Haunted Barn

Stay away from the barn this Halloween night.....

See more old barns at Tricia's Barn Charm!

The Haunted House

In a remote corner of Maine sits an old derelict house.  Now I can’t say for sure that it’s haunted, but as I was taking photos I thought I saw faces and movement behind the windows and through the cracks.


I didn’t go too close……

…..but left whoever or whatever dwells there in peace.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 

Autumn at Longwood

Yesterday was a snowy winter day.  Today the sun shone again and autumn returned in all its glory, although we had to scrape about three inches of winter off of the car when we were ready to leave the hotel.  We spent the day at Longwood Gardens and it was gorgeous, both the weather and the gardens.  I took lots of photos and will share more after we are home.

Not How I Imagined Leaf Peaping

We left Alaska the 1st of October after the leaves were on the ground and headed to the Northeast, looking to prolong fall for a while, and we have spent the last month enjoying fall colors throughout the Northeast.  We are heading home Wednesday, and we thought we wouldn't see any snow until then.  We are on the outskirts of Philadelphia and this morning we woke up to snow and it has continued off and on all day, an unusually early nor'easter hitting the Northeast.  The colorful fall leaves were peeping through the snow--not quite what I had in mind when I thought about leaf peeping.

We decided to just have a down day and hang out in the hotel reading, relaxing, watching TV, and doing laundry.  There are a couple of restaurants right by the hotel, and we walked waded over to get lunch.  Unlike the dry powdery snow in Fairbanks, this snow is very wet, creating a lot of wet slush.

They spent a lot of time today plowing the snow out of the driveways and parking lot behind the hotel and managed to collect a fair amount.

Wind gusts were up to 35mph and the heavy wet snow created potential power outages.  Indeed, the power had been cutting out off and on throughout the day, and shortly before 6:00 it went out again.  It was a widespread power outage and was out until after 9:00.  Fortunately we had some snacks to make up for missing out on dinner, but not a fun way to spend the evening.

Tomorrow is supposedly going to be sunny.....

.....and our plan is to go to Longwood Gardens one way or the other.  They have a large conservatory, so if nothing else we can enjoy that.  Back home it's snowing with highs of 20 and lows of 5 degrees, but we generally don't have wind and the snow is very dry.  Going back home to winter is sounding better all the time.

Sunny Day!!

Just one photo today, but it really demonstrates a fall day in Pennsylvania.

We made a huge circle around Reading today in search of the five covered bridges in Berks County.  Along the way we saw lovely fall colors, lots of farms and barns, covered bridges, and sunshine!  At the last covered bridge we stopped at we found a museum and took a tour of the Gruber Wagon Works that was built in 1882, with most of the tools still in the building.  Marty had a wonderful time looking at all those old tools!  More when we get home.  Tonight we are at Lionville, very close to Philadelphia.  Unfortunately they have added Philly to the places likely to receive snow tomorrow.  I hope they are wrong, but if not, we've got our hotel room for two nights and we can just curl up with a good book or two if we have to......

Rainy Day in the Poconos

Today was rainy and we spent a leisurely day on the road, taking the scenic route through the Poconos.  The Pocono Mountains are geologically part of the Allegheny Plateau, like the nearby Catskills that we drove through yesterday.  The highest summit is 2,693 feet, and I don't think we reached that elevation on the roads we took.  Just down the road from us in Alaska Mt. McKinley stands at 20,320 feet, and so by comparison the Poconos seem like rolling hills.  Nonetheless, it was a lovely drive that took us through some beautiful countryside and through many small towns, one seeming to pop up every few miles.  That also is different for us in Alaska, where the towns are spaced considerably further apart.  The photos below were all taken through the windshield and at times it was raining fairly heavily, so there was also the added challenge of timing the windshield wipers.  

The road often followed a stream, and at one point we went through a tunnel, and alongside the tunnel for the road was another that the stream ran through.

The rain got heavier after we left the Poconos and headed further south.  Tonight we are in Reading, PA, and the forecast is calling for 32 degrees tonight, but sunny tomorrow with a high of 52.  Saturday's forecast calls for some possible snow, so we will probably mosey on down the road a little closer to Philadelphia.  We know we will be seeing snow next week when we get home, but we would just as soon wait until then.

The Catskills

This morning we headed west through the Catskills.  It was cloudy with sprinkles now and then and a light rain later in the afternoon.  The leaves were past their peak color and in some places there were mostly bare trees, but enough color still clinging to the trees to make for a beautiful drive.

At one point the scene in the rearview mirror of where we had been captured my attention.

We drove through many small towns with interesting buildings.  I took a photo of one of the old beauties.....

.....and got a surprise when I looked at the photo I had taken of the upper windows on the computer.

We made a stop at another car museum, the Northeast Classic Car Museum in Norwich, NY, and saw a lot of automotive beauties.

We headed south into Pennsylvania, and tonight are staying on the outskirts of Scranton, slowly making our way towards Philadelphia. 

Places We've Been

We're heading back towards Philadelphia where we'll catch a plane home next week.  Along the way we've been stopping at a few interesting places as they pop up.  I've put together some collages of places we've been in the last few days, and when we get home I'll do more complete posts on each one.

Sunday was Old Sturbridge Village.

Monday was the Mark Twain House.

Then we drove to the Hudson River Valley.  This morning we visited Locust Grove, the house of Samuel F.B. Morse.

This afternoon we were at Olana, the house of painter Frederic Edwin Church.

We'll see where the road takes us tomorrow.

Northern Maine Barn

This is another drive-by shooting of an old barn taken in northern Maine.

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Check out more old barns at Tricia's Barn Charm!

Fall Reflections at Old Sturbridge Village

Waterfront Scenes

We spent some time at the waterfront around Portland, Maine, today.

Then we headed south along the coast, planning on getting a couple of hours driving time in before we stopped for the night.

As we traveled down US 1 the motels seemed to disappear when we were ready to stop.  Then began a saga of trying to find our way following signs that were unclear, or trying to find signs that must have been removed by gremlins.  Ah, but adventure comes in many guises, and ours tonight was traveling on the freeways and along narrow dark roads on the outskirts of Boston, seeking to find a place to spend the night.  (Not all adventures are fun!)  Success at last, we found a spot in Marlborough, Mass, much closer to our next planned destination than we thought we would be.  Road signs have been a bit of a problem for us on this trip--they seem to be poorly placed or nonexistent, causing much confusion for us.  Is it an East Coast thing, or have we become too used to the wilds of Alaska, or, heaven forbid, just feeling the effects of getting older......

Logging in Maine

Logging is one of the big industries in northern Maine.  You see evidence of it all around.  The white pine that is abundant in Maine has been logged for many years.

While we were in Ashland we visited the Ashland Logging Museum which has many artifacts from the early logging days in the area.  The museum was established by members of the community who wanted to preserve their heritage.  They donated numerous items to the collection that tell the story of logging in northern Maine.

The collection includes handsaws, power saws, peaveys, axes, wedges, and other items used to bring the lumber out of the woods.  A replica of a log landing shows a man on top measuring the board feet of lumber and the mechanism used to bring the logs down to the water.  Horses were an important part of the logging process in the early years.

I found the model especially interesting because I can remember my dad having a landing on our property in Oregon in the early 50s and he used horses to bring the logs out of the woods.  In the late 30s he worked in a logging camp on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, and logged in Oregon and along the coast in northern California.  He had scale sheets much like the one below, and they were always kept in a cookie jar--it never held cookies.  Today that Shawnee Winnie Pig cookie jar is a collectible and it is one of my treasured keepsakes.  I wish I still had some of Dad's old scale sheets to keep inside.

Life was not easy in the logging camps.  The Ashland Museum has recreated a bunk and cook house as they were typically built.

One end served as the bunkhouse.....

....and the other end as the cook house.  Note the big cast iron pots in the lower left hand corner.  Bean-hole beans were cooked in them and the beans were a staple in the camps.  To make them you dig a big hole three feet deep and line it with rocks.  Build a fire in the hole and let it burn down to large embers and ash.  Fill your pot with dry beans, salt pork or bacon, onions, molasses, and brown sugar, and cover with water.  Put the lid on the pot and lower it in the hole and cover with a wet burlap sack.  Shovel embers and ashes on top and cover with dirt.  Wait about 16 hours and then dig out your beans.  I don't believe I'll be trying the recipe anytime soon, but I can imagine they were pretty tasty.

There is also a blacksmith's building with all of the equipment that would be needed to take care of the horses and harnesses.

There are two sheds with some of the old equipment.  The most notable is the Lombard steam log hauler.  It was invented by Alvin Orlando Lombard in Waterville, Maine, and was the first practical tracked crawler and had skis in the front for steering.  It ran on coal or wood and could reach a top speed of 4.5 mph.  There were 83 built between 1901 and 1917.  The could pull eight sleds at a time, carrying 40,000 to 100,000 board feet of logs.  They required a crew of four, an engineer, fireman, striker, and steersman.  The steersman was the highest paid man on the job, and his position was the most dangerous in the exposed position on the front of the machine.  He had to contend with freezing weather, sparks, and the possibility of the Lombard jackknifing if the sleds moved faster than the engine causing an inevitable crash into the trees.

There is much more to see at the museum, and it provides a fascinating look back at early logging in Maine.