June 24 -29 A Busy Week

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

Our busy week started out with a trip to Poe Paddy State Park to do a little biking. The park is on the site of the former lumber town of Poe Mills. Poe Mills was part of the lumber boom that swept through the wooded mountains of Pennsylvania from the mid-to-late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The bike trail is on an old railroad bed of the Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad. The trail head starts near the old town of Poe Mills then crosses a footbridge over Penn’s Creek. Just beyond the bridge is a former railroad tunnel carved into the rock face...it's the main attraction on this trail. As we could feel a cool breeze coming out of the tunnel as we approached. It felt so nice. After the tunnel we continued on the trail for about three miles until it met up with the Mid-State Trail near Cherry Run. From there we returned on the same trail back to our car.  

The footbridge at the beginning of the trail.

The tunnel entrance on the northwestern side near the parking lot. Poe Paddy Tunnel was a railroad tunnel built in the late 1800s and abandoned in the 1970s.

On the southeastern side of the tunnel there are slits that allow bats to enter and exit a totally separate area of the tunnel.

The tunnel was very dark, but my iPhone took a pretty good picture.

There were quite a few boulder fields along the trail.

The trail

We enjoyed our lunch along a little creek in the park.

Our view for lunch.

The view from the road up to Poe Paddy State Park.

On Wednesday The Great Race came through Lewisburg and stopped at the park for lunch. We have boating friends that are in this year's race, so it was fun to see them and find out more about this event. The Great Race is a classic car rally that involves driving vintage automobiles across the United States. The objective is to arrive at each checkpoint at the correct time, not the fastest. The score for each team is the result of the team's ability to follow the designated course instructions precisely. Every second off the perfect time (early or late) at each checkpoint is a penalty point. The cars must be at least 45 years old and use original factory parts, and no smart phones, maps or GPSs are allowed. Each team is made up of a driver and a navigator. 

This year's 9 day race covers 2,300 miles from Owensboro, KY to Gardiner, ME. The racers will travel through 19 cities in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.

Our friends Barbara and David in their 1973 Volkswagen Thing. This is their second year to participate. 

Each team receives instructions like this about 30 minutes before they are scheduled to leave. No maps, sometimes no name of roads or town...just instructions on where to turn next and how fast to drive. It looked difficult and a bit stressful to me.

These are just a few of the racers we saw. This year there were over 135 teams.

The local antique car club had lots of vehicles around for everyone to see also. It was truly a real event and lots of people turned out to welcome the racers.

On Friday I went to Bloomsburg and picked up Cora. We had a fun evening chasing lightning bugs or are they fireflies. She spent the night and went to the Pennsylvania Lavender Festival with me on Saturday. We enjoyed being together, but the festival left a little to be desired. Lots of craft booths and a few things to eat, but not much of a lavender field.

Sharing ice cream with Poppy.

There were hundreds of fireflies in our yard.