| We headed south down into Pennsylvania with the idea of possibly going down to Longwood Gardens again. Although the snow had gone
from most of the ground, as we moved up into the higher slopes of northern
Pennsylvania, it was still in evidence on the ski slopes of Ellicottville. |  |
 | We
found a site at a place called Woodland, about 20 miles north west of a
place called State College. Although it is at 1500ft above sea level, the
cold front had passed through and the weather was taking a turn for the
better. The site was quiet and empty and the owner had just had Wifi
installed the day we arrived (I was the first to use it!) so we eventually
stayed for over a week. We finally decided against going further south to
Longwood Gardens as it was too early for much to be blooming outdoors as the
daffodils were only just appearing and the trees were still bare. |
| There are walks around the area, mostly through the
woods. As we discovered last year, northern Pennsylvania is full of trees.
Many of these are quite old and uncultivated with lots of interesting flora
like these bracket fungi as big as tea trays. |  |
 |
Last year we found an area not so far north of here where a tornado had
struck. This was just the result of a thunderstorm over the winter. The
winters have not been as bad in recent times leading to problems with all
the bugs not being killed off, but there have still been some severe storms. |
| A river runs by the campground and on down through the
woods. The area is very popular with fishermen both in the streams and in
the many lakes. |  |
 |
More bracket fungi working on the fallen trees. |
| The rivers are fed by streams which are fed by smaller
streams draining off the snow melt. Some work ha been done on this footpath
with this impromptu bridge. It is quite difficult to cross since the beams
are tilted. A bit further on the path peters out and we lost it despite all
the blazes on the trees. |  |
 | We
had a day out to a local town or two. This is at Clearfield, a couple of
miles to the west. There must be more statues of buffalo in the US than
there are real ones. |
| Most of these small towns have small parks and they in
turn have seats, usually donated by someone or some company. Some are quite
novel in design.... |  |
 |
Some of the houses in these towns are quite substantial. Not all of them
have been taken over by law firms but a substantial number seem to have
been. Most houses in New England are made only of wood. Many houses here are
built the same way but there are also quite lot in this area either built of
brick or brick faced (it is often difficult to tell from the outside). |
| There was a lot of new building in the towns in the
1930s and many of these are very ornate, even attractive. The ground floor
(shops etc) are usually quite different and you need to look upwards to
appreciate the architecture... |  |
 |
particularly the detailing of this building. This is a close up of one of
the panels under the windows. |
| Pennsylvania is a very religious state with many
non-conformist churches still attracting very significant congregations.
Clearfield is a town of some 6000 people and we counted five churches all of
this size within a hundred yards of each other. And they all looked very
prosperous. |  |
 | We
went out for several walks and basically just unwound from the hectic lives
we have been leading over the last few months. |
| We did find this modified pickup for sale, parked by
the roadside, not an uncommon sight in the US. It didn't say what the price
was. This sort of vehicle is very popular here even with its raised 4WD
chassis. I wonder what it does to a gallon of gas..... |  |
We did pick up a TV programme (paid for by the coal industry) which gave
Pennsylvania's coal reserves at 33,000 BILLION tons. I worked this out to be
almost the area of England to a depth of 500ft (which is supposed to be built on
coal). Further work suggested they got their billions and millions mixed up
which made it equivalent to England to a depth of only 6 inches and thus much
less impressive. Given that they were talking about the US air-force making 50%
of their aviation fuel from coal within ten years, one wonders how much of that
was also wishful thinking. |