Greene County - The Most Haunted County in America? (Also Photo Dumps for Out-of-State Adventures)

I took an ill-fated drive down to Greene County today, my day off.  I've made October trips to Greene County, PA, ever since I learned that Martha Stewart Magazine called it one of the best places in the US for fall foliage.  A recent book, which I plan to purchase, claims that it is the most haunted county in America.  Ghosts, cryptids, unexplained phenomena.  I don't believe in any of it, but it's fun to pretend.  This time around, I went looking for the monument at the southwesternmost corner of the state, which I never found.  I ended up getting a little lost on country lanes.  I did stray across the unmarked Mason Dixon Line and into West Virginia, where the already narrow roads became somehow steeper, and narrower, with longer drops to the sides.  No idea what I'd have done if there'd been a vehicle coming toward me on one of those roads.  (The one pictured here in in PA and wide by comparison.)  I wended through Littleton, WV, which has the lowest per capita income in the state at $6,034, and perhaps the lowest in the nation.  Whereas folks tend to be friendly and welcoming in most of the Mountain State, the people around Littleton did not look pleased to see a gay-looking little white Kia with PA plates!  The did not return my affable West Virginia two-finger-off-the steering-wheel-salute.  They just stared with eyes hard-set.

Anyhow, HERE is a link to a more pleasant quadrant of West Virginia: a backpacking trip at Dolly Sods over Indigenous Peoples' Day weekend.

HERE is a link to a jumbled and random photo dump of our busy summer full of domestic and international travel, including Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica.

And HERE is a September trip to the old "lunatic asylum" in Weston, WV, which is creepy!

 

Fall Days

It's been a pretty October.  Not brilliant like last year, but better than a lot of Octobers in recent years.

Sadly, I've been too preoccupied to get out much on my days off--what few I have.  But I did make a run out to Raccoon Creek to see the fall colors.

We're buying property at last up near the Allegheny National Forest!  Just a little hunting camp, though I don't hunt.  So I think my leisure days will be more and more northwardly focused.

Plus, my older daughter is going to college up that way, so that's another northward draw.

She was home the weekend before last, so we went into the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  I often duck into Heinz Chapel while I'm out that way.

The Chief Cornplanter window.

While at Raccoon Creek, I collected some wild walnuts--which are a chore to get out of their spicy-smelling green husks.  On the right are the walnuts as you find them on the ground.  The green husks smell a little like citrus.  You have to wear rubber gloves to get the nuts out because the husks will stain your hands, and the color won't come off for weeks.  After removing the nuts, which you see on the left, they have to sit for about 3 weeks before you can shell them.

Processing the walnuts in our backyard, this squirrel became oddly assertive!  He chittered and scolded and got way closer than a squirrel should.  I thought it would be a wonderful idea to trap the squirrel and take it elsewhere---a few miles away, so it would let me process my walnuts in peace.  I put a walnut in the cage-trap and within minutes I had a captive squirrel.  Sharper fangs and claws I've not seen on a beast.  Of course, as soon as I'd caught the little feller, the complexity of the situation dawned on me.  What do I do with it?  I ended up taking it 6 miles away and setting it free with the three nuts to give it a headstart on building a new home for the winter.  It never occurred to me that it could have been a mother with a drey full of babies to feed....