Another American Adventure: McConnell's Mill, probably for the last time

Sunday, June 24, 2012

McConnell's Mill, probably for the last time

We went up to McConnell's Mill today for a walk. It's a nice day, partly cloudy, not too hot. I was reminded of that first trip we took to this park when Jubilee and I first arrived in western Pennsylvania 2 years ago. We didn't even have a place to live yet, but we had found this magical root and rock wonderland that cuts deep into Pennsylvania's farmland. We have periodically returned to this park for a revival of spirit.

It was quite crowded today - a bicycle thing going on as well as a whole fleet of motorcycles passing through - so we didn't stay long. I suspect this might have been our last visit. It was a good find.

6 comments:

BarbaraJune 24, 2012 at 12:49 PM
Last visit? Why? Do you plan on picking up stakes soon? Or are you returning to Florida for the hurricane season? ;)
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BarbaraJune 24, 2012 at 12:50 PM
By the way, that scenery is so northeast -- the trees, the rocks, the covered bridge, the waterway.
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BarbaraJune 24, 2012 at 3:54 PM
Reminds me of the Finger Lakes region (Watkins Glen, Ithaca ...) in upstate New York.
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"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.

"The wilderness was uncanny, unknown. Benjamin Franklin had already invented his stove in Philadelphia by 1753, and Thomas Jefferson was a schoolboy in Virginia; French soldiers had been living in forts along Lake Erie for two generations. But west of the Alleghenies in western Pennsylvania, there was not even a settlement, not even a cabin. No Indians lived there, or even near there.

"Wild grapevines tangled the treetops and shut out the sun. Few songbirds lived in the deep woods. Bright Carolina parakeets - red, green, and yellow - nested in the dark forest. There were ravens then, too. Woodpeckers rattled the big trees' trunks, ruffed grouse whirred their tail feathers in the fall, and every long once in a while a nervous gang of empty-headed turkeys came hustling and kicking through the leaves - but no one heard any of this, no one at all."

Annie Dillard, An American Childhood.