Friday, April 27, 2018

Pennsylvania - Day 26 - Williamsport


Worlds End State Park, Forksville
Thursday, 26 April 2018

As I walked the dogs this morning before we left, I saw a large flock of some kind of yellow warbler – they all look so much alike to me, and I didn’t have binocs, and anyway they were trying to stay away from us.  But they were really pretty. By the side of the road as I was leaving the campground, I saw what I thought was a marmot, and I can now say that a groundhog is a type of marmot so I was sort of right.

I was also right about being on something higher than a hill: I took a different route leaving the campground this morning and found myself at the top of a hill with a 12% grade for 3½ miles – of course with 90° bends and no shoulders while going downhill.   Oh well, I’m seeing Pennsylvania. 

Have I mentioned before that there are small wind farms scattered all over the state?  This area too.

Fred Waring, the bandleader, was born in Tyrone, just north of Altoona.  They have a historic plaque up saying so.  He started Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians while he was at Penn State.

Speaking of which, I headed north to the town of State College, where Penn State University is.  The highway seemed to run along the upper part of a hill, and I could see a long valley full of rolling hills (note, I know the difference between hills and mountains), covered with evergreens, and spaces where the trees had been cleared for farmland.  Very picturesque.

State College
Going into State College, the road has been cut through a ridge, leaving very steep slopes on either side of the road.  The highway dept. has covered the slopes with a plastic mesh, apparently to hold onto the gravel that covers it.  I don’t remember seeing that before.

I’ve come to think Pennsylvanians are either careless or overly challenged when coming up with place names – I’ll bet half the towns are named “-burg” or “-burgh” or “-ville.”  (There are 5 separate towns in the state named either Mechanicsburg or Mechanicsville.)  But it seems to me that “State College” is pretty low on the creative standard, besides making it hard for visitors to follow road signs (so hard to remember the sign is directing me to the town and not to the school).

Nonetheless, after making a few wrong turns, I found the college.  I was mostly going because I’d understood they have a creamery, and I thought maybe they’d sell dairy products like, say, ice cream.  They do have a creamery – I saw many signs directing me to it, but I never figured out which of the buildings it was.  Plus, parking is at a premium and my RV didn’t really fit in.  Trying to find the visitor center (also shown on signs) I stumbled on some kind of auditorium with short-term parking in front and green grass.  Yea!  Because all of us needed to take a bathroom break and leg-stretch time.

Penn State seems like a small campus – nothing like UT, for instance – but it spreads out because there are a lot of agricultural buildings, with cows and so forth.  In fact, knowing nothing about the school as I do, I’d guess the primary focus is on ag-related subjects, based solely on the buildings I saw.  And sports, of course.  Lots of sports buildings.

Williamsport
I went on up the road an hour to Williamsport, which is the Birthplace of Little League Baseball.  They say so at several points around town, including the baseball field where, I guess, the birth happened.  I stopped at the town because I’d read they have a Millionaires Row area, with mansions built by the timber barons of yesteryear.  And they do have some pretty nice houses, though it seems a little upstart compared with Bethlehem and Philadelphia.
 

Williamsport is spread out along the Susquehanna River, which has been running due north from Harrisburg (actually, I guess it’s been running south from Williamsport to Harrisburg), and here makes a turn to the northeast.  I’d thought of Williamsport as a smallish town but was really surprised to see how big it actually is.  I wish I had a wi-fi signal here so I could look up what accounts for its current size, since it’s not the logging that originally put it on the map.

Montour County, where Williamsport is, is known for its many covered bridges, a fact I forgot until I saw one as I was driving toward the campground.  The campground is in a different county, but there’s another covered bridge about a mile down the road.  I’ve seen signs pointing toward them before – near the Flight 93 Memorial there are two, for instance - but have avoided them because I was afraid I’d get there, find the clearance far too low to go through, and not be able to turn around.  Now that I’ve seen these two I’m certain that’s true – both have a clearance of about 8’, and the one in the photo is on a single lane road with (of course) no shoulder, or even a wide spot.

When I was in the Altoona area I was reminded I’m farther north than Harrisburg by the almost complete absence of signs of spring.  That persisted through the State College area.  But the house I shot at Williamsport shows a wisteria carrying on like crazy, and I saw a few trees with a little spring green on them.  But this campground still looks very winter-y, fortunately without snow on the ground.  I did see a star magnolia on the way, though – so pretty – and more probable skunk cabbage.

Worlds End Campground
This campground is on the Loyalsock Creek, which to my mind is pretty dadgummed big for
Loyalsock Creek
a creek.  But what a name.  There’s even a town named Loyalsockville.  Where on earth do you suppose they got
this name?

Speaking of which, the reason I’m staying in this campground is the name.  I thought I’d see what Pennsylvania thinks of as a worlds end.  The park literature says the name likely came from the view to be had along the hiking trails, and that 7 mountain ranges converge in this area.  I knew I’d been driving around mountains.  They’ve got a whole section in their handout on the geology of the area that’s pretty interesting if you’re interested in millions of years of erosion, which I actually am.

Worlds End campsite
This is an odd park with a state road running right through it – in fact, about 5 trees away from my RV.  They limit pets to 10 campsites and tell us to walk our dogs on a trail on the other side of this state road, which has frequent traffic from hunters and fishermen and maybe locals for all I know.  Not just exactly pet-friendly, but they’re letting us stay, the dogs love the trail, and we’re just here for 1 night.  So who can carp about a lack of wi-fi.

Tomorrow I’m leaving Worlds End for the Promised Land.  Really.

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