CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE: HEAD FOR THE HILLS!

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE: HEAD FOR THE HILLS!

We returned from our idyllic mountain aerie in Western North Carolina on Wednesday June 11. Slow Motion’s bottom had been painted – not well –and the employee was fired, not just for the poor job on Slow Motion. This earned Slow Motion a better painter, who fixed the first coat of paint and put on a second coat for good measure. Break Out Another Thousand. And you already know the propeller story (need new ones – Break Out A lotta Thousands). But what you haven’t heard about yet is our Great Trip to the Poconos! We called my brother and his wife to ask for sanctuary from the humidity and heat, and they graciously opened their home to us from Saturday June 14 to Friday June 20. They are also fantastic tour guides, an added bonus. And they provided us a necessary “dog fix” with their very vocal, extremely affectionate springer spaniel, Hopi. But this is the topper – the weather was “cool” in every sense of the word – I actually wore a sweat shirt during the day! At night the temp dipped into the 40’s. By day we enjoyed the 70’s and very little humidity. This was perfect weather for the outings we took.

The first outing was a three mile walk on the “rail trail” along the Lehigh River. The river looks wild up here in the Poconos, not at all like the lethargic caramel brown flow through the 8 mile long Bethlehem Steel mills, once very active and now closed but for one former mill which houses a sad, poorly attended casino. The Lehigh is green in the Poconos and it has some rapids with white caps, which the rafters and kayakers were enjoying as we saw them roll down stream toward the brown stuff. We went to the Lehigh River Gorge to look at the solid wall of rhododendron bushes that tower over the trail. The solid wall was definitely there, but alas, the blooms were gone and there were lots of shiny new leaves in their place. Maybe next year. Lois says she’ll go every day next year if she has to, in order to catch the rhodies in full bloom. I think Mother’s Day is a good bet – between then and Memorial Day. We arrived in time to beat the rush, namely the two dozen people and their pooches who were doing a fundraising walk for the Hazelton, PA animal shelter. So we had the trail to ourselves. The air was crisp and the water music from the Lehigh was a constant companion. Hopi was full of energy, and we just loped along with her for about a half hour in one direction, then turned around and retraced our steps. After the Gorge Walk we went back to Lake Naomi, and later Rusty took me to one of the Miller mansions (first settlers of Lake Naomi), where there was still a wall of blooming rhododendrons. I took a gazillion shots, and now I can’t bear to get rid of any of them. The Carolinas and Georgia have their azaleas in the spring time, but nothing beats lavender rhododendron blooms in Pennsylvania in May and June for sheer beauty.

On the morning of the second day of our visit to Pocono Paradise, Rusty took me kayaking on Lake Naomi. That was both refreshing and invigorating. We had this large lake to ourselves and paddled around one of its islands with a light, cool breeze wafting toward us, but not impeding our progress at all. As I type this blog at Calvert Marina I long for that cool breeze and the low humidity that came with it. I had not been kayaking for a number of years. Kayaks are so maneuverable and responsive to every oar movement. The first kayaking I ever did was years ago (high school) with Dick Gold on the Delaware River, where we encountered a few small rapids. I loved that experience. During my married life (long ago), we bought a canoe and paddled around various lakes in Connecticut. I just remember how heavy that Grumman metal canoe was and how hard it was to portage it and get it on top of the car. Kayaks are so much lighter and easier to handle. Then my next whitewater experience was rafting down the Colorado with Arizona Raft Adventures (a great group!) and my friend Patty. That was amazing! Every day we experienced some remarkable natural wonder and found different ways to enjoy the river. We body surfed down a side tributary. We played Frisbee inside a large cave. We covered ourselves in mud and built a mud pyramid. We took showers under gushing waterfalls. We hiked to hidden pools and, most of all, we rode the rapids, which are nature’s roller coasters. I never knew you could pack so much fun into one day or into a series of six days. And kayaking on Lake Naomi with my brother brought a lot of these memorable moments tumbling back.

Foodie alert! There is a gourmet restaurant on Route 209 near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania – Andrew Moore’s Stone Bar Inn. This place makes exquisite soups, particularly bisques. A best buy is the sampler of three of their mouth watering soups. Their rib eye cut of beef was as tender as filet mignon, and the crab cakes were remarkably full of crab. Those were the outstanding dishes, but everything was prepared beautifully and served with aplomb. (or was that “a plum”?). This place was the highlight of our third day of chilling out in the Poconos.

Somewhere between the third and fourth day, the Admiral finally got to help with a home improvement project. He insisted that he be allowed to work on at least one of my brother’s items on his to-do list while he was enjoying the mountain air. And the replacement of the stairs from the garage to the attic was number one on the list. These guys – the Admiral and Rusty – worked together as a team seamlessly, like they had been on the same construction crew for years. There was no shouting, no disagreements, no diva attitudes, no flaring tempers – just smooth, continuous effort until the project was successfully completed. The new stairs look great, and even better, they can support a lot more weight than the old stairs, they’re sturdier and safer. Not one to rest on laurels, the Admiral wanted to move directly to the sump pump project, but that will have to wait for another visit. While not doing manual labor, the Admiral enjoyed making a video of one of the hummingbirds that started to make regular visits to the feeder on the porch. Why is it that we can watch hummingbirds for long periods of time without ever getting bored? It may not generate the same excitement as racing with porpoises, but it ranks very high as an endlessly entertaining event.

Have you heard of Grey Towers? It’s a jewel overlooking the Delaware River Valley Milford, Pa., which also happens to sport a very good drive-in ice cream place. However, before the ice cream break, we toured the Pinchot palace known as Grey Towers. This is a national historic site for the mansion and grounds of Gifford Pinchot, twice governor of Pennsylvania and before that, best outdoor buddy of Teddy Roosevelt. The Bull Moose Prez appointed Gifford to be the first head of the newly created U.S. Forest Service, a division of the Department of Agriculture. Gifford inherited this lovely estate from his father, James Pinchot (1831 – 1908), who made a lot of money making and selling wallpaper in New York. I must say, the Pinchot manor is very nicely wallpapered. James had been used up a lot of trees in his wallpapering business. He also had been very successful in the lumbering business and he regretted cutting down this natural resource in such large quantities. To atone for his “sins” and assuage his conscience, James urged his son Gifford to get into the new field of forestry, which was being developed in the universities in Europe, but had not yet caught on at places like Harvard or Yale.

After graduating from Yale, Gifford Pinchot went to France, the country of his ancestors, and studied forestry at the French National School of Forestry. He returned to the United States on a mission to promote “scientific forestry”. He created the phrase “conservation ethic” as it applied to trees and other natural resources (Source: Wikipedia) and he was the first forester in the United States to show how to manage forest land for continuous cropping. He put all his learning to good use when he served as Forester in Chief of the country from 1905 to 1910, when President Taft fired him. Taft was pretty cuddly with business, much less of a tree hugger than Gifford’s former boss, Teddy R. It also did not help Gifford’s cause that he attacked Taft’s Secretary of Interior, Richard Ballinger, and spoke disparagingly of Taft’s policies. Gifford was lauded for his conservation efforts with the country’s forests, but was no friend of John Muir, because he did not support Muir’s preservation work. Muir wanted to preserve the wildness and scenic beauty of the forests. Pinchot did not ally himself with the wilderness advocates. He definitely wanted to conserve the forests, while at the same time allowing private companies to help manage the national forests. This included extensive timber cutting – in a scientific manner – but Muir loathed all timber cutting. On the other side of this arboreal spectrum was Congress, which opposed Pinchot’s every effort to conserve the forests, despite his alliance with private businesses to do so. Ah, the curse of the political centrist – attacked by both the purists who did not want one tree cut down and the money-grubbing Congressional reps whose backers wanted to exploit the forests for lumber, and more lumber – now! In fact, in 1907 Congress passed a law forbidding the creation of more forest reserves in the Western states. A short time before this law went into effect, Teddy R. designated 16 million more acres of national forests in the West – take that! These 16 million acres of trees were called the Midnight Forests.

Both James and Gifford had incredibly strong wives, Mary and Cornelia, respectively. Mary came from a wealthy New York family and put her strong imprint on Grey Towers, which was designed by Richard Morris Hunt to look like a French chateau. While not mentioned in the literature, I’m sure her wealth helped James purchase 3000 acres of prime Pennsylvania land on which to build their little 43 room summer cabin. Mary certainly did the decorating of all these rooms and she completed her work in 1886. Then decades later Cornelia (1881 – 1960) had her chance to make major changes, when she and Gifford set up their household year round at Grey Towers. This was the Governor’s mansion, and it was opened up several times a year to members of the public, one of the most well attended public events being a yearly ice cream social on the 4^th of July. Cornelia put the main dining room outside the mansion on a covered patio with wisteria growing down from the roof. There was/is a huge table with a “lake” in the middle, and the guides told us that the kitchen staff would bring in the dinner plates and float them to the guests on the water. I don’t know how well this worked in the very cold Pennsylvania winters, but it would be a treat to dine al fresco in this room without walls the rest of the year. This outdoor dining room was called the “Finger Bowl.”

Cornelia Pinchot was really into gardening, and the trees and flowers that cover the grounds are evidence of that. They even had famous guests help out sometimes. There is a large sugar maple still standing which was planted by Civil War Union General William Sherman, a frequent visitor to Grey Towers. When not gardening, Cornelia spent the rest of her time fighting for women’s right to vote, full educational opportunities for women and the protection of women and children from abuse in the workplace. Before there was Eleanor Roosevelt as an active First Lady, there was Cornelia Pinchot, who exerted huge influence on Gifford’s political agenda as Governor of Pennsylvania for two four year terms. While she was successful in getting her husband elected twice to the highest office in the Commonwealth, Cornelia failed to win election on three separate tries for a Congressional seat. And she failed to succeed her husband in the 1934 primary for Governor. It was not until 1942 that Pennsylvania voters elected their first woman representative to Congress. But Cornelia had paved the way for this later success. Small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless. You don’t have to win to be a trailblazer; you just have to try to do something that no one has ever done before.

Did I mention how breathtakingly beautiful the grounds are at Grey Towers? The mansion was, as mansions go, pretty interesting inside. There were too many stuffed animal heads for my taste. Of course, one stuffed moose head is one too many. But the real star of this national park is the landscaping. The Pinchots planted a lot of big shade trees, which were particularly welcome on a hot, sunny day. The view from their hilltop mansion is spectacular. I bet this was one place that dazzled even the late JFK, when he arrived in September, 1963 to dedicate Grey Towers as a national historic site. Gee, September, 1963, just two months before his assassination, JFK had the pleasure of viewing the “Finger Bowl” and looking down on the Delaware River Valley from this magnificent hillside. I’m sure he liked what he saw. I did.

The Admiral and I enjoyed every minute of our Poconos getaway with Rusty and Lois. They are great hosts, and best of all, they delivered on the cool weather. Rain was predicted, but it crashed to the ground in Harrisburg and Williamsport, not making it to our safe hideaway. We were able to make our annual trek to Lake Mineola to put a new coat of preservative on my sister Jean’s redwood bench. This excursion now includes a stop at the Wawa in Brodheadsville to get hoagies to eat in the park across from the road into Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ken’s cabin. The Admiral did a stellar job of making Jean’s bench glow again. I love being around the bench, because her spirit is so strong in that spot. It’s been 18 years since she died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I see more and more of her in her daughter, Gretchen. You never “lose” your loved ones when they die. Yes, you lose the ability to call them regularly on the phone and find out what cool things they’re doing with their lives. That’s the worst part – knowing that Jean could have done so much more in this lifetime and that she could have made me laugh a lot more. Sure, I miss her lasagna and her other cooking specialties, but most of all I miss her unconditional love. I know I still have it, but not in quite the same way. Her death taught me to treasure every member of my family, and that’s what I’m doing. Rusty and Lois, consider yourselves treasured! And come visit us on Slow Motion, as soon as you fix the sump pump – or sooner.