Waggoner’s Gap

On the way home from State College, we stopped at Waggoner’s Gap – a place known for being an excellent place to watch the fall hawk migration will thousands of birds migrating overhead between mid-August and December. We’d heard about it from some birding friends and decided to see what it was like even though the viewing was not optimal with low lying clouds overhead. We decided this would just be a reconnoiter type stop and we’d come back on a day when the weather was better. It was scenic drive through central Pennsylvania countryside west of Harrisburg to the small lot for the site.

There were clear maps of the trails up to the viewing area and ridge at the beginning of the trail and trail junctions.

The trail was over rocks and was marked by bird stencils. Do you see the orange stenciled bird in the  pictures? It did make it easier to pay attention to not tripping over rocks to have the markings at your feet rather than at eye level on trees.

At the top – there is a few of the colorful forest below and the valley beyond. Next time we’ll pick a day with fewer clouds, pack everything in a backpack rather than having anything in our hands (the hike is not hard but is over rocks, better to have both hands free) and plan to stay longer. I’d like to refine my skills at identifying raptors in flight!

Pumpkins and Gourds

There as a display of carved pumpkins at the Botanical Garden at Penn State when we were there last weekend but I enjoyed the piles of whole pumpkins, squashes, and gourds more – so that is what I photographed. Some were stacked like cairns, others were arranged on shallow stairs, or drifted around pots of fall blooming plants. This is the kind of display I associate with fall as much as piles of raked leaves!

Sometimes their shape and texture makes them a stand out among all the rest.

My favorite display was in the children’s part of the Botanical Garden: a big bowl full of gourds and squashes. See the tubes mounted on the frame? Those are kaleidoscopes. There were steps so that even a small child could take a look!

Here’s the view through one of the kaleidoscopes when the bowl was still. I didn’t attempt a picture when the bowl was moving. What a great active sculpture for a Children’s Garden!

Fall Walk Around Penn State

What’s not to like about a sunny fall day with colorful leaves – maybe not in abundance but clearly visible. We started in Botanical Garden and then walked down through part of the Penn State campus –

Making the building where my daughter might do a post doc after she finishes up grad school as our on-campus destination.

It was a busy weekend with high school seniors and their parents visiting too.

The Botanical Garden included water features,

Colorful curves over a gate,

Sculptures of snakes on sunny rocks (in positions that real snakes might like),

And some larger sculptures that were holding pumpkins in keeping with the pumpkin carvings being displayed on many low walls (more on this in tomorrow’s post).

There were a few small butterflies in the pollinator’s garden too – I couldn’t resist testing the increased ‘zoom’ capability on my new camera!

Mid-October Road Trip

We made a fall foliage road trip last weekend from our home between Washington DC and Baltimore MD to State College Pennsylvania. We headed out on I 70 to western Maryland and then I99 to State College. Our first rest stop was in Maryland – the South Mountain Welcome Center with a rock façade (maybe from a local source?) and the morning sun showing off a little change in the leave color.

The next rest stop was the Pennsylvania Welcome Center (still on I70). That had big sunflowers in various stages of development. It was easy to see how the seeds look as they begin to mature.

Two of the flowers I photographed had bugs in them (I discovered when I looked at them on the big screen of my monitor. This one looks like and assassin bug

And then was is a milkweed bug.

Just after we left the welcome center – we started to see more color. It wasn’t the peak of fall foliage colors…but a beginning.

There was also fog hanging in the valleys…with a clear sky above.

The drive to State College was a good start to our fall road trip. I’ll post more about it tomorrow.

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Last week – the day following my visit to the Scott Arboretum – I walked around Valley Forge National Historical Park. I’d been there before but had never had time to see all of it. I remembered the cannon that were point at meadows. This time I wondered about how they were maintained. The one I looked at more closely had a fleck of paint that had flaked away and some rusty areas.

I remembered reconstructed log structures.

The structures help one imagine how miserable it must have been at this place in winter. The structures were very crowded - lined with crude bunks along the walls - with a crudely made fireplace for warmth.

We drove around as far as we could on the road that loops through the park but we came to a section that was closed because of damage to a bridge and construction of a replacement sewer line. We followed the detour signs through a beautiful older neighborhood (one of the highlights of the trip) and back to the visitor’s center to check the map more carefully on how to get to the other parts of the park. My sister was keen to see the DAR tower at the Washington Memorial Chapel.

I was fascinated by the eagles on the four corners of the tower.

Further down on the corner facing the chapel, there is a statue of George Washington.

There is a cannon in front of the chapel that points into the main area of the park and an obelisk.

There are numerous cool courtyards with statuary and dedications. The chapel area was getting ready for a Flea Market the next day but even with the extra activity, it was a serene place.

Further along the road was Washington’s Headquarters. There as a statue of George Washington that has been replicated in other places because

His family indicated that the face depicted him better than any other.

The headquarters was a house…that was crammed full of people when it was the headquarters. The house part was never changed structurally. The kitchen part (to the left) was ‘modernized’ in the 1800s but is now back to the way it would have been in the 1770s.

There is a train station near the Headquarters that provided transportation for people to visit the park up to the time it became a National Historical Park. The addition of the railroad created a tall berm between the headquarters area and the Schuylkill River which would not have been there in the 1770s; it changed the relationship that then encampment had of the river but may have protected many of the structures from flooding.

The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College

Last week I walked around some of the Scott Arboretum while my sister did some genealogy research at the McCabe library. It was not an ideal day for photography because it was very windy. Fortunately, it was bright enough that the shutter speed froze some of the motion and I was able to get some flower pictures.

 

The arboretum is integrated with the college buildings and I like the quiet places with benches (lush vegetation spilling around them) and just having the structures as backdrops to some of the garden (in particular in the rose garden).

The vintage buildings appear to be well maintained…with exteriors much as they were when they were first built.

There was a cloister type courtyard with the bell tower and chapel.

When I first walked to it there was a person sitting in the shade reading – enjoying the space out of the wind.

There was climbing variety of hydrangea along the arches of the courtyard.

I definitely want to plan another trek to Scott Arboretum and explore it more thoroughly – without a time constraint and on a day when the wind is not a problem.