My Vacation, Part 4 of 9 -- Friday, July 24, 2009

[lblanchard]

We didn't drag our coffeemaker up the steep stairs to our room at the Wyalusing Hotel-- Chris told us they set out their continental breakfast at 6:30, which was plenty early for us. Roy brought us the first coffee and then we wandered off to the porch to drink more coffee and admire the view of Main Street.

The previous evening Chris's son Adam strongly recommended the Weigh Station in Towanda for breakfast. It sounded good to us, so off we went. Our omelets were tasty -- Roy's was roasted peppers, spinach and feta cheese; mine was grilled vegetables and gorgonzola. In addition to standard restaurant tables, there was one massive oak table that easily seats 8-10, and was in use by the local "breakfast club." The restaurant also serves as a music venue, and one wall is covered with a combination of musical instruments and messages from visitors from all over the world. The Weigh Station actively promotes local food and drink, with a selection of wines from local vineyards. The wireless is free and easily accessed, other patrons told me.

We visited the Bradford County Historical Society museum and library with some trepidation, following our experience in Pike County. Not to worry. The museum is housed in the former county jail, an adaptive reuse from the early 2000s. The exercise yard / execution yard has been roofed over and is used as a space for lectures, films, etc. A cheerful and well-informed college student interpreted the site as a place and as a museum. One or two cells were kept as cells; the balance served as exhibition cases that could be viewed from the cell door. Displays interpreted the history of the county -- its principal industries (anthracite, logging, farming/dairy, Xray machines, medicine) as well as home economics, textiles, military. A feature our guide especially liked was a replica log cabin built by the Historical Society in 1905, using a different type of wood from each of the townships in the county.

We spent more than an hour and I could cheerfully have spent more. And it was free! But we gave them $10 anyhow. (No photos were permitted in the museum, but I took this clandestine shot of a piece of painted furniture they had placed in the ladies room. My houseguests will recognize the general style.)

We were disappointed at the Bradford County Courthouse, which has a splendid open rotunda and a striking chandelier. There's a restriction on photography that might show people waiting for court appearances, and the guard was interpreting that as a restriction on photography that included the upper floors, even if no one is there. Le sigh. I thought about trying a surreptitious hand-held available light shot but didn't. I did get this picture of a pair of fake white ducks that some employee decorates with seasonally-appropriate kitsch. Another thing that I photographed because I thought it was just plain weird: they have their PHMC roadside marker for Bradford County inside the court house! Perhaps it's temporary.

The first floor of the rotunda was packed with tables occupied by men and women with laptops and photocopies of old documents -- title searching for The Pipeline, part of the reason that hotel/motel space is so tight right now.

Afterwards, we took a few pictures of the town. This is a town that wears its patriotism on its sleeve. In addition to having one of the rare unblindfolded justices on its court house, and in addition to its handsome Civil War memorial, the light poles have banners attached featuring "Hometown Heroes" -- men and women who have served in the Armed Forces from World War II to the present. Some lost their lives in battle, some are still with us. There were plenty of flag, too.

Our next adventure was a ride north to Athens (aka Tioga Point, where Sullivan built his fort during the Revolutionary War, when he wiped out the Tory/native American coalition, especially the latter, in Sullivan's March). Athens was lovely; I photographed markers and memorials in its pretty little park on the site of the old Athens Academy. Sayre was not pretty, although Roy did some forensic railroading.

No lunch venue appealed; so we decided to eat gorp instead. We struck northeast from Sayre to Nichols NY and thence dropped down via Route 187 and go….back to French Azilum! The weather was much better. We had a lovely ride through the back roads, going through small towns with grand names (such as Rome), and past farms and wineries. We crossed Route 6 and the Susquehanna at Wysox and went back to French Azilum, where we were able to photograph the LaPorte house in excellent afternoon sunlight. We then decided to take the road along the river rather than going straight back to Rt 187 to see where it might take us.

The road took us past the French Azilum Methodist Church. We passed on, but when the road bent around and brought us back, the small white church was visible against a dark backdrop of trees across a green field and was quite striking. So we waited while clouds came and went over the sun and until I was satisfied I'd gotten a good shot. After more back roads, some unpaved, we picked up Rt 187 again and then crossed the Susquehanna at Wyalusing, heading back to our hotel.

We took copious quantities of photos of the hotel, spent a little time on the porch talking with some folks and then headed down to the bar for bar food. This is the kitchen's real forte. We had beer-battered-everything for an appetizer. "Everything" would be mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers, onion rings, onion blossom petals, and French fries. Not yet sated on grease, we ordered bacon cheddar burgers, which came with kettle fries. Our server asked us how we liked them cooked. We said rare and medium rare. We have never before had burgers delivered exactly as we'd ordered them and I am in awe. They were big and juicy and the chips were to die for. Young Adam came by and asked us if we'd been to the Weigh Station. We told him yes we had and we told them he'd recommended it.

After dinner we decided to hang out on the porch a bit, seeing as how it had rained and then stopped. The light was finally right for photographing the town properly, so we went out again and took another million pictures. Then we hung around in our room and watched the second half of The Karate Kid. We both could swear that the original version of this movie had the bad karate dude going after Mr. Miyagi after the tournament and Mr. M. humiliating him with great politesse… *google * google * google* … now Ia see: it was included in some theatrical releases but never put into the TV versions or the DVD. However, it's part of the prologue to Karate Kid II. *youtube * youtube * youtube*….satisfaction.




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There are 64 photos for July 24, beginning here. All entries for this vacation are tagged "anniversary trip."

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

My houseguests will recognize the general style.)

Ha! Right before I read that, I was thinking, boy that looks familiar...

What is The Pipeline?

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Natural gas pipeline, to take the gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale on to a loading dock in, I think, Hoboken. It will run across Bradford County, a bit south of Towanda. We saw the maps a little further on in the trip, when we came back to Towanda and hung out in the public library for a couple hours. They were out on the table in the "local history" section.