Pennsylvania

Aug 27 47691 8:40

We are headed out of Buffalo/North Tonawanda today. We have had a wonderful and fun filled weekend here. The launch club could mot have been any more hospitable. Dinner, tubing, movies and popcorn and friendly people, it has been just great.

We hop the expressway and beat a hasty retreat out of town. It is still rush hours but not bad at all. Our weather today is perfect, low 70's, blue skies with puffy white clouds.

We are traveling the back roads in Western New York but so far they are great, four lanes, smooth and beautifully maintained.

Betty, your little village of Ellicotville is beautiful. What a nice get-away and with ski slopes you can see from town. The yards are beautiful, manicured and a bounty of blooms

We pick up I-86 in Salamanca and head east/southeast headed for Pennsylvania. We are in hills down with altitudes around 1400-1600, lots if trees and some are just beginning to turn.

At Bradford Junction we stop for fuel and get diesel for $2.80 a gallon, only took 38 gallons this time, fuel mileage is at 9.2mpg.

We enter Pennsylvania in about 15 minutes. We are on back roads again headed to Coudersport and US 6. This route can be traced back to 1807 when state officials mandated that a road be cut through the Moosic Mountains to enable easier travel to the western part of the state.

In 1925 Route 6 was incorporated into a highway system that would connect the U.S. from coast to coast. US 6 stretches from Cape Cod to Long Beach, Ca. and became the first transcontinental highway. Today it remains one of the longest highways in the nation.

On June 30, 1937 Route 6 was designed the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Highway to honor the veterans of the Civil War.

The road passes through multiple state parks and state forests with charming country towns in between. It has been named one of the 10 to scenic drives in American.

We turn off the main highway to go and find the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. It is five miles off the road on a state forest road, but at least this time it is paved.

The Grand Canyon has been formed by the Pine Creek River and is 50 miles long and 1,000' deep. The forest road is tree-lined, with ferns and small shrubs on the floor. It is beautiful here.

My GPS Is totally confused and does not know where it is due to the tree coverage, hopefully when we come out in the open it will find us. IT DID, YEAH!!!

This is a beautiful state, lots of green trees that will change to red, orange and yellow in a few weeks. The towns are small and quaint, tree lined in the middle of town, lots of small old fashioned stores. Historic sites are on nearly every corner and they are well marked. The buildings are hundreds of years old, some dating back to the late 1700's, manyof them from the 1800's.

It seems like some important event happened in each little village you go through. This is also the beginning of Amish country so you are on the lookout for buggies pulled by horses.

Williamsport is the home of the Little League World Series and there are ball parks everywhere. The series just concluded yesterday so I imagine tht this area was a mad house for the past 2 weeks.

We are staying in a campground in Montgomery, PA 10 miles south of Williamsport and right on the banks of the Susquehanna River. It is a nice spot, Laundromat, restaurant, play equipment for the kids and low sloping riverbank. You can put a boat in and pull it up on the bank. We will just be here for the night and head to Strasburg and Gettysburg tomorrow.

Aug 27, 2007

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