Was this the Harmony Hike?

Last night I joined Goby and found a local hike that was nearby and looked interesting.  It was called the "Harmony Trail" and described as 4-mile section of what once was the Harmony InterUrban Trolley Line converted to a bike/hiking trail.

The directions I got from Google Maps were wrong, directing me to a Church Street in Old Wexford.   While I was driving around, lost, I happened upon a parking lot at the bottom of a hill that was labeled: "Pine Water Shed".  A gravel walking path led off from it, so Jubilee and I went for it.

It was a nice hike - more like 1 mile, instead of 4.  Nobody there but us.  Lots of thistle weeds to photograph.  Here is one with a bee, and then one of the thistle-cousin:

I like the way I was able to get the "cousin-thistle" in focus with the background slightly blurred.  I've been working on that.
We even saw a deer ...

The morning was mostly cloudy, looking like it might rain, but as we made our way back to the car, the sun came out and the thistles lit up like little lamps!

I promise, no more thistles for awhile!

Anyway, when we got back I looked at that Harmony Hike again, and I think that this was it!  Not well marked, and definitely confusing as to where it is, but it sure looks like the same place that they have photographed.

I wish that there were more walks like this through the American countryside. As I was walking I was thinking that if more people walked trails like this, listening to bird and animal sounds and noticing all the colors and variation of plant growth, maybe we could solve a lot of our health problems. The highways are packed,  each person in his own car, but no one was on this trail. What if this trail connected to another one, which connected to another one?   There could be a whole network of trails through the countrysides of America.

I remember in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area of Germany there were countryside trails like this that anyone could use to bike or hike to get from town to town. And people did it and loved it! What would it take to get this kind of everywhere-Appalachian-trail all across America?

This hike gave me a good feel for how the land was/is around here. 

"In those first days, people said, a squirrel could run the long length of Pennsylvania without ever touching the ground. In those first days, the woods were white oak and chestnut, hickory, maple, sycamore, walnut, wild ash, wild plum, and white pine. The pine grew on the ridgetops where the mountains' lumpy spines stuck up and their skin was thinnest.: -Annie Dillard