Lake Pymatuming, Presque Isle, Allegheny National Forest (posted from Smethport Senior Center/Vistor Center, Smethport, PA)
(this post covers 23-25 October)

Wednesday, 25 October-
This morning I woke up shortly after 0700 and after a breakfast of Panera’s Three-Cheese Bread and butter, I called Labashi to provide my latest plans. Yesterday was our 36th anniversary but wait—don’t panic--- we celebrated that over the weekend so we only mentioned it briefly.
I then continued east on Route 6 in on-again-off-again rain but I was listening to an excellent American Radio documentary special about Japanese animation and comic books and their impact on our culture. I’ll have to look into that. I had noticed that our local video store has built up quite a collection of anime’ and I thought that merely the taste of our local video store. When you go in to rent a movie during weekday hours, there’s almost always an anime’ playing on the overhead screens and there are now three entire eight-foot-wide racks of it. The American kids who are so fond of anime say (according to the documentary) it’s much more creative than US comic books and animation.
As I neared Warren I stopped at the PA Visitor’s Center and enjoyed my conversation with the nice lady working there. She provided the normal touring info and also mentioned a newly-opened Allegheny artists co-op in Youngsville which also happens to have espresso. I could not find the co-op but saw the espresso shop, which she told me was called “Mugs and Mugshots”. Now this is an interesting place. The word ‘mugs’ refers to coffee and the word ‘mugshots’ refers to one-hour photo processing. Then again, ‘mugs’ are faces to be photographed and ‘mugshots’ are espresso shots for your coffee. Doesn’t make sense yet? Then you need to walk in the door of ‘Mugs and Mugshots’. Ahead of you are two counters, each only about six feet long. On the left side is the espresso-and-flavored-coffees counter, on the right is one-hour photo processing. I LOVE small towns! Well, mostly I love them. In this case the espresso machine broke a few days ago and was taken out for repair. No mocha for me today. How about some photo processing? And, oh, by the way, as you are leaving you can walk through a door in the wall to your left which leads into the pharmacy. No kidding.
Anyway, back outside I found the arts co-op on the other side of the pharmacy. I entered and nobody was there so I just started browsing. After ten minutes or so I heard someone come in to at the counter at the back of the store and make a phone call. As I browsed up along the wall, I heard her suddenly say, “I’ll call you back, someone’s in here!”. Fortunately she held on long enough to say a customer was in the store— thank goodness. And thus I met the marketing director of the co-op (whose name completely escapes me). We had an interesting chat about the development of the co-op and about the main artists contributing work there. When she explained that the co-op was formerly a pharmacy, a little light went on. Aha—the owner of the co-op building is the owner of the pharmacy, the one-hour-photo counter AND the espresso counter. They are all in one contiguous building but there are three different storefronts. Cool. As I say, I LOVE small towns.
After Youngsville I drove on to downtown Warren, hoping to connect to the internet at the local McDonalds. My buddy at the visitor’s center had told me that’s the only place anywhere around to connect. I checked it out and learned something—it’s not free but it’s actually a decent deal. McDonalds has partnered with providers all over the country and here it’s Waypoint. There are over two hundred sites in Pennsylvania, all of them McDonalds. You have several payment options but basically you are paying $2.95 for two hours of surfing. That seems fair. Of course I know there are a lot of coffee shops which give you free wi-fi so looked up Warren on the Pennsylvania list and there is indeed one listed—Liberty Café. But I drove down there and the street is jammed and the whole area is very busy so I kept going. But it’s nice to know about the McDonalds option. I’ll have to print off the list and keep it with my laptop stuff.
After Warren I drove to Kinzua Dam and stopped at the visitor’s center. The center itself was closed but has a spectacular view of the reservoir and I wished I had brought my camera for the sun was peeking through and the view was great. I then drove on to the Allegheny National Forest ranger station some 8 miles east. Along the way I started seeing snow along the road here and there. As I was climbing in altitude, it wasn’t long until there was a couple of inches of snow cover everywhere but on the road surface. At the ranger starion I bought a map of the ANF and an interesting little book called “Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper”, the autobiography of E.N. Woodcock. In browsing through it this book reminded me of Dan Beard, one of the early writers about life in the outdoors and skills of the outdoorsman. I’m looking forward to this read.
After leaving the ranger station I drove to the nearby North Country Trail crossing of Route 59. I parked Mocha Joe at the trail head and took off down the snow-covered trail. Though it rained and snowed a bit just as I parked Mocha Joe, the clouds now miraculously parted and I had sunny skies for my walk in the snow. I soon happened upon a doe upwind of me and browsing along the trail. I watched her browse for ten minutes or so, then tried to sneak closer. She soon threw the flag and she was gone. And here was where I realized why this walk seemed so magical. Most of the trees still had their leaves and the leaves were in full autumn blaze. The intense reds and yellows had a backdrop of pure white snow as I’d look in some directions or the snow and deep-green hemlocks in others. Again, I need my camera!
I walked for a little under two hours and given the sometimes-slippery footing and the wet snow, I was ready for the van. The sun went in on the latter part of the trip but I had already had a great afternoon.
I then drove back across the bridge and turned down the Longhouse Road and up to Jakes Rocks. I then followed Forest Road 259, looking for campsites. I had learned at the ranger station that dispersed camping is permitted in the Allegheny National Forest but this area was snow-covered so I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to drive back the forest roads much less find somewhere to camp off the main road. But as I continued driving back FR259 I found several places which would work—I’d just have to decide whether I wanted to opt for electric heat at the Red Bridge campground (the only one open now).
I saw that FR259 would connect with FR120 and allow me to get back to the hard road. I took that and was soon at Red Bridge. But there was also a fishermen’s access there. As I stood looking, I saw—actually heard--- a fish jump so that did it—the rod has to come out! I only lasted about a half-hour at it and never got a bite but did enjoy it nonetheless.
I then checked out the campground and it didn’t seem all that special to me. The water system was out of operation in most of the campground though there was supposedly water to the showers. But twenty bucks? When I could drive just a few miles into the forest and camp for free? I’ll just have to do with the propane.
On the way back to the forest road I saw a handsome buck. He had just crossed the road and stopped in the clearing. He happened to be at a curve in the road so I got a good look at him as his eyes followed me. At first glance I thought he was a spike but then saw a branch on the right side—very cool!
Once I got to my camping spot for the night, I made a quick supper of chili and then spent the rest of the evening catching up on my blog. Around 2100 two pickups and a jeep came roaring by and the jeep turned off and bounced down a nearby mudhole-infested “road” then came bouncing back and chased after his buddies. I can’t imagine why that’s fun but then I’m probably not drinking what they’re drinking.

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Tuesday, 24 October-
I woke up late this morning, after eight. I wasn’t hungry so I was on the road by 0830. I had decided to head west on US 6 into Ohio, then take Ohio 7 north to Lake Erie. That took me to the lakeside town of Conneaut, where I caught Route 20 and then 5 to Erie, all in a light rain. Along the way I saw a sign “Elk Creek Access” and wondered what it was access to, so took the turn-off. This turned out to be fishermen’s access to Elk Creek—and it was busy. I’d say there were 30 vehicles in the parking lot, and the fisherman were practically falling over each other in the stream. It was raining pretty hard then but the fish must not have cared— and the fishermen didn’t either. I had lunch there and did see an interesting sight—Amish fishermen. Actually, they were probably Mennonites. They had the flat straw hats, beards-but-no-mustache, black bib-style pants--- and fishing waders and vests! One was carrying a big net— I’ve only seen those for salt water fish—so I’d guess the steelies are pretty good size there.
In Erie, I stopped first at the new Tom Ridge Environmental Center. I was disappointed there, however. The building is brand-new and everything is very clean but it just didn’t seem to have much of a story to tell. I did see one very interesting map. It shows all the shipwrecks around Presque Isle since 1800. And there are hundreds of them, most before 1800 but still quite a few up to 1920. The 1840’s seemed particularly bad. Otherwise, though, not much there of interest to me.
After the Ridge Center, I drove onto Presque Isle. Unfortunately, it was quite windy so I didn’t get to see many birds, though Lake Erie was impressively angered. I did take two short walks on the peninsula, the Pinwheel Trail and Trail A, each a walk of only a half-hour, the latter interrupted by a rain shower. Afterwards I drove into Erie and stopped at the Starbucks, then stopped at a Barnes and Noble bookstore looking for some spare-time reading material. I then drove east via Route 6 to Corry. I passed a Wal-mart and thought I might pick up some batteries and perhaps tomorrow night’s supper. When I came out it was raining hard and I decided that since I only had about an hour and a half of daylight and I don’t know what campgrounds are open further down the road, I’ll just stay the night at Wal-mart. The greeter said I was very welcome to stay and wished me a good night. That evening I watched a very strange Japanese film called ‘Nine Souls’. It’s the story of nine criminals who break out of prison together, car-jack a small RV and go on a road-trip in it, wreaking havoc (mostly on themselves).

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Monday, 23 October-
This week I want to get out into the woods while the weather is still pretty nice, i.e., temps above 50. It wasn’t until this morning that I decided I’d like to see Lake Pymatuming, then Presque Isle, then head more or less across the northern tier counties on US Route 6, perhaps to the end, perhaps only till I run out of time. I want to be back home by the weekend. While the avowed purpose of the trip is to see the fall colors, I’m also hoping to do some walking, see some migrating birds, do a little fall fishing, and maybe even get in some practice with the pistol if I can find a suitable public range along the way. Labashi said she had a good time on our little weekend trip but she had work to do—she has 500 daffodil bulbs due in soon and must prepare for them.
Today was a travel day. After loading up Mocha Joe I got underway around 1000 and drove up above Harrisburg to connect with US 322. Though the skies were cloudy I almost immediately saw fantastic fall colors along 322. As I neared Newport and Millerstown, the sun broke through here and there and lit up the mountainsides. It seemed as though heavenly violins should have been accompanying the shafts of light streaming down on my left even as I saw dark rain-heavy clouds ahead of me. This interplay continued until the Seven Mountains crossing, then colder temperatures, a dark cloud layer settled in and an occasional drizzle started.
At State College I looked for the mobile home park where we had our first home—an 8x35 trailer. The area where our trailer stood is now a strip mall. That’s probably not a bad thing—we couldn’t afford much (and lot rent was $42 a month there at the time) so it wasn’t exactly a country club. But it was clean and well-run and perfect for us. I hope the owners made a mint when they sold it.
Between State College and Philipsburg I stopped at a rest area for a pit stop and was surprised to find it start snowing lightly as I walked back to the van. I called Labashi from the van to keep my promise to let her know my plans as soon as I knew them and we laughed about my plans going awry already.
At Clearfield I stopped at “Guns R Us” (no kidding) to look around and found the specialized Tetra gun grease I’ve been unable to find back home. Yay!
My drive up 322 went slowly, averaging only about 40 miles per hour. I wasn’t in a hurry so it didn’t bother me but it did make for a long day. I finally reached Pymatuming State Park a little after 1700. It didn’t surprise me to find the park office closed but I was able to get a park map. But I was surprised to find the Jamestown campground closed. Since there are three campgrounds around the lake, I looked for a sign to direct me to one of the other campgrounds but to no avail. Since I had to pass the office on the way back I stopped there again to look more carefully for any info about campgrounds. All the brochure says is the campgrounds are open until late October. I called the office number hoping for a recorded message about which campground(s) are open but the message there only spoke of hours for the upcoming 2006 summer season!
I drove the ten miles to the Tuttle campground and found it also blocked off --- but thankfully they had a sign on the road block— go to Linesville (five miles back to the turn, then another five to the campground). But Linesville was indeed open. And I was the only camper. But it was a nice little campground. I had a view of the lake and a nice bathroom/shower facility. There were whitecaps on the lake and the rain was coming down sideways because the wind was blowing so hard, but I was glad to see it anyway. As I had neared the area I heard a weather forecast calling for one to three inches of snow so I elected to pay the extra $2 for electricity so I could run my electric heater and have heat overnight (I don’t run the propane heater overnight—that’s too dangerous).
That evening I watched one of the DVDs I had brought along—“Inside Man”, starring Denzel Washington and directed by Spike Lee. This is another one I thought Labashi wouldn’t like and again I’m proven wrong. It’s not a bad heist movie—there are enough new twists to keep it interesting.