My Vacation, Part 2 of 9 -- Wednesday, July 22

[lblanchard]

Woke up early and went outside to photograph the motel cabins in the early morning light because oh, my, it was so beautiful.

We went back to the Milford Diner for breakfast (French toast for Roy, primavera omelet for Laura) and then headed off to Grey Towers (http://www.fs.fed.us/na/gt/ ), summer home of Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and governor of Pennsylvania. Pinchot's grandfather amassed the family fortune by clearcutting hillsides and then selling the impoverished acres to unsuspecting immigrants. His father, appalled, went to New York to become a wallpaper dealer, and then encouraged young Gifford to pursue a career in forestry, then unknown in the U.S.


The house had been built on a clear-cut hilltop in the 1880s and the hillside replanted. Pinchot's New York socialite wife Cornelia spent considerable time and her own money redecorating, landscaping and so on. The "Finger Bowl," left, was her dining room. Roofed with wisteria so thick that it fended off all but the worst rainstorms, it featured a water table. Guests sat around the perimeter and the food was floated back and forth. She also built two outbuildings to house her husband and son when they needed a retreat from the mad social whirl in the house. Click on the picture to see more of Cornelia's decorating and landscaping ideas.

An ardent campaigner for the rights of women, children, and workers, Cornelia twice ran for Congress shortly after women gained the right to vote. We got there two hours before the house opened for tours and wandered the grounds taking pictures and talking with staff and volunteers. Laura found a multitude of toad tadpoles and one startled leopard frog in a shallow ornamental pond.


Pinchot wanted the state bird to be the turkey but the grouse won out. But a man's home is his castle, so the turkey ruled on his terrace.

Following a lunch of Cobb salads at the Apple Valley Restaurant (an idiosyncratic third-generation restaurant with motel cabins turned into artiste's shops), we went on to the Pike County Historical Society's museum and library, housed in a mansion called The Columns. The person who took our admission fee was mobility-impaired and claimed to have little knowledge of the collections, so a self-guided tour was called for. The displays included

• a flag reportedly placed under Lincoln's head as he lay in Ford's Theater, together with memorabilia from the actor family who collected the flag and settled in Milford;


• a display of old photographs, with negatives affixed to the room's windows, which could not have been good for them;


• a number of stuffed wild animals; information on various summer camps from the area;


• memorabilia from a woman named Craft who was apparently a bit of a history buff herself and who saved crumpled wreckage from a fatal1920's airplane crash on her south 40;


• an utterly charming display on flour sacks, with interpretive labels hand-written in five different handwritings, from nineteenth century examples to elaborately patterned ones intended for reuse as dresses and household linens (tablecloths, pillowcases, etc.)

We wandered through, bemused -- except for the Lincoln and the flour sacks, the interpretive materials were pretty obscure -- and fled after about half an hour.

Needing a change after that disappointment, we rode up to Hawley and then took the back roads to Lackawaxen along Route 509 -- very twisty, some times paralleling the Lackawaxen River. Laura believes Roy did some forensic railroading, and will add the details later. Our ride took us past the Zane Grey Museum, which looked enticing but after our experience at The Columns we decided to save its pleasures for another trip. Also, neither of us has ever read any Zane Grey -- a character flaw, I'm sure -- so we should read a bit before going.

Evening included a photo ramble through Milford. As much as the shops, we were struck by the amount of greenery on sidewalks no broader than our own. There were grassy strips close to the curbs, punctuated by trees. Shallow borders of two or three feet were a riot of flowers, mostly perennials. Our ramble was followed by dinner at the Dimmick Hotel -- Manhattans, pork chops, wonderful vegetables.

When we got back to our hotel, there was a young buck standing under the motel sign. Laura got a picture but it's no great shakes. When we were checking out the next morning the motel folk told Laura he comes over regularly -- there's the remains of an orchard out behind the motel grounds and he like the apples.

We decided to sit out on our little porch and watch for fireflies -- something we love to see but hardly ever do in South Philly. We saw a few, but we saw something even better -- bats! First one, then two, then three, and at one time as many as five, swooping and stooping amid the tall trees. The aerial display lasted about half an hour, until there was no more light in the sky.

There are 66 photos for July 22, beginning here. All vacation entries are tagged "anniversary trip"