what about the plastic animals?

Zane Grey's House

By coincidence, as far as I could tell, the western writer Zane Grey lived in this house just upstream from the Delaware Aqueduct near where the Lackawaxen and Delaware meet.  It was in this house that Grey wrote his most well-known work Riders of the Purple Sage.  Today the house is home to the Zane Grey Museum which is administered by the National Park Service.  The museum was closed when I visited.  According to one of the park brochures I picked up, Grey enlarged this house twice in an attempt to get further away from his growing family while he was writing.

The Delaware Aqueduct aka the Roebling Bridge

Looking toward Pennsylvania

Cable anchor on the New York side.

Looking toward New York.

A few miles beyond the Hawk's Nest, just below where the Lackawaxen empties into the Delaware, is this curious one-lane bridge.  The roadbed is sunken well below the walkways on either side.  There's a reason for that!  The bridge was originally an aqueduct, designed to carry canal boats loaded with coal from Pennsylvania across the river.  Before the aqueduct was built in 1848 a slackwater dam (I'll put a photo on Flickr sometime soon) was built to slow the Delaware's flow so canal boats could be floated to the other side of the river.  Building the aqueduct greatly reduced the time needed to get the boats across the river.

From there the Delaware and Hudson (D&H) canal headed northeastward to the Hudson River near Kingston.  Then the coal headed downstream to New York City.  In the mid-19th century the D&H Canal Co. was one of the country's largest private companies.  Railroads didn't become more efficient carriers of coal until the late-1800s.

The aqueduct has a wire suspension design.  Each of the suspension cables contains 2150 wires, spun on site and bunched into seven strands.  This is John Roebling's earliest surviving suspension bridge.  Roebling later designed and began construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.  He also built three other suspension bridges along the D&H Canal but they are long gone.

The aqueduct was turned into a private toll bridge following the closing of the canal in 1898.  The bridge slowly fell into disrepair.  The National Park Service bought the bridge in 1980 and restored much of it, the cables and ironwork are original, in 1986.

Today's quiz:  Without resorting to the Internets, what famous author lived on the Pennsylvania side of the bridge in the early 20th century (and is resting there in the early 21st century)?

Today's updates:

1. Nobody appears to be familiar with nesselrode pie.  We may have to take corrective action.
2. Only one guess on the tomato age.  Said age will be revealed Saturday!

Closed

The sidewalk is closed and so is this website.  I'll be away on vacation for the next week.

To put yourself in a traveling mood, why not take an 18-second drive through Pennsylvania with the Go-Go's and me.

Arcus Brothers, Bloomsburg, PA

Had I gotten on the interstate right away I would never had seen the Arcus Brothers store in Bloomsburg.  They were closed when I stopped.  It appears they sell mattresses, furniture, slot machines, condoms, musical instruments, movies, and probably items too numerous to mention.  I didn't take a photo of the whole building, but someone did in 2003.

That's it for the trip to Ohio.  I'm at a loss as to what to chronicle next.  The trip to Iowa?  All of this summer's bike rides around town?  Maybe it's time to back to the Midwest!

Danville: Muscles and Drainspouts

Muscle and Fitness Factory, Danville, PA

Elaborate Drainspout, Danville, PA

Elaborate Drainspout, Danville, PA

The last night of my May vacation was spent at the Quality Inn of Danville.  It was only 3-4 hours to New York but I wasn't in the mood to drive any more.  The next morning was Memorial Day.  For breakfast I bought a yogurt, banana, orange juice, and donut at a grocery store in town.  Then I sat on a shady section of the sidewalk and watched a very short Memorial Day parade. 

Aside from the charming impressionistic hulkster, I was impressed by the elaborate drainspouts making their way off the houses downtown.  Every third or fourth house had this sort of arrangement.  I hadn't seen anything like that before.  I wonder why this is done?

Pennsylvania Academy of Cosmetology: Arts and Sciences

Three heads from the window display at the Pennsylvania Academy of Cosmetology:  Arts and Sciences in Dubois, Pennsylvania.

Detour to Dubois

No udder steakah place like ah dis-ah

You kids stop cutting across my lawn!

Mohney-Yargar Funeral Chapel

Stereoscopic vanishing points!

A couple hours drive east of Youngstown, which included stoppage because of a cow on the interstate, I needed to take a walk and get an iced tea.  The skies were threatening rain so I was thinking a grocery store would fit the bill.  I could get something to drink, walk the aisles, and not get wet.  Dubois was the only town that looked big enough to have a proper grocery store.  It started pouring as I walked from my car to the store.  Ten minutes later the rain let up.  I decided to go into town proper and walk around.

I'm glad I got a chance to see the town as it had a distinct personality.  I'm not sure how to describe that personality but it was distinct.

As an aside, let me propose, without any data other than my informal observations while traveling and having grown up in a rural town, that the number of goth kids in rural towns is directly proportional to the number of "stay off my lawn" and "no loitering" signs in that town and inversely proportional to the number of activities for those kids to participate in.

Dubois' most famous native is Tom Mix, the silent movie cowboy.  The second most famous native is the great 1970s Yankees relief pitcher Sparky Lyle, he of the pranks, ever-present chaw of tobacco, and elaborate mustache.  You may have wondered "where did Sparky get that elaborate mustache?"  Having been in his hometown I believe I found the answer:  The Pennsylvania Academy of Cosmetology:  Arts and Sciences.

Stay tuned...