Walking in the Woods

Call me crazy, I know I am, and my neighbor today pretty much agrees with that label today now.

Sammy and I went for a walk this afternoon -left the house shortly before 1:30 p.m. and got back home at 3:21 p.m. According to my trusty little pedometer (from Curves, purchased from Avon), we walked 3.72 miles -down to the bridge in Peale that crosses the Red Moshannon Creek.

As hot and sweaty as I was when we got home, I'm more inclined to think we walked about 37.2 miles. Definitely this exercise today should qualify as a great way to get a quick weight loss! At least by my way of thinking it should work as that.

Here's a couple of pictures I took today on our walk that I thought might be interesting.

Shortly before one gets to the Peale Bridge over the "Red Mo" is this sign along the road. If you were to walk back this path about a third to half a mile (my guesstimation) you would come upon the site where this cemetery is located. There are 11 souls buried there but only one marker remains standing today. (Sorry -no pics of the actual cemetery site as I won't walk back there with only the dog and my camera for company -not until fall when the snakes have retreated to their hiding places for the winter months!)

There is a special significance in this cemetery for me though as my great-great-grandfather -Carl Till -is one of the individuals who is buried there. So, if my cousin, Kyle Ingrid Johnson, up in the Boston area, is reading this post, I did a little wave to our great-great-grandfather and said a prayer for his soul too when I went past this spot today.

Right along the creek -or river -(Call it whatever you wish there) is this tent someone has set up. Judging by the child's riding toy beside the tent, I guess the campers who use it have a small child. About two weeks back or so, when my older daughter and I walked down to the bridge, it was obvious that someone was using the tent at that time because there was a clothesline strung with things hanging on it as well as a car being parked in one of the pull-offs along the road. Today, there was no trace of anyone camping there -other than the tent and that toy beside it.

Here's a little view of the Red Mo by where the campsite is set up. I just think this is such a pretty sight -but it would be a whole lot prettier I guess if the water didn't still have that red-orange coloration to it caused by sulfur and iron I guess in the water caused by drainage from the early slope mines that Peale -which has been a ghost town for close to a century now -fed into that stream for many years.

This is a view of the Red Moshannon Creek -looking towards Moshannon, which is where the stream dumps into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. Well, that doesn't happen in the village of Moshannon but rather a mile or two up the highway just off Route 53 at the foot of Cooper Mountain. When the stream reaches that bridge on Route 53, it meets up with the Black Moshannon Creek and then, the water flows down a bit farther where it joins the Susquehanna River's West Branch.

Also, it is from this point on the stream that the racers -boaters with kayaks, canoes and similar equipment -put into the stream in late March every year for the big, wild and usually at a much higher water level that you can see here today for the 7-mile Race down to the bridge. It's a really well-known event across the country but especially in this state for a great white-water race with loads and loads of exciting sights that the racers can see as they scramble to place at the end of the race.

I got about 30 other pictures today on our walk - nothing out of the ordinary, nothing spectacular, just sights that caught my eye today and perhaps at a later date I will post more of those pictures for your viewing pleasure.