Days 48 & 49: French Creek State Park, PA

We are still at French Creek State Park.  Yesterday morning we were joined by Pat Mahan (Alea's college roommate), who came bearing gifts.  She had bought Alea a set of bicycle-themed tea towels for Christmas, but never managed to get that in the mail.  She works for Boeing and brought us t-shirts depicting some of their military aircraft, as well as various other goodies.  It was a nice contrast to the jolt we got yesterday about the cost to repair our van.

We started a campfire after she got here and before long it started to rain.  Of course our shade structure (our only defense against being outdoors in the rain) was at the Ford dealership in our van.  Fortunately, Pat brought three umbrellas: a standard umbrella, a clamp-on chair umbrella and a beach umbrella, so we managed to stay dry in our chairs by the campfire with those in hand.

I really liked the 5 foot beach umbrella, as it was large enough to keep a chair dry, waterproof, very lightweight and compact.  The pointed end helped the base stay put, and a piece of Strap-All would be sufficient to strap it to a chair to keep it from being tossed around in the wind.  Two of those would be a better alternative for us than our REI Alcove shade structure, which we've used less than a half dozen times in the past 9 months.  So we'll add those to our shopping list, as they give us a lot more flexibility in either seeking shade or shelter from a light rain.

Since it was raining, we decided to make a trip to Reading for lunch, and to get some propane and do a little shopping.  But on the way there we got a call from the Ford dealer, saying that the van was ready to be picked up (which was a huge relief to us, as we had envisioned that it could be in the shop an additional 24 hours or more).  So we headed there instead.  How we are set up, the van is pretty much indispensable in foul weather, so we were very glad to have it back.  Now, once again, there is a place for everything and everything is in its place.

Pat has rented a cabin in this park, though it is about a mile away from us (their website is not at all clear about where those particular cabins are located).  With the rain coming down we were wondering if we needed to spend the evening in her cabin, but the sun came out and we dined at our campsite, where we had a campfire (mostly from wood that came with Pat's cabin) and spent time chatting and catching up on things.

The showers here at the campground leave a bit to be desired.  They weren't clean when we got here and haven't been cleaned yet, and the showers are not consistently hot (they have been less than lukewarm at times).  So we took showers at Pat's cabin, which don't require that we push a button to get 30 seconds worth of water and the water was always hot.  It also was nice and toasty warm in the bathroom, so I took advantage of that by giving myself a haircut.  After that we returned to our campsite for a breakfast of "Potato Shit" (aka frittata): bacon, eggs, diced green pepper, diced onion, tiny carrots, diced potato and shredded cheddar cheese.

Ohh-la-la! (Eat your heart out, Cisco!)

The weather started out being quite pleasant, so we went to Hopewell Lake to look around.  Perhaps the most interesting thing we found there was a swarm of newly hatched tadpoles...

Those little dark spots are baby tadpoles!

Tadpoles?  Are they anything like chipmunks!  I LOVE chipmunks!

After that, we drove over to St. Peters for lunch at the bakery (about 6 miles away).  The village is nestled along French Creek, at a spot where the creek flows in and around giant granite boulders.  We've been here before, as the village is quaint (and touristy) and the food and scenery are awesome.  The lunch at the bakery was basic, but incredibly good - oh, to be able to live close to a bakery like this someday!  The raisin-walnut bread looked incredible, and the coconut macaroons made me think of Lester Tanaka.  I met Lester in 1984 while cycling down the West Coast, and he, Ben Van Esveldt and I would scour the bakeries along the way looking for the best coconut macaroons (it was Lester's idea, but I was a very willing participant)!

Lunch at the bakery (Thanks, Pat!)

Desert was on us!

We took some time to scramble among the boulders, and Lana availed herself of the opportunity to walk in the water.  It was fun people-watching - with people of varying athletic prowess attempting to leap from boulder to boulder.  We witnessed more than a few close calls, but no mishaps.

The weather starting getting a bit iffy, so we hastened over to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site.  It is one of the earliest iron furnaces in America and well worth a visit.  I had stumbled across it in 1985 as I bicycled down the East Coast.  I had stopped for a while in nearby Douglasville, where I had stayed with the parents of my neighbor from South Tacoma, Diane Schurr.  It is a much more pastoral landscape today - in its heyday, the forests were cut down for making charcoal, so ash and soot would have covered most everything in the vicinity (a sign of prosperity at the time).

The furnace building.

The waterwheel powers the furnace bellows.

Pat & Alea.

The site manufactured a range of commercial goods, including the Hopewell Stove.  And during the Revolutionary War it produced Naval cannons, cannonballs and shells for the American Navy.

A fourth great grandfather, James "Leghorn" Johnston, immigrated from County Down, Ireland in the late 1780s.  He was a teamster and hauled freight from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh for nearly 30 years, before moving to what would later become Phillipstown, IL around 1818.  By the time of the War of 1812, he had several wagons and several teams of horses, most of which were commandeered by the U.S. Army to haul freight in the fight against the British.  It is easy to imagine him stopping to pick up a load of stoves to haul to Philadelphia, where they would be shipped to Europe and beyond or, in his later year there, to Pittsburgh, where they would be shipped to the expanding American frontier.

After that, it started raining, so we loaded up everything that we needed for supper and headed for Pat's cabin.  That provided a comfortable place out of the rain in order to cook dinner, reminisce and get caught up on chores.  It has turned out to be an incredibly enjoyable (though expensive, due to the van) weekend.

In Pat's cabin, plotting our escape to the north!

Many thanks to Pat for a great weekend and lots of photos!