From park to park

I slept very well last night, thanks to pleasantly cool temperatures, and awoke around 8:00 this morning. But lying in bed felt so delicious that I drowsed another half hour before finally getting up. The morning was cool and hazy, but even as I watched, the first rays of sunlight came slanting through the pines, painting bright stripes on the grass around my campsite. The panorama seen from my windows was superb—nobody in sight on the right or out the back window, and a popup camper a few hundred feet down the road on the left. I opened all the shades and drank in the view as I prepared another granola-and-blueberry breakfast.

Afterward I stepped outside and took a couple of pictures of Gertie and of the grove of evergreens that towered above her. As I prepared to shower, an old Dodge pickup bearing an even older slide-in camper pulled into the next site. Two elderly couples piled out and the women, both extravagantly obese, began setting up folding chairs. I tried in vain to picture how on earth all four of these people could possibly have fit—either in the truck's single bench seat or in the small camper it carried. The men, only a little less overweight than the women, foraged for dry wood; then they built a good-sized fire and sat around talking and eating.

Some people seem to feel that they haven't really camped unless they've built a fire, just as some people feel they haven't really seen a movie unless they've had a bucket of popcorn. I like campfires just fine, but when pulling into a campground at ten in the morning with the outside temperature around 75° F., building a roaring fire would not be the first thing on my mind. (As for popcorn, I like that fine too—just not with movies, where it interferes with my enjoyment of the soundtrack.) But then like my friend Rick, I don't necessarily think like most people.

The morning slid past to the mellow sounds of the King Cole Trio's mid-Forties recordings (there's a five-CD collection stored on the iPod with all my other music) as I puttered around: vacuuming (this beige carpet is more work to keep clean than the old shaggy brown stuff, but I'm still glad I put it in!), organizing my belongings, and adding a few cable tiedowns for the new wires I'd run when I installed the second speaker system and the iPod last week. I use 3M "Command Adhesive" mini clips extensively to keep small-signals wiring neat; they hold well, yet can be removed and repositioned when necessary.

The sun went in and out of the clouds; a light drizzle fell for about ten minutes, followed by more sun; the neighbors' campfire smoked as they sat around and ate a hearty meal. I felt peaceful to the point of sleepiness. Finally around 1:30 I began to think I'd better start planning my next destination.

In fact, as I thought about it, I realized that I'd been on the road for a week and had only made it about halfway across Pennsylvania—about a four-hour drive on the Turnpike. This is good, because it was my intention to take it easy on this trip—to deliberately dawdle—unlike my last two trips, which involved long days of driving. Things are working out much as I had hoped. But now it's the afternoon of 19th, and I need to be in northwestern Ohio on the morning of the 22nd for the opening of the Escapees "Fall Escapade." Suddenly it's sinking in that I will have to make pretty good time in the next couple of days...Ohio is nearly as wide as Pennsylvania, and I have to cross almost all of it.

So feeling an increased sense of urgency, I let Street Atlas plot a course to Parker Dam State Park, which seemed as far as I could reasonably get before dark. And I promised myself that I'd get an early start tomorrow morning and get at least halfway across Ohio—no more dawdling, at least for awhile!

I'm beginning to trust Street Atlas. Certainly today's trip—an eight-leg route entirely on local roads with not-so-great signage—would have been very difficult without it. I doubt very much that I would have been able to pull that off on my own, even using my normal "pre-plan and dictate each leg into the pocket voice recorder" method.

But this afternoon I didn't even bother with that. I just typed in the names of the parks, punched the "Route" button...and then blindly followed the directions for each leg as the screen displayed them. My trusty old Apple Powerbook 1400 sits right at my elbow as I drive. Thanks to its connection to my GPS receiver, it always knows exactly where I am and shows me a continuously updated map display and instructions: "Go straight on SR 555 26 miles; 33 minutes time away; speed 53 mph." It worked perfectly today, although I wish I could make the text larger. Alas, Street Atlas (at least this version) doesn't permit that.

I keep talking about this navigation system partly because it's literally a lifelong dream come true for a poorly-oriented person like me—but also because I'm finding it a surprisingly liberating influence. In the past, the difficulty of solo navigation was always pushing me toward the interstates and away from the much more interesting "blue highways" and secondary roads. But with this setup, I can go almost anywhere without fear of being lost, and that opens up a lot of territory.

Today's drive was through rolling hills, rather steeper than yesterday's—at times I was down to 25 mph as Gertie crawled doggedly up the grades. What pretty countryside, though! It reminds me of the area around Cimarron, New Mexico that I liked so much on my trip back from Arizona.

I love the look of these evergreen forests. The lowest branches are thirty or forty feet above the ground, and the needles pretty much keep the understory down, so it's quite a different look from the deciduous forests I'm used to back in New Jersey. More majestic, somehow.

My route was sparsely populated, with a mix of larger, newer homes and smaller, older ones. Many of the older homes had an adjacent shed, a tiny thing barely large enough for a lawnmower. I passed several of these before I realized that I was looking at...outhouses! I can't remember ever seeing an outhouse along an American highway, even in the Ozarks. Last time I used one was about forty years ago, at my cousins' summer cabin on Crown Island, Ontario. I still remember the smell and the spiders. Ugh!

Every mile or so there was a yellow sign indicating a snowmobile crossing. The things must be tremendously popular here—or perhaps they're simply necessary. I expect that when the nearest store or gas station may be twenty miles away over winding mountain roads, in wintertime a snowmobile may be required equipment. At the very least, this is definitely four-wheel drive country!

For many miles the road (Rt. 120 at that point) ran alongside a magnificent gorge through which the Sinnemahoning Creek (bigger than some rivers I've seen!) wound its way between the mountains. The jagged, vertical rock wall only a couple of feet from the road on my right was daunting—I was expecting to lose my right mirrors at any moment—but the view to the left was spectacular. I finally managed to find a pull-off and got out to take a few pictures, which look promising (at least on my PowerBook's screen).

About halfway to Parker Dam I crossed into Elk County. I could tell this because there were elk-related signs and businesses every hundred feet along the road for miles and miles. One large, official flashing sign read: "RESPECT PRIVATE PROPERTY—ELK VIEWING AREA—NO STOPPING ON ROAD." I couldn't quite make this out. I mean, I respect private property as much as anyone else, but if I see an elk on the road, you'd better believe I'm going to stop!

Elk aside, I had the road pretty much to myself. I saw an occasional car or truck coming the other way, but I had no one in front of me and no one behind me for an hour at a time, which was relaxing. Occasional flurries of leaves, like giant golden snowflakes, wafted in front of me as the wind rustled through the trees. I began to think that I ought to make most of my return trip through this area, rather than southern Pennsylvania as originally planned. In two weeks the leaves will be even more colorful, and I really would like to see more of this countryside. After visiting Nan in the Gettysburg area, I could come north and then head east...

Besides, there's the elusive Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. I know it's up here somewhere—though I can't seem to find it on the otherwise excellent map of Pennsylvania state parks that I picked up at yesterday's campground—but wherever it is, I've passed it by and must plan on seeing it on my return trip. That'll be no hardship; it fits nicely with my plan to come back via northern Pennsylvania. My friend Gretchen was right about this part of the state: it's gorgeous! (No pun intended.)

Much of Route 120 parallels railroad tracks, and several times I passed freight trains—seemingly endless strings of gondolas (coal? ore?) sitting perfectly still. Why is it that whenever I see a freight train, it's sitting still? Passenger trains move—I've ridden them and can vouch for that—but I can't even remember the last time I saw a freight train that was actually going somewhere. How can the railroads make any money with their "rolling stock" not rolling but standing still?

Eventually I came to a railroad crossing with another stationary freight train blocking it. In front of me were a couple of cars and a school bus full of rambunctious youngsters. As I watched, half a dozen adolescent boys erupted from the bus and sprinted up the hill toward town—evidently the bus driver had allowed them to go home on foot. But the younger kids were kept captive, and I could see them running up and down the aisle and generally making merry. I felt sorry for the driver.

After about five minutes the train still hadn't moved. I set Gertie's hand brake, turned off the engine and went into the back for a snack. It's very handy having a motorhome! After another five minutes or so, the train began to crawl along at about 5 mph, and it looked as if the end of our wait was in sight. I could imagine the bus driver breathing a huge sigh of relief. The train moved slowly, until eventually the two diesels pushing it came into view, passed the crossing and crawled out of sight. I started up the engine and prepared to continue.

But the crossing gates stayed resolutely down and the red warning lights continued to flash. We sat there and waited. The cars on the other side of the crossing waited. I craned my neck. Was—god forbid—another train coming? There was no sign of one...just the endlessly flashing lights. We waited, and the minutes dragged by as I wondered whether the crossing signal was malfunctioning.

Finally one of the cars on the other side crept cautiously around the gates and across the tracks. Then another car and a truck did the same. The school bus in front of me sat still, its own red lights flashing. The car behind me pulled around me and the bus and crossed the tracks. I heaved a long sigh and did the same. I felt sorry for the bus driver. There was no way she was going to take a busload of third and fourth graders through a railroad crossing with the gates down, and she was right. But for all I know, she may be sitting there still.

As I crossed the tracks, I looked to my left. I could see the freight train. It was stopped about a hundred feet down the tracks...just sitting there.

I never will understand how American railroads work.

Around 5:15 I pulled into Parker Dam State Park, having been guided flawlessly by Street Atlas's cues. Parker Dam is a large, well-developed park, with paved, level sites—some even have electricity. Like the other Pennsylvania state parks, it costs $14 a night for non-residents or $12 for residents. I have to give Pennsylvania a lot of credit—their parks are very well maintained, their website is quite well-organized and informative, and the large free "Recreational Guide and Highway Map" they hand out is unbelievably detailed, with a set of tables on the reverse side listing every amenity available at every park. I checked in, picked out a nicely shaded campsite and went for a walk along one of their nature trails.

Parker Dam was an early 20th century CCC project to drain a notoriously flood-prone swamp and create a lake in its stead. There are still a few marshy areas, and the nature trail led through one of them. I took some pictures of the tranquil scene in the gathering twilight. Every few dozen feet a chipmunk would dart across the path. I tried to photograph one, since my officemate Lou is especially fond of them, but failed—they were just too quick for me. Most wild animals are. I think I could be fairly certain of getting a good photo of a Gila monster. We used to have one of those at the Auditory Lab where I worked in the Seventies, and sometimes he didn't visibly move from one day to the next. That's about my speed.

While walking along the trail I found a new-looking instruction booklet from a Garmin eTrex GPS receiver—the same little yellow unit that I carry in my car. Figuring that whoever lost it would be very sorry not to have it, I carried it up to the campground hosts' fifth-wheel trailer and handed it over for inclusion in their lost and found. The hosts, Dee and "Smitty" Smith, were a gregarious couple who chatted with me for ten minutes or so about the wildlife hereabouts. They told me I had a good chance of seeing a bobcat if I took a certain hiking trail—Smitty had seen pawprints there that morning—and I told them I'd be satisfied just to photograph a chipmunk.

Back inside Gertie, sweating a little from my hike (the temperature is mild, but it's quite humid here), I pulled together a quick dinner of pasta salad with freshly cut celery added and a couple of the Parmesan-laced baking soda biscuits, with the last of the mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. To my delight I found that I could get a cell phone connection (two out of four bars) if I held the phone up to the back window in just the right position, so I was able to send yesterday's journal and retrieve my accumulated email. I also transferred the day's photos to my PowerBook and did a first pass at weeding them out and naming them. And of course I wrote this account of the day's doings, which took the better part of two and a half hours.

And now it's 10:40—yes, I've done it again: stayed up late typing. Time for bed. Tomorrow night I hope to be writing from central Ohio...