Usually at this time of year, I’m one of these guys—hip deep in 58-degree water—but not this year. This year, I hit Fisherman’s Paradise via Houserville road—rolling through the ess curves that hug Spring Creek. The trout can wait.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Trout? What Trout?
The bike started. The weather has moved from dismal to passable. I’m on the road. It’s a week before tout season, and I’m more concerned with road conditions and wind chill. This is not me in spring.
Usually at this time of year, I’m one of these guys—hip deep in 58-degree water—but not this year. This year, I hit Fisherman’s Paradise via Houserville road—rolling through the ess curves that hug Spring Creek. The trout can wait.
Usually at this time of year, I’m one of these guys—hip deep in 58-degree water—but not this year. This year, I hit Fisherman’s Paradise via Houserville road—rolling through the ess curves that hug Spring Creek. The trout can wait.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Not Quite Spring
After nearly eight weeks the stars aligned. The day was warm enough. I had no meetings. It was Saturday.
This time of year is one of my favorites. The colors of the late winter landscape are made from muted grays and browns punctuated by the occasional spike of blue sky. The chop in the fields from last fall is tinted black with manure. The smell drifts into my helmet and stays. The joy of being on the road again makes up for the sting.
It’s been a long winter. I’m looking forward to finding my way back to lazy weekends and roads to nowhere.
This time of year is one of my favorites. The colors of the late winter landscape are made from muted grays and browns punctuated by the occasional spike of blue sky. The chop in the fields from last fall is tinted black with manure. The smell drifts into my helmet and stays. The joy of being on the road again makes up for the sting.
It’s been a long winter. I’m looking forward to finding my way back to lazy weekends and roads to nowhere.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Remnants
One of the things I like about central Pennsylvania is the uneasy relationship between old industry and the wild. Foundries beside trout streams and dusty limestone plants nestled in tight to mountainsides—all are remnants of an earlier time in our history when small towns boomed around coal, timber, and limestone.
Outside of Bellefonte there are several limestone plants—juggernauts of industry where mountains are crushed to grade. Piles of stone sit next to the road, covered in the white dust that cakes the surrounding buildings. Mercury-vapor lights illuminate the process late into the summer evenings. When I was a kid, I wanted to slide down those piles and run back up again.
Farther north are shale fields where the vegetation and topsoil was stripped away. Stretches of forest—already denuded several times over—were put to the not so gentle touch of draglines in search of coal. As a teenager, my cousins and I would comb through these fields for fossils, and practice our marksmanship with .22s on old cans of PBR and Genesee that littered the dirt roads.
Several of these old strip mines to the north of Snow Shoe are now being reclaimed. I passed by one late last summer on my way to a back-country trout stream that runs late into the season. Once the weather clears I’ll ride up there again and see how it looks.
Outside of Bellefonte there are several limestone plants—juggernauts of industry where mountains are crushed to grade. Piles of stone sit next to the road, covered in the white dust that cakes the surrounding buildings. Mercury-vapor lights illuminate the process late into the summer evenings. When I was a kid, I wanted to slide down those piles and run back up again.
Farther north are shale fields where the vegetation and topsoil was stripped away. Stretches of forest—already denuded several times over—were put to the not so gentle touch of draglines in search of coal. As a teenager, my cousins and I would comb through these fields for fossils, and practice our marksmanship with .22s on old cans of PBR and Genesee that littered the dirt roads.
Several of these old strip mines to the north of Snow Shoe are now being reclaimed. I passed by one late last summer on my way to a back-country trout stream that runs late into the season. Once the weather clears I’ll ride up there again and see how it looks.
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