Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: Elk Mountain and Back

So! Someone in this house skipped church a week ago.

Yeah. Me.

I got a text from my beautiful cousin Rosemary. "I'm wondering if you could use this glass lamp in your glass art. The lamp died on us but I thought you might be able to use the glass."

I love glass. And I love that Rosemary thought of me even more. "Wow. Yes!"

We left it open as in, "We'll have to get together sometime."

Then Mike saw a segment on our evening news about the Susquehanna Viaduct. And Mike has been talking about wanting to take a trip somewhere — anywhere to see the fall colors. Those things were all rattling around in my head and spit this out. "Mike, we could take a trip up to Rosemary's. She lives in Susquehanna. We could get the glass lamp and see the fall the colors," I proposed and held my breath while he considered it.

"Maybe we can see the Susquehanna Viaduct while we're there," Mike said. "When do you wanna go?"

"I don't know. I'll have to get with Rosemary."

I fired off a text and let her know what we were thinking.

"Elk Mountain is opening the ski lift for fall foliage rides this weekend. You want to go?" she asked.

"What a fabulous idea! You want to go Saturday or Sunday?" I asked.

"Whichever day is nicer," she replied. "And I don't want to go at all if it's nasty outside."

We settled on Sunday.

I fed the cats early. I opened the outside door to put food in the dish on the cat patio (the concrete slab outside the cat room) and took in the sunrise. Then went for my camera so I could share it with you.

We left here around 9:30 and our first stop was McDonald's in Tunkhannock. Mike loves the sausage, egg, muffins. I'd already had breakfast so I just got a parfait. That's just vanilla yogurt with strawberries and blueberries in it.

We were in line at the drive-thru when Mike asks, "What's C with an O inside of it mean?"

This was out of the blue and I was looking around trying to figure out where he was seeing it.

"On the sign across the road."

"Pfft! Like I can see that." I raised my camera to these old Cadalac riddled eyes, zoomed in, and saw the sign.

Mike didn't wait for me to guess. "Company maybe?"

"Sure."

"I wonder why they did it that way," Mike mused. "They did the E inside the L too. Maybe it's because they couldn't make the sign any bigger. Remember in Lake Ozark the size of the sign was based on the square footage of the wall you were putting it on?"

I did remember. And our food came. And we ate it on the fly.

Our next stop wasn't far down the road. The car wash where we left the dust of our dirt roads behind.

I know, right! I take weird pictures.

Then we were on the road for sure.

The Nicholson Viaduct. "I'll pull over so you can get a picture," Mike offered. He didn't really need to. I'm used to taking pictures as we drive along but he was offering to do something nice for me so I let him.

And I was fascinated by the rubber webbing in the parking lot he pulled into. "I wonder what that's for?" I asked and this time I didn't wait for him to answer. "Maybe it keeps the gravel in place?"

This viaduct is in Nicholson but it's really named the Tunkhannock Viaduct because it spans the Tunkhannock Creek. It's 2,375 feet long, has ten arches and eleven piers. The clearance from the ground is 240 feet.

It has two standard gauge tracks. They started construction in May of 1912 and it opened November 6, 1915. At the time it was the largest concrete structure in the world and 50 years later it still held the title of largest concrete bridge in America. It's still in use by freight trains.

More road pictures.

I've only ever gone to Rosemary's when Momma was with me and she never took the same way twice. She knew all of the back roads between here and there and basically just enjoyed the scenery, especially if she wasn't driving. But I wasn't worried. We have an address, a GPS, and a phone number should something go wrong.

"I'm pretty sure Momma never took the highway," I told Mike when our GPS directed us to go that way. But what could we do? We didn't know the way ourselves so we followed the directions and got on the highway. A few miles later we get off the highway, then off the blacktop and on to some dirt country roads.

"There's a guy walking down the road," Mike says.

We were approaching a crossroad and our GPS was directing us to go straight across; the road this guy was on. We stopped and saw the sign. KEEP OUT PRIVATE PROPERTY, it said in all caps.

"Which way?" Mike asked like I should know. "I'll guess I'll let the old truck driver in me take over... Left. Let's go left."

The GPS reroutes us and we were confident it would get us where we wanted to go.

Eventually we got close enough that things were starting to look familiar. Then we rounded a curve and there it was. Carmen and Rosemary's beautiful home.

We said our hellos and shared hugs then piled into Carmen's truck for the trip to Elk Mountain.

More road pictures.

We could see the ski runs carved into the mountain long before we got there.

There were a lot of cars in the parking lot but we found a spot.

On our way to the ski lodge from the parking lot, we rode one of the people transport trucks.

It was really a beautiful day. "But it could be a lot colder up on the mountain," Rosemary advised. "Did you bring a jacket?"

I did but I didn't need it at the moment. Rather than carry it I stuffed it into my bag. It didn't quite fit; some of it stuck out the top. Holding the handles of my bag, my bag rested just below my knees. We were getting off the people truck when I felt a tug on my bag. That's it. Just a little tug. Hardly enough to even bother with. But I turned around to look and there, resting on the grates, was my jacket pull. It had gotten caught between the grates and I didn't know it.

You could walk up the mountain if you wanted to. You could ride up and walk down if you wanted to. We did not want to. We bought tickets and got in line. They were loading every other car so it was only minutes until we were on our way to the top.

Plenty of people were walking up and down the mountain and we hadn't gone far when we hear shouts from the ground. "ROSEMARY! CARMEN!"

"HI!" Rosemary called back with a little laugh in her voice. I don't know if she waved or not cause I didn't turn around.

The next time I hear someone calling their name I turn in my seat and snap a picture.

Look at these smiling beautiful faces.

Would you believe Carmen and Rosemary have been married 57 years! 57! And to each other no less! Heck! That's nearly as long as I've been alive!

A sticker on the rail of our lift car.

At the top people were in my way! They were posing and taking pictures and hogging up the landscape! I didn't want to get in front of them cause then I'd be guilty of the same thing.

We moved on down to another ski run and I got my peopleless landscape pictures, but you know what? The ones with the people in are my favorites!

"Do you see all those little ponds?" Carmen asked. "That's where they get the water from when they're making snow."

"Those are cameras there on those poles," Mike pointed out. All up and down the trails were these cameras and they all had blue bumpers on them. "I guess hitting a pole hurts worse than hitting a tree," I joked.

We ended up having a longer wait to get on the lift to go back down the mountain.

"That's because they can only load every fourth chair," Mike said. He knew cause he saw the sign.

Still and all we felt our timing was pretty good when we decided to head down. The lines continued to get longer and longer as we waited our turn.

This is all that keeps you from falling splat! on the ground. It doesn't look like much does it.

And HOLY COW! When we got to the bottom and saw the lines for people waiting to go up, we felt like we'd been pretty lucky.

We got ice cream and walked around a couple of the vendor tents. We didn't hit all four because Rosemary said, "After the first one or two the rest is just the same stuff."

We made our way to the people transport stop where people were lined up and waiting.

"You know, we could walk to the parking lot. It's all downhill and we can say we walked down the mountain," Rosemary said.

We laughed and opted to walk rather than wait for the truck.

This is the area where my mother grew up and I took more pictures as Rosemary gave us a driving tour.

"There's the garage that Uncle Miles owned," Rosemary pointed out. "I don't remember that he ever had any other job. Look! It still says SMITH above the door!"

Uncle Miles was the brother of my mother's father. Which means he was my great Uncle Miles.

In Thompson, we drive past the hotel my mother's parents used to own. It was pretty sad, really.

"Mike, we should buy it and fix it up so it's back in the family," I said.

Mike didn't even have to think about it. "Nooo!"

We drove out to my grandparents' old farm. The new owners were having a picnic in the field.

They've added an addition to the old farmhouse and made many improvements including a new stone wall.

My grandfather built this barn but I think the new owners have added the stone on the milk house.

More road pictures as we made our way to see the Susquehanna Viaduct.

The Susquehanna Viaduct is really called the Starrucca Viaduct.

Hmmm. We seem to have a few minor discrepancies here between the two signs.

I believe this is the largest stone railway still in use today. It cost $320,000 to build in 1947-48. That would be $9,266,462 today. It has 17 spans of 50 feet. Two tracks. It took 800 workers to build it and each was paid about a dollar a day. In today's money that would equate to $28.96.

There was one of these on the inside of each of the arches. A drain, do you think?

It says E. Face Pier 4 on this stone. "Do you think it's the original writing from when they built it?" I asked Mike.

"I don't know. Maybe."

Both viaducts, this one and the one at Nicholson are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as well as Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks.

Back at Rosemary's, she shared lavender cookies her friend made. I love lavender so I gave them a try. The lavender was strong, too strong in my humble opinion. I think I'd have liked them better if it was more subtle. But what do I know? Maybe, where lavender is concerned, there is no such thing as subtle.

Their son Michael has been gone more than 20 years now and yet his friends continue to gather to remember him.

One of the gifts for the drawing is this awesome aerial shot of the Starrucca Viaduct taken by one of their relatives on the Soden side of the family.

Rosemary gave me a tour of their home. They completed a remodel of the upstairs bedrooms. "There was so much... junk in these rooms you couldn't even get in here. We took out two dumpster loads!" she told me. "I wanted to take down all the wallpaper. We started in the guest room because it was worse. It had become yellow with age." Rosemary laughed with the memory. "I'll tell you what. After we got done with the wallpaper in here the wallpaper in Michael's old room didn't look so bad."

I've heard that taking down wallpaper was a nightmare.

Both rooms were homey and inviting and comfortable looking. A place where you could rest well.

Rosemary showed me a quilt she finally finished. "I've had the pieces made and sitting in a basket for years," she said. "Some of it was fun to make, but the detail... I didn't like that part."

She made one little pig face upside down to make it fun for the little girl who would receive this as a gift.

I think it's so stinkin' cute!