Croton Point Campground, Croton-on-Hudson, New York
Gad will be attacked by a band of raiders, but he will attack them at their heels. ~ Genesis 49:19 ‘Gad the harassed’ (son #7). During Moses’ time, Gad’s border provided a defense for the new nation of Israel from the native tribes living there. It was imperative that Gad’s men stayed strong and able to fight. And they did. If you look up the Tribe, you’ll discover that they remained faithful and true to God, and to their brothers, despite requesting of Moses – and receiving – to remain with Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh outside the Promised Land on the other side of the Jordan River. Gad did not remain in their land until they’d fought alongside their brothers to move them into the Promised Land. I think the Tribe of Gad is a great lesson for us to remember that despite what we may want, we must follow God and do what’s right for Him and for others first, for it is only then that we’ll reap the reward(s) God has in store for us.
By the way, the boundaries for each tribe were set up when, “Joshua then cast lots for them in Shiloh, in the presence of the LORD, and there he distributed the land to the Israelites according to their tribal divisions.” ~ Joshua 18:10
Well, is it any wonder I’m combining eleven days after all the trouble I’ve been having with no internet? Remember the days before internet? We’d write letters, or host ‘vacation picture’ parties – and if you go back even further, those vacation pictures were on slides! We didn’t put our lives out there for everyone to see, that’s for certain. Just think of all the words – over one million thus far – I’ve shared with you in the past 5 ½ years! I think the pictures are 70,000 give or take. That’s a lot! If I had internet, I would’ve searched for another description for ‘a lot’ – – like colossal! or massive! or excessive!
Anyway, I’m cutting this post short, but it’s still a bit lengthy. Blaine’ll most likely be quite pleased. 😊 I’ll choose a few pictures to share for all these days, except for the 12th, which I’ll post at the end because it turned out to be a special day; not that every day isn’t special, but that particular day held a nice surprise for us.
During these eleven days, we’ve moved from New York to Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountain area, and are continuing our quest home.
Mostly, we’ve done all the usual things – resting from two days in NYC, hiking, kayaking, and biking, with not a whole lot of interesting things to share. Thank goodness! You should be glad I’m not sharing about my biking experience. It was poised to be a very dramatic post about how Blaine snookered me into a ride with encouraging words about how easy it was going to be . . . but wasn’t. I knew it wouldn’t be, so why did I allow him to bamboozle me? It was the lure of local bbq. Whoever said the way to a man’s heart is his stomach, never met me. LOL The burgers at Promised Land Inn were pretty good, and I suppose worth the effort of the bike ride. 😊
A unique 9/11 Memorial
Our moving day on the 8th was nothing to write home about – at least as far as I can remember. That was a long time ago . . .
I’m reading my Kindle while waiting for Blaine to fill our 100 gallon water tank.
When we do this, we don’t drink it, just use it for washing dishes and bathing, etc.
There’s no water or sewer at this spot.
We took in some good hikes, as well as some not-so-good ones.
Our sons’ initials!
Chris and Kyle!
They were all over the place, it is from a Norway Spruce.
And I mentioned the biking already.
Our kayaking adventure wasn’t particularly adventurous (which is why Blaine threw in the bike ride on the same day). Promised Land State Park in Greentown, PA, where we’ve been sitting with slim to no internet all this time, talks a lot about their eagles. We’ve tried to catch a glimpse of them numerous times and places, but no such luck. ☹
That’s in part, what our kayaking day was about. The lake was gorgeous and calm and the weather’d finally broken so it was cooler, and it was very peaceful out there even without the eagle sighting. But we DID find something else incredible! Wanna guess what this is?!?
It’s an egg sack for Pectinatella magnifica!!!!!! It was really rubbery feeling and bumpy, and a little slimy. I know you’re thinking, What in the world is that?? Well, once I got my internet back for a moment, I looked it up. Turns out it’s not a fish egg sack like one of the Park Ranger’s suggested (but said she didn’t really know), but . . . .
. . . a colony of the freshwater bryozoan Pectinatella magnifica. Freshwater bryozoans are microscopic aquatic invertebrates that live in colonies that can form into jelly-like clumps, and are often found attached to docks or sticks. Bryozoan colonies can be as big as one foot (30 centimeters) in diameter. The base of each tiny bryozoan is attached to a surface. Its body has an outer sleeve-like structure called the cystid, and a mass of organs called polypide that moves inside of it. Bryozoans live in colonies, and they’re filter feeders, so they eat algae and other small creatures. They’re native to our region – and even better, they require clean water. So if you find them in your lake, it signals that you have a healthy aquatic environment. ~ askanaturalist.com
Never seen the like anywhere!
We attended a worship service at the nearby Protestant Church. Yep. That’s the name of it. I guess as opposed to Catholic Church? I don’t know, but it sure was similar to Catholic Church, or maybe really liturgical Lutherans? Anyway, we did some singing and read a lot of responses, and their hymnal held all sorts of interesting things besides music. The minister/pastor/priest, whatever title he holds did an excellent job of teaching enthusiastically about how we should be reaching out to people with the Good News of the Gospel. There weren’t many people. And get this . . . they’re getting ready to “close”. We assume they’re only open during the summer months, when tourists and frequent fliers to the area come to town.
One day, the State Park held their annual CCC Recognition Day. It wasn’t much, but it was fun and we enjoyed talking to the locals at the various booths that were set up. We participated in a Ranger talk/walk about where the CCC encampment things were.
Plus they had free cake! 😊 Here’s a few facts they shared:
- The CCC was also referred to as ‘Roosevelt’s Tree Army’, ‘College in the Woods’ and the Colossal College of Calluses’
- CCC boys (age 18-25) were referred to as ‘Woodpecker Warriors’, ‘Tree Troopers’, “Soil Soldiers’ and Peaveys’ (which is a lumbering tool)
- 300,000 boys at 5,625,000 pounds of potatoes in one month! I know that sounds like a lot, but I did the math (enquiring minds want to know…) – that only .62# per person per day. It doesn’t take much of a potato to equal a pound, does it? Certainly, the potato farmers were making out during the CCC years!
- The average boy was so malnourished when they arrived, they gained 20# in their first year, despite the intense physical work they did every day
- Anyone caught ‘goldbricking’ or goofing off, was sentenced to the spud house, peeling potatoes
- Among many other things at this Park, they planted 180,000 trees after clearing out the stumps left by the loggers. Being here, it’s hard to imagine all these trees being logged off the mountain. There’s certainly tons of them now, thank goodness!
continued the “room” by painting a mural on the back wall!
Looks great, doesn’t it?!?
So that, in no particular order, brings us to the 12th. In looking for things to do in the area, Blaine discovered a place called Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA, about a ½ hour away, so we left in the morning thinking we’d spend a couple of hours there, then move on to another Park called Nay Aug, and then maybe take a peek at the nearby town of Peckville 😊 before heading home.
Ha!! We ended up spending six hours at Steamtown! What a place they’ve created here! It’s mostly focused on the steam train industry that was so prominent in Scranton, with a small amount of the ‘new’ diesels thrown in. I can’t even tell you how many trains are here, and they’re all from a private collection some guy in New Jersey had! When he passed, his family gave the trains to the National Park Service, and one thing led to another, and this and that, and all the trains and memorabilia he had was actually moved from New Jersey to this location. Can you imagine what it took to do that?!? They don’t really talk about that, though they certainly should.
I’m not spending time looking up additional stuff (plus I don’t have internet), so it’ll just be what I have in pictures and what little I can remember of what was told us. 😊
which include diesel engines, passenger cars, and cabooses.
Later today, they’re doing a walk/talk of their service area/garage.
At this time, we weren’t planning on sticking around, but since we spent so long here,
when it came time, we said, “Why not? What’s another hour?” : )
By the way, the turnstile that moves the trains to face the desired door for upkeep and repairs, still works.
We saw it!
It’s now part of Scranton University.
This is a real steam engine that they cut away to show the inner workings.
Your tax dollars at work for something really good!
Today’s trains have them mounted underneath, but back in the day, they sat on top alongside the smokestack. Wanna know what it’s for?
The sand is dropped on the rail in front of the driving wheels during wet or slippery conditions
and on steep grades to improve traction. The sand comes out of that silver nozzle.
There’s a bunch of ball bearings in there.
Once we left, we went in search of dinner. Sounds easy, but the place we’d decided on for pizza was closed for a family emergency. Not being from the area, we had to go “in search of” again, but we didn’t want to go far. There was another pizza place called Dutchies, only two minutes away, so we went there. The service was not so good. I think they’re used to locals who just come in, place their order and know to grab their own drinks, napkins, etc. I had to keep asking the girl what we were supposed to do. But that’s ok. The pizza was very good! And we were very hungry; which now that I think about it, may have contributed to its culinary excellence. 😊 Sorry, no pictures.
We needed a place to walk some after that, so we went to this park called Nay Aug. The name Nay Aug traces its origin to the Munsee Indians, a sub group of the larger Lenape tribe. In their language Nay Aug means “noisy water or roaring brook.” ~ Nayaugpark.org It was an okay park, with some cliffs and water, but it was not kept up well, and it certainly held little evidence of an amusement park like it advertised. Still, we saw some of God’s creation, and walked a bit.
One was pretty timid for a while until his friends finally talked him into taking the plunge. : )
And that, my friends and family, is what you’ve been missing, lo these many days!
On Monday the 15th, we left Promised Land and moved further across central Pennsylvania, ever closer to home in the Akron, Ohio area. I didn’t take pictures of travel day, as I was using the time (and expressway internet service) to work on the blog. Hopefully, we’ll regain our service in Waterville!
Don’t you think they could hire him out
to be a baby model? : )
Little Pine State Park, Waterville, Pennsylvania
What’s the saying? ‘If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride’? There’s no cell service here. I don’t mean just some, I mean zilch. And we’re here for five days . . .
To say I was disappointed to discover this would be an understatement. So was Blaine. He’s just much less verbal about it.
And on top of that, there’s no water or sewer hookup. But we already knew that. Somehow Blaine managed to get a few satellite TV channels. We had to get in the Jeep and drive back the way we came in until we found a town with cell service – 25 minutes away. We parked, made a few calls and texts so at least someone would know we didn’t drop off the face of the earth and call the authorities; and Blaine found a laundromat, which we are in desperate need of.
But it’s absolutely gorgeous here! There are many types of trees and mountains everywhere you look. I can envision being surrounded by Fall colors in a couple of months! And it’s so quiet!