When winter sets in and day after day after day is nothing but gloomy gray skies, what’s a farmer to do? Get away, of course! Usually folks getaway to warmer places, but not this farmer–she ventured north to Niagara Falls!!!!
I have a friend who lives near there and I was wanting to get away from the farm for a few days so I watched the weather closely and voila! There it was in the forecast–a long weekend without snow. I loaded up the Subaru veggie wagon and off we went.
The drive up through West Virginia was beautiful and what made the drive manageable in one day was an audio book named “The Secret Life of Bees”. AWESOME book! I was at my friend’s house in 12 hours exactly, but it sure didn’t seem like that thanks to the book.
Did you know that Case Knives and Zippo Lighters are made by the same company? I didn’t! They have an awesome museum in Bradford, PA that I toured.
You wouldn’t believe all the different Zippo lighters that have been made. They have extensive collections of military, celebrities, rock stars, cartoon characters–you name it. You can even design your own lighter at Zippo.com. Heck, they’ll even repair your lighter for free! A flag display had been created and I got my picture taken in front of it. The tie-dye shirt almost blends in with all the lighters….
Another interesting part of the trip was a visit to Heart’s Content Virgin Forest in the Allegheny National Forest. The hemlock trees there were monstrous and lots of them were down due to a tornado that came through several years ago. It was still interesting to see so many huge trees in one spot.
The most “touristy” trek on my trip was a visit to Niagara Falls. Niagara has never been on my bucket list because I prefer attractions that aren’t so commercialized, but Niagara is pretty spectacular. It was great that there weren’t a lot of people there and the weather was decent.
This shot was taken from the other side of the falls (still on the American side). The big green thing is the observation tower where you first walk into the park. One of the most interesting things I saw were black squirrels running all over the park…..
They were so cute! And this fat squirrel who never moved a muscle the entire time we stood there taking pictures and gawking at him…
One more interesting place we visited was Lynn Hall. Ever heard of Fallingwater that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright? Well, the fellow that actually built Fallingwater is the person who built Lynn Hall. It’s right outside Bradford and is currently under restoration by a couple who purchased it a few years back to save it from completely rotting away. I didn’t get any photos of it, but they have a website called Lynn Hall Restoration Project that has the history of the house and a bunch of photographs. It’s classic Frank Lloyd Wright design, but by a different designer.
The trip home was a little nervewracking, to start with anyway. I was to leave Monday morning and looking at the weather forecast for the route home wasn’t pretty. Major snow all up and down through Pa, Ohio, W Va, Ky, and Tn. I opted to take the flat route through Ohio. While watching the weather forecast I told myself if the snow is going to be hit-and-miss all the way home, I’ll just drive through the misses–and I did! The Secret Life of Bees ended somewhere in Ohio, way to soon, and I had borrowed another book called “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde but I COULD NOT get into that book, so I just jammed out to cd’s I had in the car. The worst road I hit was Hebbertsburg Road in Crab Orchard, Tennessee, and I was home!!!!
It was a fun break from boring winter and the monotonous chores of building beehive parts here on the farm; however, the chances of seeing that part of the country in February, without it being buried under several feet of snow, are very slim.
Wild Things Farm 