When we first arrived, I noticed an inordinate number of trucks going by on the two-lane highway, State Route 14. I was curious, so did an Internet search, and discovered that the traffic on this stretch of road increased ten-fold in 2010, due to………freakin’ frackin’!
Can you imagine being the owners of a small, secluded campground in an idyllic Alleghany valley, and all of a sudden there are dozens of trucks driving by every day, day in and day out? We have seen hundreds of natural gas trucks here, transporting constantly. Bradford County, just north of here, currently has the highest rate of natural gas extraction through fracking of any county in Pennsylvania. One would hope they know what they are doing, but I don’t think they do. Engineers know how to frack, but they have no idea, nor do they care, about the ultimate impacts of fracking. ~sigh~
For those of you on the west coast, fracking is a method of extracting natural gas from rock. High pressure is applied to underground rocks in order to break them to bits, and then the gas held within is extracted. It is a controversial process, but lots of money is involved so it happens. Residents are worried about the quality of their groundwater once the process starts, and rightly so.
Off my soap box, and back to our adventures.
We started off in Lock Haven, at the Piper Aviation Museum. The first plane Lee owned was a J-3 Piper Cub, like the bright yellow plane on the far right of the photo below. His was built in 1946. When I first met Lee he had this plane. He sold it shortly after for $3,000, and today he could sell it for 10 times more.
Next we were deluged in a thunderstorm. Then we headed for a small town near Lock Haven called Woolrich. Lee had seen a sign advertising a Woolrich outlet, and we hoped to find it. We did find it, finally, the original store! I love serendipity.
We could easily stay another couple of days. The Lycoming County Fair is going on nearby, there is a steam boat that provides tours of the Susquehanna River in Williamsport, Rose Valley Lake is on the other side of the hill, and there is always canoeing and kayaking around the next bend. So much to do, so little time!
The next installment to the blog will be sometime next week, once we are on the road again, this time for real! No turning back!
Signing off for now,
Eileen
