you will get back to Italy.

ONOKO FALLS About 2 miles up the Lehigh River north of Jim Thorpe (Mauch Chunk)(NE Pa-USA) lie two of the best kept secret waterfalls in the Appalachians, Combining a total rop of 900 feet in less than a mile. Its all done by a series of small waterfalls. falls (80 to 150 ft) that collect and drop the water from the Appalachian plateau into the the Lehigh Gorge. Its a great hike .Lots of side trails to the AT and its all part of the Lehigh Gorge State Park

Ive compiled a listof waterfalls from Pa through to W Va and I was gonna start a hikers blog on scenic hikes around waterfalls. Then I discovered that this took effort or paying some kid to do it (nobody wants to maintain blogs for free unless its their own).So Im blogless and you will miss the hundreds of waterfalls Ive amassed in my last 30 years as an afficianado of downspouts.
The ones I list herein are those that I find most pleasing to the eye, and are a little taxing on the footwear.

Speaking of waterfalls, I've been fortunate to have seen Niagara, Victoria Falls, Iguassu Falls, and "two" in Hawaii. I'm sure there are others like the one in Bulgaria, Israel, and Yosemite.

BTW, farmerman, if you like, I can send you a 11X14 picture of Iguassu Falls - good for framing. It's my hobby.

Im gonna play benevolent gatekeeper here. Im hoping that we can get information on nearby sites from all of us , wherever in the world YOU are, so Im not gonna present anything more exotic than the Appalachians cause turning this into a "travelog" involves major travel comitments by commercial carrier and Im hoping we can concentrate on neat local stuff. CI can you describe or show pix of the Muir woods. I loved the place and even bought one of the little seedlings they sell at the gift shop. (I managed to kill it with love though).

SENECA ROCK-- Seneca Rock is a large vertical spine of Lower Silurian Sandstone /Quartzite. Its roughly 1100 feet tall and rivls "Half DOme" of the Yosemte. Except Seneca is in the first ridge of the Appalachian Mountains in Hampshire/Pendleton County West Virginia. In my youth Ive climbed Seneca and alot rerelled down using some of the most (by todays standards) primitive equipment. The rock sits in a valley that abuts the plateau of the First Ridge and should have been qwhere "Deliverance" was filmed. The Eastern part of West Virginia is a treasure of small towns and ridges and valleys, worth the trip anytime of year.

Um, excuse me - you take a boat of the coast every year!

From Cambridge

1. Concord, MA. Where the American extentialist movement sat. Louisa May Alcott, Thorough, Emerson, et all lived here. The down town is quaint colonial, but has become a mini colonial mall. The Concord Bridge/ North Bridge is where the shot heard round the world was done. And, now where the old railway used to be is a bike path. It winds through forest and field, past an old colonial saw mill, foundations from other old buildings, re-enactment folks, ect.

2. Brattleboro, VT. A hippy mecca, small town-city in southeastern VT. It's located along the CT river valley near where MA, VT and NH meet. There's great land laying all around, a fantastic vegie/whole food restaurant, and an institute for peace. The local environs include covered bridges, sugar (maple sugar) shacks, old mill-damns, the CT river, etc.

3. Salem, MA. Known world wide as a witch burning town, this is a gorgeous and cheesy (hard combo to come by) old fishing town. The old town hall faces the sea to keep an eye on incoming transport ships. It's become a tourist town during the summer and at halloween. There's a witch museum, mediums to tell your fortune, witches to by spells and charms from. Great fun to visit. It's cemetery keeps the bones of Hawthorne as well as witch-hunt victims.

I'm new to Durham so can't really speak from experience,but will put on my thinking cap.

PRESQUILE PROVINCIAL PARK (use link to article and more pics) is another favourite spot of ours on lake ontario .
it's just an hour west of here .


during the spring migration in march - when it is usually still bitterly cold -
thousands of ducks and geese will be bobbing in the frigid lake for food and it's a sight to behold .
summers are more quiet when the birds that are staying have settled down .
no restaurants , no outlet stores nearby - just peace and quiet !
hbg

better wear your parka and toque when birdwatching !


the ducks are quite happy in the frigid waters !

That's where I was born, l'k. It was a great place to grow up. The West river meets the Ct river in downtown Brattleboro, making for hills in all directions. You can't get anywhere in Brattleboro without going up and down some mighty steep hills. It helps make for a beautiful setting and strong legs.

Isnt Hemmings Motor News printed in Brattleboro. If it is, we were there for one night (on the move) ate at a neat liitle restaurant converted from an old RR station. The downtown is walkin around classy with shops accustomed to much larger cities>


PUTNEY VT--A liitle stop off Rt 91 N , in which i found one of thge last operating wool mills and spinning jennies in commercial operations. The town itself is nestled in the mountains and was a site where one of Sears Roebuck catalog artists (Emille Gruppe) used to sketch his studies for later watercolot covers and calendars. Today, if you can find em, the watercolors go for about 15000 bucks..

Gettysburg Battlefield The "High Water Mark" of the Confederacy was the battle of Gettysburg. The battlefield, covering about 1200 acres of rolling farmland and stone promontories of Triassic aged diabase offered cover and marshalling points invisible to the enemy just over the next rise. The battlefield is a self touring historical shrine that , like the Alamo, leaves one with a semnse of respect about what had transpired there. Yes there are schlock gift shops and ticky tack here and there, but the main sense is one of tranquility and expanses of fields and glens where our great great great grandfathers fought a major battle of a major war of attrition. The nearby towns of Gettysburg and Emmetsburg are little toutristy towns with antique shops that specialize in Civil Wariana.

A recent referendum by the voters of Pa soundly defeated the proposal to build a casino at the edge of the battlefield. "some things are too sacred to commercialize like that" said a young voter from the town.

Lewes Delaware--A small town tucked in between the Henlopen shoals and the opening of the DElawareBay to the Atlantic Ocean, Lewes is a town that has mostly escaped the tacky shore development that has overtaken nearby Rehoboth Beach. LEwes is a town of mostly year round residents and is a historical site of the original town named Zwannedael, which is a Swedish name meaning Swans landing).
In the past LEwes was the home port of all the Delaware bay lightships and is still the port of embarkation for the Delaware Bay Pilots. Since the town and the area has a tourist season that runs clear to Christmas and beyond, the town is routinely home to special events like
1The many regional art shows (juried and clothseline)

2Reenactments of the "firing on Lewes" by the British in the War of 1812. It has been said that LEwes was ill prepared for the bombardment and a few house sustained cannon ball punctures in their building walls (many of which have been left in place and actually include 12 pound balls "stuck" in the building sides that faced the bay. Also, it had been reported that the shelling disturbed not a few cows and chickens. The British landed and were driven back by the towns militia (mostly by provisioning the attackers and treating them to home cooked meals).

3"PUNKIN CHUNKIN"-every year, two weeks after halloween, "chunkers from all over the country" meet in Lewes to fire pumpkins by whatevermeans they can invent. Everything from trebouchets , to pneumatic cannons are fair weapons to try to "chunk" a pumpkin for the greatest distance. Lately the methods have recorded chunkin distances close to a mile. Now there are a few houses in the general direction of the chunking range, so each year, these locals are good sports enough to clear out or stay indoors between 8 and 4 PM.

4.The Zwannendael Museum, is an actual restored swedish meeting house that has been outfitted with a numberof pre colonial artifacts including a "glass harmonica" (falsely attributed to BEn Franklins genius-the glass harmonica was in use in 16th century europe)

5 CApe MAy LEwes ferry and the Kalmar Nikel. A large public dock, built by the Delaware Bridge and Boat Commission, serves as the port for the 4 ferry boats that daily ply the narrowest point of the DElaware Bay (roughly 30 miles) between the Spit of CApe HEnlopen and CApe MAy NJ.
TheKalmarNikel is the replica of the Swedish ship that brought the initial settlers to Delawaer in 1626.

farmerman :

since you are in lewes already , why not go on to DON'S SEAFOOD RESTAURANT in chincoteague ?
they'll treat you right and their fried oysters are particularly good !!!
hbg

Fried oysters; one of my favorite foods.

I used to like the small fried oysters at FuChow in LA's old chinatown...

Chincoteague Virginia -- Pronounced "Shank'--Teeg" by the llocals, Im afraid that the original town, famous for its shore dinners and quaint little streets, has been mogrified by large institutional looking condominia. What was once a beautiful place to start a day hop into the barrierislands of the Assateague National Seashore, is now not much more than a tacky spit of land, overdeveloped, crawling with yuppie larvae and a large purveyor center of chinese made tee shirts(many of which donet even have the correct English spelling). Ill go tothe Assateague shores where its a protected wilderness, but Ill try to bypass the Wallops Island, Chincoteague tourist traps--sorry Hamburger but my last trip to Shank Teeg was last year for a 2 day conference on Titanium beach sand mining. I was no longer impressed. I wish I could have a "thumbs down" emoticon..


on a better note


BEDFORD PA -Bedford, home of the original Fort Bedfor, a pre colonial oupost that served as a distant sentinel of the hedwaters of the Potomac and played an important role in the French and Indian Wars (and the later post revolutionary WHickey Rebellion), Is a small town that has been restored to its heyday during the time when its many quarries were sources of high quality cement limestone. The town is a good walking around village and , if you wanna splurge in overnight accomodations, you can book rooms at the "Greenbrier Hotel" about 25 miles south on Route 220. Greenbrier has been whispered to be the "emergency whitehouse". In case of an atomic attack, the actual hotel has been outfitted with a large subterranean bunker that could accomodate all of the Legislative, Ececutive, and Judiciary. (To me that would be a wonderful start of a perfect world order....but I digress)

The forests and falls around the area from Befdord to Cumberland Marylandoccupy a zone of a historical tragicomedic period time in AMericas industrial history when the railroad barrons attempted to "break" any union attempts by killing entire families and burning homes of the workers. Several burnt out towns remain nearby where one can see remnants of
these attacks by the Railroad thugs and the futile attempts by unarmed workers to defend themselves..[

Fried soft-shell crabs, dipped in batter

farmerman :
sorry to hear the bad news about chincoteague !
we went there several times during the 80's and 90's when it seemed like a peaceful place - and the seafood was the freshest !
the only thing one had to worry about was being careful not to be kicked by one of the mustangs who were running free on the beach by november .

hbg

to compensate for the disappointment of chincoteague , i'll invite you to travel about one hour north of here (pretty well the border between N.Y. state and ontario) .
we'll be visiting MAZINAW LAKE and you'll have a hard time finding any
t-shirts in the park - no fried oysters either - no food concession in the park !





the "friends of bon echo" - the name given to the rock rising out of the lake - maintain a boat-service that takes visitors to the rockpaintings .
worth a visit anytime of the year but particularly nice in the fall when the colours are changing . the park is open for camping all year - just bring heavy gear if you go in the winter.
hbg



a rockpainting of nanabush - left by the ojibwe - as they travelled by canoe along the lake .