Tionesta Lake COE, Tionesta, Pennsylvania
The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. ~ Matthew 25:3-4
It’s raining, it’s pouring . . . . Not pouring constantly, but definitely raining for four days. We were able to venture out between raindrops on the 6th (just a little) and 7th.
On the sixth, we were about to go stir crazy, so we had the bright idea to venture into town and visit their history museum. But it was closed. Beginning after Labor Day, they’re only open four hours a day on Friday and Saturday. ☹ However, we still had the Lighthouse Island. We didn’t really know what it was until we got there.
Turned out to be a privately owned island that they’ve opened up to visitors. There’s a nice walking path and all kinds of stuff to see along the way – including critter statues hiding in the grass. 😊 Besides looking at their “decorations”, we were able to get about 2 ½ miles of walking in by rounding the island twice. Enjoy the pictures!
That’s the Statue of Liberty way over there.
You can see her plainly from the main road through town.
Remember, we had to pull the boat over the rocks? Not today!
Now it’s Wednesday, September 7th and we decided to brave the weather’s small chance of precipitation to look for a waterfall back at Oil Creek State Park, and then visit the Drake Well Museum.
The trail to the waterfall was two miles round trip, through the woods. With all the rain we’ve been having, we expected to see it gushing, but a lot of trees and bushes have grown up since they took the picture in the brochure they gave us the other day. No waterfall. But we could hear it! There was still plenty to see along the way.
Something (not us) either stepped on it, fallen on it, or chomped on it.
Blaine shot a deer!
Now don’t get your ruffles in a bunch – – he used his phone. 😊 We were amazed how close it let us get to it! We actually had a couple of deer sightings, which was fun!
The Drake Well Museum is privately owned and costs a nominal fee.
It was a great place! We began by visiting the perfectly re-created board-by-board original derrick. And the actual well is inside! Somehow, they pump real oil out of it to show the tourists how it worked, but they just fill the same barrel over and over throughout the day. The guy in there was very educational and easy to listen to.
And we learned the source of a common saying!
Have you every heard the term, “balls to the walls”?
Well, it came from this piece of equipment.
Note the silver balls on top of this small steam engine (which weigh eight pounds each).
When steam comes through, those balls float out – towards the walls.
When their all the way out, that’s optimum speed.
Hence, ‘balls to the walls’ means giving it all you’ve got! : )
We continued visiting the outdoor things because of the eminent threat of rain.
It didn’t photograph well in this dismal light.
This is a Standard Steel Drilling Rig from 1920.
It used steel cable too (percussion) drilling to reach a depth of 10,000′. (compared to Drake’s 69′)
I was getting chilly (believe it or not!), so we returned to the Jeep, ate a bite of lunch, grabbed my ever-present jacket, and headed to the inside museum. So far, we remained dry!
It was a wonderful museum, but it was freezing in there! Something about taking the humidity out of the air to preserve the artifacts. What ever the reason, I was thrilled I at least had a jacket, but could’ve used a heavy sweatshirt hoody. Even Blaine got chilled and he’s like a constantly running furnace.
I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.
Wanna job? They’re probably hiring. Everyone else seems to be. : )
After three hours, we headed back home, but decided to drive over to see the outflow from the dam. Here’s comparison pictures from our stay here:
More water each time we visited!
Tomorrow we travel home! Can’t wait!
I’ll have one additional post, whenever Blaine gets around to it. It’s about the rescue and recovery workers from 9/11, and then we’ll be on hiatus until the end of October. See you then!