Sunday, April 29, 2018

Pennsylvania - Day 28 - Delaware Gap


Promised Land State Park, near Scranton
Saturday, 28 April 2018

Not only does Pennsylvania have seasons for various kinds of hunting, it has a season for dog training, which has recently ended.  I’m guessing it’s training for hunting dogs, but I’ve never heard of an official season for it.

At least this section of PA appears to be solidly Trump country.  Today I saw a sign in someone’s yard saying, “Trump in 2020.”  Yesterday I saw a sign in someone else’s yard saying, “Thank God for Trump.”  And of course, many other Trump/Pence signs.

I can get 2 TV stations at this campground – the local PBS station and a FOX affiliate.  I know there are other stations available with a cable or in the bigger cities, but out here maybe the choices describe the situation.

Today I took some small state roads to go southeast from the park over toward the Delaware Gap National Recreation Area.  On the way I got stopped in the middle of nowhere by a traffic light, and sat for a while till it turned green.  Seems there was a 1-lane road ahead around a blind curve and this is the highway department’s way of keeping people from killing each other when they’re not around.  But it felt weird to be sitting at a red light with nothing around.

Along the road I saw what looked like official street signs (green with reflective lettering) that were clearly personally named: Annie’s Place, Uncle Sam’s, Deer Lodge Road.  Then I saw one that said Notta Road, and I looked down it and sure enough, it wasn’t a road, it was a driveway.

The village of Analomink (okay, that’s creative) should be renamed Forsythia Village.  Some years ago the entire town (apparently) planted forsythia bushes and today it’s a blaze of bright yellow and gorgeous.

In the small town of Canadensis I found St. John the Beloved Coptic Orthodox Monastery.

Canadensis is clearly a resort town in an old-fashioned way (nothing shiny, just motels and restaurants that have been there for some years), even though it’s 20 slow miles from the attractions.  As the day went on, I realized this whole area is geared for tourists.  And then I realized it’s in the Pocono Mountains, separated only by the Delaware River from both New York and New Jersey, and that’s been a vacation area for the city folks for decades.  Movies from the 1960s mention it.

The azaleas have started to bloom in the Delaware River area.

I’d thought about going to Bushkill Falls, which are part of the Natl. Rec. Area and are supposed to be magnificent, but got stopped by two things: one is that today is a warm sunny Saturday and many many people are out enjoying it; the other is that the Falls (according to its website) has been turned into a sort of destination with fake gold panning for the kids and playgrounds and stuff – lots of stuff – that has nothing (in my mind) to do with the glory of waterfalls, and they charge a lot of money to get into it.  I guess if it had been a dreary Tuesday, I’d have paid the money, figuring I’d be able to hike to the falls and have them much more to myself and the way Nature intended.  But not today.

In one town traffic got stopped by police escorting a funeral procession that was made up almost entirely of motorcycles.  That was a new one on me.

Dunkin Donuts are everywhere, throughout Pennsylvania, even in very small towns.

I’ve been seeing more buildings that were built in the late 1880s and early 1900s, and then I realized that’s about the same time frame as the older houses in Texas and what was the big deal.  And then I came across Dingman’s Ferry, which is now a toll bridge to New Jersey but was originally the site of one of the first ferries across the Delaware, circa 1750.  And farther up the road I stopped for a bit at Milford, founded 1733.  That’s old.

An establishment in Milford had a sign in front saying, “Botox and Brunch.”  What on earth do you think they’re doing? I  met a group of 7 women, maybe in their late 30s, sitting on park benches in the sun who wanted to pat the dogs.  They told me they’re old friends who get together once a year for a weekend, though most of them still live nearby, but one has moved to Massachusetts.  So far away.

As I was leaving Milford I saw a highway sign telling me Matamoras was 6 miles to the north.  Now, this was a little disconcerting because, as a born-n-raised Texan, I know exactly where Matamoros is and that wasn’t it.  Turns out there’s a town named Matamoras (spelled differently) that sits exactly at the junction of PA and NY and NJ.  A border town, of course.

The campground literature has a whole section warning about bears.  Seems PA has the largest black bears in the US, with most of them in the Poconos, and those in this county can grow over 800 pounds.  That is indeed pretty big for a black bear.  Fortunately, we haven’t met one yet – I’m sure Dexter would get himself shredded trying to capture it.

This park has absolutely masses of wild rhododendrons.  Makes me feel back home in western Washington.

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