We left Gettysburg Farm RV Resort on Wednesday June 16 at 9:40 am – Acey’s mileage 73,542.2 and Thor has 86,135 We stopped for fuel in Harrisburg, PA and arrived at Timothy Lake South Family Campground in East Strausburg, PA at about 2:15. While Jim got things hooked up and set up, Linda made lunch. We have full hookups here for our week-long stay.
On Thursday, we drove out to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area to ride our bikes on the McDade Recreational Trail.
The trail runs about 30 miles along the Delaware River on the Pennsylvania side. It is mostly a crushed gravel trail and has a lot of shade
We saw some picnic tables and stopped to eat our packed lunch and enjoyed the view of the river – looking over at New Jersey.
The trail got a quite hilly and some of the gravel bed was loose and large – Linda was not comfortable riding this trail, so we turned back. We rode about 8 miles, and afterward, went in search of some waterfalls.
This very narrow waterfall is appropriately called Silver Thread Falls and would be much more pituresque without all the dead trees in it!
However, it was an unexpected sight on our way to see Dingmans Falls, the second highest waterfall in Pennsylvania, with a plunge of 130 feet. There was a very nice boardwalk from the parking lot all the way to the falls.
A closer look at the top portion of the falls; the first cascade sprayed out quite a way toward us!
We climbed the stairs to see the falls from the top – some 200 plus stairs! You can see the platform below where we were looking up at the falls!
And at the top, there was a lovely upper falls we couldn’t see from the bottom!
Trying to get a good shot of where the falls fell! … don’t drop the phone JIm!!
We found out that the highest waterfall (150 feet) in the state was not far from where we were, so we went to see Raymondskill Falls.
In the above photo, you can see a platform to the right that we opted NOT to ascend to – and apparently there is another section of the falls that could be seen there; you can almost make it out if you look closely! However, there was another section flowing down from where we were standing.
See Raymondskill Falls in action here!
Friday we drove to Scranton to the Steamtown National Historic Site where many steam engines and rail cars are on display. We like to see animals, trees, flowers, trains, waterfalls and bridges – so many interesting things to discover! We took this fun photo of Christopher in Bellevue in 1991 – sadly, the mural is long gone, but not the memory!
Speaking of memories, we came to Steamtown several years ago and young Christopher, who loved anything TRAIN, saw the big steam engine as we drove into the parking lot and said excitedly “That’s a Big Boy!” and we said “Yeah – its big alright” and he said, “No – its a BIG BOY!” and sure enough, when we read the sign… it is called a Big Boy!
Two Big Boys!! You may notice the engine looks off-center; the engine articulates so it could fit on the winding tracks through the mountains without having to re-do the tracks.
Its hard to get all of the Big Boy in one photo!
Here’s a closer look at the front
The wheels are nearly as tall as Linda! (68″)
Being a STEAM engine, it requires a lot of water!
A short lesson on numbers used to describe an engine. Big Boy has a long series of numbers on its cab. The fort several numbers, 4-8-8-4; describe the wheel arrangement – it has 4 lead wheels, two sets of eight driving wheels each, and four trailing wheels – not sure what the 1 indicates… 68 is the size of the drivers (68″), 23 3/4 – 23 3/4 is the diameter of the front and rear cylinders; set over 32 – the piston stroke, 540 is the total weight on the drivers (540,000 pounds!), MB – indicates the stoker type (These numbers are particularly useful for the engineer who’s job is to move engines around the yards, fuel them and bring them to and from the roundhouse)
Read more about the BIG BOY (and Steamtown NHS) here and more history! We went to look at the other trains, the roundhouse and the turntable. So much to see!
Other trains out in the yard
This display in the museum was food for thought! Think how fast we can travel now!
We visited the roundhouse next – that is where mechanics worked on the steam locomotives; it was restored and is used today to house and service Steamtown’s steam locomotives.
Grand Trunk Western #6039 built in 1925 – its a 4-8-2 Mountain locomotive made by Baldwin Locomotive Works.
Here is an empty section of the roundhouse where you can see the “pit” where mechanics can work under the locomotive.
A passenger car from the Lehigh Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway #2317 retired from service in 1959, after 36 years of service and was given a second life serving as an excursion train at Steamtown.
Baldwin #26 is a switch engine, built in 1929, it is still on the job at Steamtown! It is the only locomotive with a sloped tender.
The tender holds 4500 gallons of water!
Looks like there is a lot of work going on here.
A wheel has been removed!
…and a hole in the back…
Spang, Chalfant & Company #8 – a Baldwin 0-6-0 switch engine built in April 1923 and retired from service in 1964. During 1995 and 1996 the locomotive was “sectioned” to visually display locomotive construction methods.
Nickel Plate Road #759 is a 2-8-4 “Berkshire” heavy-duty main-line steam locomotive built in 1944 by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio as a member of the S-2 class for the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, commonly referred to as the “Nickel Plate Road”.
Illinois Central #790 was one of four locomotives built in 1903 by the American Locomotive Company as a 2-8-0 Consolidation type; it is the only survivor! Interesting story on Wikipedia
Out on the turntable, the Canadian National Railways #3254, built in 1917. Its a 2-8-2 Mikado-type locomotive built in the Canadian Locomotive Company’s Kingston, Ontario plant. It has run excursions from Steamtown!
We spent a good part of the day at Steamtown! Afterwards we got the oil changed in Thor and found a brewery in Stroudsburg before we stopped at Aldi and headed back to Acey. Downriver Brewing had a nice seletion of craft brews!
Saturday Jim made pancakes for breakfast, as is our custom. After we had lunch, we walked around the RV park and noticed there were a lot of people over by the pool. There was a fellow there talking about his reptiles and amphibians. He was showing a large bullfrog, a tree frog, a diamondhead terrapin and when he got this great big tortoise out, I had to start taking photos!
This tortoise is his house pet and has free reign at home!
An alligator snapping turtle! What a set of jaws!
And the show stopper – a 5 foot long American Alligator! Forgot to ask how old it was…
A beautiful animal!
Later on Saturday, we Zoomed with the family and heard more details on Tom and Missy’s upcoming wedding in Portland. Chuck is in Utah with some friends, so he didn’t join us. Its really great that we can have these weekly sessions! We lost connection a couple of times. Our internet connection here is rather spotty, but with lots of patience, Linda is getting the blog written… Sunday morning we were unable to Zoom with our Sunday School class – maybe only the second time we haven’t connected since we started to Zoom! But we did tune into the worship service on Jim’s phone! We are begining our second Summer in the Psalms. After next week, the live feed will no longer be available, but we can tune in on YouTube after 3pm Central Time.
Monday Jim had several maintenance chores to attend to. Linda worked on the blog and also worked on her state charm bracelet. Her mother had one she collected charms for during our family travels in the 60’s and early 70’s. It has 12 states and 3 extra charms.
Linda started collecting state charms, thinking she would add them to her mother’s bracelet, but actually found it a better idea to make a second bracelet. So far, it has 18 state charms with 6 more to put on. There are 14 states we do not have charms for yet, but we have not yet been to a few states. A jewelry store in Lititz was a big help in finding some missing states, and some of the enameled ones that are hard to find!
We made pizza for dinner, even tho it is Monday – we usually make pizza on Sunday evening.
before 
after
It rained a good part of the day on Tuesday, so we did some housecleaning and relaxing. Tomorrow we head to Rhode Island for an overnight stop and then on to Maine.
