Thanksgiving, Caledonia’s Bistro, Michaux State Forest, Meadowgrounds, Golden Plough
(posted from home)
(This post covers 23-29 November)
***********************************
Wednesday, 29 November-
This morning Labashi and I went to a local tourist attraction in York, the Golden Plough Tavern. We’ve lived in this area for many years but have never been to some of the local sites. The Golden Plough is a gem and it’s the oldest building in the county, dating back to 1741. This building has a special meaning for us in our familoy history research since it would have been there when my sixth-great grandfather lived in this area and attended Christ Lutheran Church just down the street back in the 1740’s.
The Golden Plough was built by a German man named Eichelberger and had German half-timbered construction you can see here: http://www.yorklinks.net/VirtYork/plough.htm. Today it’s decorated with period furniture and tavern-ware, including a traveler’s trunk which is, literally, a hollowed-out tree trunk. The tavern is connected to the General Gates House, which brings us forward in history to the time of George Washington. It was here where the ‘Conway Cabal’ was derailed, largely by the influence of the Marquis de Lafayette. Our tour guide spoke of a toast by Lafayette wherein he toasted General Washington and thereby indicated his (and France’s) support for Washington rather than Gates, resulting in the failure of the plot. This link tells the story a bit differently: http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=493
We next toured the Bobb House, a later log home of weaver Barnett Bobb. And finally we toured the Courthouse. Here’s an excellent article on the Continental Congress in York: http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=492.
After our tour we ate at the White Rose Café. There I learned that York Town hasn’t changed – at least in some aspects-- since the Continental Congress; my ‘pit ham’ sandwich was merely a very plain sliced—ham sandwich, dramatically over-priced.
That afternoon we drove up to our ‘local’ Cabela’s. I thought I might be able to pick up the scope I’ve been interested in. But it was not to be. I did pick up some hard-to-find butane cartridges for our cook-stove in Mocha Joe but that was it.
That evening we watched two more episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives’.
***********************************
Tuesday, 28 November-
This morning I had my appointment with the periodontist to re-do my bone graft for my dental implant. The periodontist told me he does 50 to 60 of these a year and this will only be the fourth time since 1986 that he has had to re-do one. He said we’d first try to remove the implant from the bone by unscrewing it and if he was able to do that, it would confirm that the graft was a failure. The new bone material is supposed to mend to the existing bone and around the implant very tightly and it should be impossible to remove without cutting (he had a special ‘ossifier’ machine ready to assist in that procedure). But he was able to back out the implant using a hand-tool. The removal was actually a fairly dicey thing in that he had to use enough pressure to see if the implant would back out but not so much as to crack my jawbone. When it released, he said this confirms that the graft did not ‘take’ properly and professed some relief that the implant removal did not require a more extensive procedure. After removing the implant he packed the socket with new bone-graft material and sent me home. We will now have to wait two months for it to mend.
Back home I took my prescribed antibiotics to ward off infection and thought I’d practice a little with my air-soft gun. But the gun’s trigger jammed, then lost all feel entirely; it had broken internally. I decided I’d better take care of that immediately and took it back to Gander Mountain for an exchange. I took a circuitous route home and ended up at Pinchot Park. There I decided I’d try another jog, this one to the dam and back. I noticed more than the normal number of cars around and these were parked near the deer-hunting areas of the park. But I thought I’d be fine on the Lakeside Trail and indeed did not see any hunters there. I had some pain from my left foot and my jog took longer than normal, 56:08 this time.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives’.
******************************
Monday, 27 November-
Today I spent the morning on the web. By mid-day I was anxious to get out on such a fine day on the motorcycle and go somewhere for a walk. Given it’s the first day of buck season I was reluctant to walk in the wooded areas of Rocky Ridge or Pinchot parks because I know they are open to hunting. But Rudy Park is all open fields and has a nice walking track and a cross-country running course. Though I’ve not jogged for a few weeks I thought I’d try jogging the 3-mile cross-country course and see what happens. Some two miles into it I was doing okay but heard someone coming up behind me. A little gray-haired, fifty-ish woman soon joined me and very enthusiastically congratulated me on making it this far. “You’re doing GREAT”, she said. “I saw you starting as I was walking the track and wondered if you were going to try the whole course”. She went on to tell me I had passed the two-mile point and I’d feel like Rocky when I crossed the finish line (to which I replied I was already feeling ‘rocky’). She continued on, saying she bet my kids, if I had any, couldn’t do this and told me she has lost 100 pounds in the last year. She was amazing. After our little chat she trotted ahead effortlessly. I picked up my pace a bit in an effort to keep her from widening the gap so quickly but she seemed to just keep accelerating away. After she crossed the finish line way out ahead she began walking and occasionally looking back. As I crossed the line a few minutes later, she raised her arms Rocky-style and so did I. It DID feel good! Back at the parking lot she saw me approaching the drinking fountain and yelled over to tell me it had been shut down for the winter but I was welcome to one of her spare water bottles. We then chatted for a few minutes and I learned she and her husband have a fifth-wheel travel trailer and go to Florida each winter. She said they pay $1000 for the month of January and more for the month of February for their little parking spot along A1A south of Daytona.
That evening we were ready for a movie so I picked up the ‘Desperate Housewives- Season Two’ disk set and we watched the first three episodes.
********************************
Sunday, 26 November-
This morning I was poring over the map of the Michaux State Forest I had picked up this weekend and it occurred to me my brother Maypo may want to ride along today. When I picked him up we decided instead to take US30 west, across Tuscarora Mountain and on to Meadowgrounds Lake on the State Game Lands. There we walked across the dam at the south end of the lake to the Jarrett Trail. As we walked across the dam we had a magnificent view of the 200-acre lake stretching off into the distance; this view looks like the inland lakes of Maine or Quebec. We followed the trail down into the beautiful little creek valley but it wasn’t long until we ran into a problem; the trail continued on the other side of the creek. We took a deer trail up the right bank then turned back along the creek, hoping to find a way across it but the creek soon cut across to a sheer bank. So much for that plan. Since I had a GPS in my daypack we pulled it out and established a waypoint we could return to if necessary, then headed cross-country, following another deer trail. We eventually came out to a gas-line clearing we recognized just as a hunter came down along the pipeline trail. He was out preparing for opening day tomorrow and told us of two forest roads we could take on the mountain above us.
********************************
Saturday, 25 November-
After our drive through the Michaux State Forest yesterday and a forecast for two more sunny-and-60 days, I decided to head back to the Forest. I didn’t get started until noontime but by 1400 I was fishing in Fuller Lake. I had a great spot in the sun and just enjoyed trying out a variety of lures, all of which were of no interest to the fish. I then started fishing Mountain Stream with some new (to me) ultralight jig-style lures called ‘Trout Magnets’. After fishing for a couple of hours I took a break and drove Mocha Joe over to the Pine Grove Furnace State Park campground. When I realized I had to take the registration envelope to the park office, I decided I’d walk back to Fuller Lake and fish until dark, then circle back via the park office to drop off the envelope. On my walk to the lake I surprised four deer near one of the cabins. By the time I reached the lake, I only had a half-hour until dark. I had two hits on Trout Magnets, then no luck with a plastic perch minnow and a small silver countdown Rapala. As darkness fell a barred owl began calling in the distance—very cool!
I walked back to the campground in the rapidly-falling temperatures and made supper in Mocha Joe, then watched the movie ‘Sniper’ with Tom Berenger. This is one of our movies from a collection lent to us by my nephew. I try to select ones I don’t think Labashi would like. This one could have been worse. It had a few plot twists that kept things interesting. With the sun setting so early I had finished the movie by 2000 so fired up the laptop and blogged for awhile before turning to my bed and a good book. The book in this case is one of three very good books lent to me by my other brother when I visited a few weeks ago. They’re about Alaskan bush-pilots and their many adventures. Tonight’s is ‘Wager with the Wind; the Don Sheldon Story’.
********************************
Friday, 24 November-
We spent the morning visiting a long-time family friend who is now in an assisted-care facility near my brother’s home. She and her husband had befriended Labashi’s family when they first moved to this town in the mid-Fifties. Later, they also happened to be the adult leaders for the church youth group I belonged to and it was through them that I first met Labashi in the Fall of 1967. We had a great visit today and were happy to see she has made a lot of progress in her physical therapy treatments and is re-gaining a measure of her independence. We wish her the best.
Afterwards we began winding our way toward home, first stopping at Starbucks for a pick-me-up, then Labashi wanted to stop at the local Wal-mart for some special Christmas decorations which were out of stock at our home Wal-mart. In mid-afternoon we were extra-hungry and stopped at a new-to-us restaurant near the Michaux State Forest. In the past, this place had been a somewhat-rundown bar which appeared to cater to hunters (judging by the vehicles parked outside back then). But on our trips through this area in the past few months we had noticed it had new owners and had changed into a bistro. Given the stone parking lot and pickups outnumbering cars in the parking lot today we hoped we’d be able to get a decent hamburger and a beer and if not, we’d keep going. We were pleasantly surprised to find it’s a very upscale, white-tablecloth restaurant inside. In fact, from our experience here, we think it’s now the best in the area. Instead of a beer we had specialty martini’s (I’m a sucker for a chocolate martini). Labashi had an ultra-fresh seafood wrap and I had a crab-cake sandwich, then we shared a fantastic homemade crème brulee for dessert.
After our late-lunch I talked Labashi into taking the longer way home on this beautiful 65-and-sunny day. We drove into Michaux State Forest and took the dirt road back to Long Pine Run reservoir. I fished for an hour while Labashi read and just relaxed in her lawn chair alongside the reservoir lake.
As shadows told us we didn’t have long till dark, we headed home and spent the evening at our computers.
********************************
Thursday, 23 November-
Happy Thanksgiving! Today we spent the morning doing a few chores then drove to my brother’s home for a Thanksgiving meal. After our turkey dinner and pumpkin cheesecake dessert, we spent the evening chatting and reminiscing about family and friends. Afterwards, Labashi and I spent the night in Mocha Joe parked in my brother’s driveway. That makes visits simple; we don’t intrude and we sleep very well in our own comfy bed.
(posted from home)
(This post covers 23-29 November)
***********************************
Wednesday, 29 November-
This morning Labashi and I went to a local tourist attraction in York, the Golden Plough Tavern. We’ve lived in this area for many years but have never been to some of the local sites. The Golden Plough is a gem and it’s the oldest building in the county, dating back to 1741. This building has a special meaning for us in our familoy history research since it would have been there when my sixth-great grandfather lived in this area and attended Christ Lutheran Church just down the street back in the 1740’s.
The Golden Plough was built by a German man named Eichelberger and had German half-timbered construction you can see here: http://www.yorklinks.net/VirtYork/plough.htm. Today it’s decorated with period furniture and tavern-ware, including a traveler’s trunk which is, literally, a hollowed-out tree trunk. The tavern is connected to the General Gates House, which brings us forward in history to the time of George Washington. It was here where the ‘Conway Cabal’ was derailed, largely by the influence of the Marquis de Lafayette. Our tour guide spoke of a toast by Lafayette wherein he toasted General Washington and thereby indicated his (and France’s) support for Washington rather than Gates, resulting in the failure of the plot. This link tells the story a bit differently: http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=493
We next toured the Bobb House, a later log home of weaver Barnett Bobb. And finally we toured the Courthouse. Here’s an excellent article on the Continental Congress in York: http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=492.
After our tour we ate at the White Rose Café. There I learned that York Town hasn’t changed – at least in some aspects-- since the Continental Congress; my ‘pit ham’ sandwich was merely a very plain sliced—ham sandwich, dramatically over-priced.
That afternoon we drove up to our ‘local’ Cabela’s. I thought I might be able to pick up the scope I’ve been interested in. But it was not to be. I did pick up some hard-to-find butane cartridges for our cook-stove in Mocha Joe but that was it.
That evening we watched two more episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives’.
***********************************
Tuesday, 28 November-
This morning I had my appointment with the periodontist to re-do my bone graft for my dental implant. The periodontist told me he does 50 to 60 of these a year and this will only be the fourth time since 1986 that he has had to re-do one. He said we’d first try to remove the implant from the bone by unscrewing it and if he was able to do that, it would confirm that the graft was a failure. The new bone material is supposed to mend to the existing bone and around the implant very tightly and it should be impossible to remove without cutting (he had a special ‘ossifier’ machine ready to assist in that procedure). But he was able to back out the implant using a hand-tool. The removal was actually a fairly dicey thing in that he had to use enough pressure to see if the implant would back out but not so much as to crack my jawbone. When it released, he said this confirms that the graft did not ‘take’ properly and professed some relief that the implant removal did not require a more extensive procedure. After removing the implant he packed the socket with new bone-graft material and sent me home. We will now have to wait two months for it to mend.
Back home I took my prescribed antibiotics to ward off infection and thought I’d practice a little with my air-soft gun. But the gun’s trigger jammed, then lost all feel entirely; it had broken internally. I decided I’d better take care of that immediately and took it back to Gander Mountain for an exchange. I took a circuitous route home and ended up at Pinchot Park. There I decided I’d try another jog, this one to the dam and back. I noticed more than the normal number of cars around and these were parked near the deer-hunting areas of the park. But I thought I’d be fine on the Lakeside Trail and indeed did not see any hunters there. I had some pain from my left foot and my jog took longer than normal, 56:08 this time.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives’.
******************************
Monday, 27 November-
Today I spent the morning on the web. By mid-day I was anxious to get out on such a fine day on the motorcycle and go somewhere for a walk. Given it’s the first day of buck season I was reluctant to walk in the wooded areas of Rocky Ridge or Pinchot parks because I know they are open to hunting. But Rudy Park is all open fields and has a nice walking track and a cross-country running course. Though I’ve not jogged for a few weeks I thought I’d try jogging the 3-mile cross-country course and see what happens. Some two miles into it I was doing okay but heard someone coming up behind me. A little gray-haired, fifty-ish woman soon joined me and very enthusiastically congratulated me on making it this far. “You’re doing GREAT”, she said. “I saw you starting as I was walking the track and wondered if you were going to try the whole course”. She went on to tell me I had passed the two-mile point and I’d feel like Rocky when I crossed the finish line (to which I replied I was already feeling ‘rocky’). She continued on, saying she bet my kids, if I had any, couldn’t do this and told me she has lost 100 pounds in the last year. She was amazing. After our little chat she trotted ahead effortlessly. I picked up my pace a bit in an effort to keep her from widening the gap so quickly but she seemed to just keep accelerating away. After she crossed the finish line way out ahead she began walking and occasionally looking back. As I crossed the line a few minutes later, she raised her arms Rocky-style and so did I. It DID feel good! Back at the parking lot she saw me approaching the drinking fountain and yelled over to tell me it had been shut down for the winter but I was welcome to one of her spare water bottles. We then chatted for a few minutes and I learned she and her husband have a fifth-wheel travel trailer and go to Florida each winter. She said they pay $1000 for the month of January and more for the month of February for their little parking spot along A1A south of Daytona.
That evening we were ready for a movie so I picked up the ‘Desperate Housewives- Season Two’ disk set and we watched the first three episodes.
********************************
Sunday, 26 November-
This morning I was poring over the map of the Michaux State Forest I had picked up this weekend and it occurred to me my brother Maypo may want to ride along today. When I picked him up we decided instead to take US30 west, across Tuscarora Mountain and on to Meadowgrounds Lake on the State Game Lands. There we walked across the dam at the south end of the lake to the Jarrett Trail. As we walked across the dam we had a magnificent view of the 200-acre lake stretching off into the distance; this view looks like the inland lakes of Maine or Quebec. We followed the trail down into the beautiful little creek valley but it wasn’t long until we ran into a problem; the trail continued on the other side of the creek. We took a deer trail up the right bank then turned back along the creek, hoping to find a way across it but the creek soon cut across to a sheer bank. So much for that plan. Since I had a GPS in my daypack we pulled it out and established a waypoint we could return to if necessary, then headed cross-country, following another deer trail. We eventually came out to a gas-line clearing we recognized just as a hunter came down along the pipeline trail. He was out preparing for opening day tomorrow and told us of two forest roads we could take on the mountain above us.
********************************
Saturday, 25 November-
After our drive through the Michaux State Forest yesterday and a forecast for two more sunny-and-60 days, I decided to head back to the Forest. I didn’t get started until noontime but by 1400 I was fishing in Fuller Lake. I had a great spot in the sun and just enjoyed trying out a variety of lures, all of which were of no interest to the fish. I then started fishing Mountain Stream with some new (to me) ultralight jig-style lures called ‘Trout Magnets’. After fishing for a couple of hours I took a break and drove Mocha Joe over to the Pine Grove Furnace State Park campground. When I realized I had to take the registration envelope to the park office, I decided I’d walk back to Fuller Lake and fish until dark, then circle back via the park office to drop off the envelope. On my walk to the lake I surprised four deer near one of the cabins. By the time I reached the lake, I only had a half-hour until dark. I had two hits on Trout Magnets, then no luck with a plastic perch minnow and a small silver countdown Rapala. As darkness fell a barred owl began calling in the distance—very cool!
I walked back to the campground in the rapidly-falling temperatures and made supper in Mocha Joe, then watched the movie ‘Sniper’ with Tom Berenger. This is one of our movies from a collection lent to us by my nephew. I try to select ones I don’t think Labashi would like. This one could have been worse. It had a few plot twists that kept things interesting. With the sun setting so early I had finished the movie by 2000 so fired up the laptop and blogged for awhile before turning to my bed and a good book. The book in this case is one of three very good books lent to me by my other brother when I visited a few weeks ago. They’re about Alaskan bush-pilots and their many adventures. Tonight’s is ‘Wager with the Wind; the Don Sheldon Story’.
********************************
Friday, 24 November-
We spent the morning visiting a long-time family friend who is now in an assisted-care facility near my brother’s home. She and her husband had befriended Labashi’s family when they first moved to this town in the mid-Fifties. Later, they also happened to be the adult leaders for the church youth group I belonged to and it was through them that I first met Labashi in the Fall of 1967. We had a great visit today and were happy to see she has made a lot of progress in her physical therapy treatments and is re-gaining a measure of her independence. We wish her the best.
Afterwards we began winding our way toward home, first stopping at Starbucks for a pick-me-up, then Labashi wanted to stop at the local Wal-mart for some special Christmas decorations which were out of stock at our home Wal-mart. In mid-afternoon we were extra-hungry and stopped at a new-to-us restaurant near the Michaux State Forest. In the past, this place had been a somewhat-rundown bar which appeared to cater to hunters (judging by the vehicles parked outside back then). But on our trips through this area in the past few months we had noticed it had new owners and had changed into a bistro. Given the stone parking lot and pickups outnumbering cars in the parking lot today we hoped we’d be able to get a decent hamburger and a beer and if not, we’d keep going. We were pleasantly surprised to find it’s a very upscale, white-tablecloth restaurant inside. In fact, from our experience here, we think it’s now the best in the area. Instead of a beer we had specialty martini’s (I’m a sucker for a chocolate martini). Labashi had an ultra-fresh seafood wrap and I had a crab-cake sandwich, then we shared a fantastic homemade crème brulee for dessert.
After our late-lunch I talked Labashi into taking the longer way home on this beautiful 65-and-sunny day. We drove into Michaux State Forest and took the dirt road back to Long Pine Run reservoir. I fished for an hour while Labashi read and just relaxed in her lawn chair alongside the reservoir lake.
As shadows told us we didn’t have long till dark, we headed home and spent the evening at our computers.
********************************
Thursday, 23 November-
Happy Thanksgiving! Today we spent the morning doing a few chores then drove to my brother’s home for a Thanksgiving meal. After our turkey dinner and pumpkin cheesecake dessert, we spent the evening chatting and reminiscing about family and friends. Afterwards, Labashi and I spent the night in Mocha Joe parked in my brother’s driveway. That makes visits simple; we don’t intrude and we sleep very well in our own comfy bed.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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