Covered Bridge in Greene County

 This old bridge was placed here in 1895.  It crosses Scott Run, which meanders through a pleasant little valley of meadows and farms in various states of upkeep and disuse.  

Rainy Day at Ryerson

 I did a hurried little jaunt down to Ryerson again, sticking entirely to the back roads.  A rainy hike has its own charms, including absolute solitude on the trails...which is almost always the case at Ryerson anyway.  

It's fun, too, to take shelter in a rain poncho, stopping every once in a while to sit and stare out at the watery woodland world all around.  It's like hiking with a miniature tent on your back.  You feel sheltered.  These were taken along the Lost Mitten Trail.

Indian Summer at Ryerson Station State Park

Either it's the most beautiful October we've had in years, or I'm just especially susceptible to its charms this time around.

Sometimes two roads really do diverge in a yellow wood.  The one to the left goes downhill and can't be seen.

 Ryerson is a lovely little park, and it's trying so hard to keep up, despite some seriously hard luck in recent years.

The sign at this overlook says that the bench sits 424 feet above Duke Lake.  The problem is that there is no more Duke Lake.  The coal diggers undermined it, and it won't be coming back in our lifetimes.

And as for the Wolf Tree, the 300+ year old oak that used to tower above the forest here, it was destroyed in a storm.

This fellow stands close to the spot where the Wolf Tree used to stand, and he's a seriously majestic sight, but he's not 300 years old.

 Here lie the remains of Duke Lake, a bed of cattails.  The PADCNR is talking about putting in some other sort of watery attraction here.  Wetlands?  A rapids ride for kayaks? But we all know it won't be the same.

 I never knew Ryerson with a lake, since I didn't start going there until five years ago.  But any visitor senses its absence.

 The park has no focal point--which the lake used to be.  So they've extended the trail system and improved the campground, adding two cottages and keeping it open year-round.

 No more Wolf Tree and no more lake.  But these are the vicissitudes of life.  It's still a nice place to visit, and maybe whatever new thing they do will feel as vital and living as a body of water.

 Human beings are drawn to water.  Somehow it feels like life and potential to our primal hearts.    

 The Box Turtle Trail, the Lazear Trail, and the Fox Feather Trail all join to make a nice loop through the south side of the park.

 I just like knowing that the campground is always ready for me to drop in and set up my tent...though the weather will be getting a little too cold for that in about a month.

 If I had to offer a critique of the place, I'd say that wild grapevines are strangling much of the forest.  Can't something be done about that?  Also, I don't like the way it's dissected by two public roadways. 

But every time I go there, I say to myself, "Yes.  This is what I needed.  This place deserves more attention than I give it."  I almost stepped on this snake on the Iron Bridge Trail.  This lethargic little denizen of the forest was sunning his cold-blooded body in the golden rays of an October afternoon.

Greene County Drive-By Fall Photos

Greene County is like Vermont's poorer cousin.  You can see the family resemblance, and they're both easy to look at, but you have to wonder what went wrong here.

Once again, these pics were taken "drive-by" from through the car windows, usually rolling at about 30 MPH.

Greene County's is a heartbreaking beauty.  The tragedy of the place is its poverty and long years of tyrannical rule by coal-diggers and now the frackers. 

 But its bucolic loveliness lives right alongside all the heavy industry and ecological crisis.

Frack trucks and coal trucks go barreling down these little country lanes like trains on a track.

 But the old farms make it worth the drive.

 Some are occupied and lovingly maintained.

 Others stare out at the road through vacant eyes, outbuildings in ruin, and windows curtainless.

There are so many back lanes and minor roads, and all of them lined with 19th century farms.  Actually, many of the farms probably date back to the 18th century, though the buildings do not.

 I've always been curious about this old place.

  I have reason to believe that this may be the farmhouse where the unfortunate Grim Family lived.  The old Chess Cemetery disclosed clues about the tragic fate of so many of the Grim children.

 This is very close to Ryerson Station State Park.  Park literature says that seven members of a family named Davis were murdered by Indians somewhere near here in the late 1700s.  I doubt that this was their cabin.

 It was truly "Indian Summer," a warm, sunny day after the first freeze of the season.

 Riggs Road: a single gravel lane no wider than a driveway.

 This spooky old farm has surely sat derelict for years.

 An old clapboard farmhouse festers behind overgrown shrubs.

 I wish I'd gotten a better shot of this interesting place on Riggs Road.

 Same farm...

Here's an ugly frack site, just to remind you that you're still in PA.  "The horror, the horror."

 Ah, but it's beautiful, truly beautiful despite the horror.

Like Vermont, Greene County is overwhelmingly Democrat--despite a tendency toward social conservatism and an annoyingly patriotic streak.

 I even saw a few Confederate flags hanging here and there on houses.  Ignoramuses.  I think some people even in the North equate Confederate flags with country living.  Besides, this is almost as far south as the North gets.

 Democrats in places like this are mostly just interested in labor issues.  They're not especially progressive.

 Ah, but it was a pretty drive.

 There were a lot of red steel roofs down there.

Washington County Drive-By Fall Photos

The quality of these shots is pretty bad, but it was a lovely Indian summer day, and Washington County, PA, had never been more beautiful, so I just started snapping pictures with my cell phone as I drove past.

The leaves, the green hills, the old old farms, the winding roads.  It was all too beautiful to entrust to memory.  I had to have a record of it.

That old farmhouse is a lot like mine, except that this one comes with a farm.

 This is on the road from Claysville to Ryerson, where I returned today.

Some shots turned out pretty clear.

 Others did not.  But even the glare on the windshield couldn't dim the bright oranges and reds of the maples along the way.

 I love the old houses that line the road.  When I post the drive-by shots of Greene County, there will be a lot more of them.