We didn’t leave the Prattsburgh area until mid afternoon, so we only made it as far as Lewisburg. We stopped for a nice hike in a small park right off of Rt. 15 just north of Lewisburg, and then found a rather quiet Walmart where we spent a peaceful night. In the morning, Tom called around and found an oil change place with a bay to fit us in Harrisburg, just a few miles from the Capitol. We stopped there, and barely fit in the bay. It was so tight that they ended up backing the truck out rather than risking the other door of the drive through. The highlight of the stop for me was that I spotted and killed my first lantern fly, which I was happy to do after seeing all the billboards and posters about them as we drove through the Northeast.
We then headed into Harrisburg to check another capitol building off our list. The Harrisburg Capitol building is very big and very imposing, and it’s actually a little difficult to decide which side is the front. We still can’t decide if it’s the side facing the park like area, or the side facing the river with pink fountain in front, which was pink in honor of breast cancer month. The area around the Capitol is very old Pennsylvania, with lots of brick townhouses on cobblestone streets. We parked five or six blocks from the Capitol building, and even that far away the neighborhood was very nice. The best part about Harrisburg was that the city has a wonderful river walk with one path running along the river at the edge of the city, and another path below it built up right at the edge of the river. Harrisburg might not be in our top 3 list of capitols, but it was definitely on the “nicer” side of the list.
We finished walking around the city in the late afternoon and started looking for a place to stay. We had originally planned to go to a Harvest Hosts brewery near Gettysburg, but they were full. We looked at a couple of Walmarts and a Cabela’s, but found that none of those places around the city allow overnight parking. So, we headed for Gifford Pinchot State Park, which turned out to be beautiful from what we could see when we arrived shortly before dark. In the morning, we took the dogs for a quick walk just to see the park before heading for Gettysburg National Military Park.
Gettysburg was very interesting, and we did a lot of walking. Both of us had visited the park as kids, but neither of us really remembered it. I remembered walking on trails, and Tom remembered hiking with the Boy Scouts, but the significance of the park and how it’s organized must have been beyond us as kids. The park has a central visitors’ center, but it is really a gigantic history museum which is laid out as a walking or driving tour which takes visitors through the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg. We have the dogs with us and we love to walk, plus driving and parking the camper is cumbersome at best and sometimes impossible, so we followed the park map for walking and explored the site. We weren’t able to see everything in one day of hiking around, but the entire park is filled with monuments to all the regiments who fought in the battle, with interpretive signs explaining the significance of each location. Besides the monuments, the park has been left mostly as the farmland it was when the Battle of Gettysburg took place, so it’s easy to use your imagination to envision all the troops clashing at the different locations around the town. Our plan for the next day was to visit The Valley Forge National Military Park, so we found a Harvest Host farm between Gettysburg and Valley Forge just outside of York, PA. I was bummed because the farm had a market with all sorts of stuff I wanted, but they closed at 4PM on Saturday and didn’t open on Sunday, so when we arrived after 4PM I couldn’t shop. It was, however, a pleasant and quiet place to park and we had a good night’s sleep before heading to Valley Forge.
Gettysburg was very interesting, and we did a lot of walking. Both of us had visited the park as kids, but neither of us really remembered it. I remembered walking on trails, and Tom remembered hiking with the Boy Scouts, but the significance of the park and how it’s organized must have been beyond us as kids. The park has a central visitors’ center, but it is really a gigantic history museum which is laid out as a walking or driving tour which takes visitors through the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg. We have the dogs with us and we love to walk, plus driving and parking the camper is cumbersome at best and sometimes impossible, so we followed the park map for walking and explored the site. We weren’t able to see everything in one day of hiking around, but the entire park is filled with monuments to all the regiments who fought in the battle, with interpretive signs explaining the significance of each location. Besides the monuments, the park has been left mostly as the farmland it was when the Battle of Gettysburg took place, so it’s easy to use your imagination to envision all the troops clashing at the different locations around the town. Our plan for the next day was to visit The Valley Forge National Military Park, so we found a Harvest Host farm between Gettysburg and Valley Forge just outside of York, PA. I was bummed because the farm had a market with all sorts of stuff I wanted, but they closed at 4PM on Saturday and didn’t open on Sunday, so when we arrived after 4PM I couldn’t shop. It was, however, a pleasant and quiet place to park and we had a good night’s sleep before heading to Valley Forge.
Valley Forge National Military Park is another place Tom and I had both visited as kids but didn’t really remember. My parents were big into experiencing realism, so most of what I remembered about Valley Forge was it being cold and gray since for some reason we always went in the winter so we could feel what Washington’s troops felt. It was a much more pleasant experience on a gorgeous fall day, and Valley Forge now has a ~5 mile loop trail that runs around the site. Like Gettysburg, the site has been maintained so visitors can envision what it was like at the time it was historically significant, so it’s much like it was in the winter of 1777/78 when Washington’s troops were there, but unlike Gettysburg it’s more about historical buildings than endless monuments. Also unlike Gettysburg, the woodland trails were open, so we were able to take a nice walk through the fall woods which we couldn’t do in Gettysburg because those trails were closed for conservation reasons.
We passed Three Mile Island on the way to Valley Forge.
We left Valley Forge and headed for yet another Harvest Hosts farm, this time an alpaca farm between Valley Forge and Doylestown, our next stop. The Crimson Skye Alpaca farm was a great stop, and we were treated to a farm tour by owners Karen and Gary, and we got to meet some of their 24 alpacas. I also got to buy an alpaca hat in their shop, which is super soft and has come in really handy with the colder weather we’ve been experiencing. Karen let us buy some fresh unwashed eggs from her chickens, so we had real “chicken eggs” for the first time since leaving Belize, and they were delicious.
In the morning, we temporarily bypassed Doylestown and headed for the PA Washington Crossing State Park by Bowman’s Tower, another childhood hangout. We couldn’t walk the wildflower trails with the dogs, and we didn’t want to risk the road up to the tower with the camper, but we walked the towpath from the park into New Hope and saw how much things have changed since we left NJ 40+ years ago. The old mill buildings are now posh condos and boutiquey New Hope now has some pretty fancy hotels, but the canal and the river haven’t really changed. We went back to Doylestown and spent the evening with our old friend Sue, again reminding us that we shouldn’t let decades pass between visits with good friends.
Bowman’s Tower from the Thompson Neely House
Looking north towards New Hope on the Pennsylvania towpath.
New Jersey’s Goat Hill reflecting in the Delaware just above the Lambertville rapids
One of my favorite views.