Shawnee State Park

On my way home from Blue Knob--where we sometimes spend Labor Day weekend--I decided to swing south and check out Shawnee State Park.  I'd always seen it on maps, and dork that I am, I wanted to add another PA state park to my collection.  Apparently there's a Shawnee State Park in Ohio, too.  The Shawnees moved around even more than most other Native American tribes in the 1700s.  They fled white encroachment in the Potomac Valley, sojourned a while here in the area of this park in South Central Pennsylvania, drifted out into the Midwest, and then were eventually forced into "Indian Territory" in Oklahoma.

It was noticeably hotter here than at Blue Knob, which is at a higher elevation.  I guess a part of me never assumed that I'd much care for Shawnee because it sits so close to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  And yet, you can't really hear the traffic screaming in most parts of the park.  And it's a pleasant place with a lake beach, nice hiking trails, and lots of meadows and woods to discover.  The ridges in the distance aren't lofty peaks, but they are part of the "Ridge and Valley Province" of the Appalachian Mountains.  I scouted out the large campground and found a few sites that are secluded enough to make this place a potential destination for us--maybe next Labor Day.

From one point on the Field Trail, you can bushwhack into the trees to see out over the quaintish old village of Schellsburg.  It's a pretty little town with big stone or brick houses, a nice little coffee shop on the main street, idyllic old churches, and some old fashioned storefronts that have long since been converted to antique stores.  This is that transitional area where the gentle Pennsylvania Dutch countryside begins to blend with a grittier post-industrial influence that wafts in from the Western part of the state.  Much to my alarm, there were Trump campaign signs in a lot of front yards around here.  But there's much history here, too, including the old church in the post just below, and lots of historic markers along the old Lincoln Highway.  The Lincoln Highway roughly follows the path that General Forbes cut through the wilderness from Philadelphia in the 1750s when he took Fort Duquesne from the French and founded Pittsburgh.