Today was a far more leisurely day - beautiful weather and an opportunity to chat and stretch the legs first at the campground and then with the Alesins, Beers, and Jan Reed when we took the short drive out to the Pennsylvania "grand canyon" at the Leonard Harrison State Park outside of Wellsboro. Here are Ron and Kathy strolling out to the overlook of this beautiful area with the Pine Creek racing through the gorge over 800 feet below us.
Since they were with us and couldn't handle the very steep walk down to the creek, we elected to just go a short way to get deep into the woods and just enjoy the sounds of the birds and rustle of the trees. But if we had continued down we would have been rewarded with beautiful cascading waters rushing to join the creek. (We know because we did do the walk back in 2010 when we were last through here)
At the bottom there is a good four mile long biking/hiking path that follows the creek through the gorge. Why it is only called a creek I don't know since it is fairly wide and in many other places similar waters are called rivers.
On our way back to the campground, I asked Ken to stop long enough for me to jump out and finally take a picture of this neat fountain in the Wellsboro town green. It is Wynken, Blynken, and Nod created by sculpter Mabel Landrum Torrey in the early 1900s. The original stands in the Children's Fountain in Washington Park in Denver, Colorado. This only bronze copy was commissioned and donated to Wellsboro in memory of Elizabeth Cameron Bailey who grew up in Wellsboro as daughter of the then county judge. Her husband also was born here and after their marriage they made Denver their home where he was a Senator, major stockholder in the Crippled Creek Gold Mine and founder of the United States National Bank.
This statue imortalizes the poem written by Eugene Field in the late 1800s and is now known as the Dutch Lullaby. The last verse says: "Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes, and Nod is a little head. And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies is a wee one's trundle bed. So shut your eyes while mother sings of wonderful sights that be. And you shall see the beautiful things as you rock in the misty sea where the old shoe rocked the fisthermen three; Wynken, Blynken, and Nod."
Each night one of the couples has been responsible for the main course of a potluck meal. Tonight was our turn. We fixed tacos that could be eaten in the shell or on greens as a salad. We brought lots of fixings, the Foulkes created a delicious fruit "salad", Jan provided some wonderful peach mango salsa, the Planks contributed some refried beans and a delicious dessert and the Beers provided the bowl of greens. Steve has taken on the job of providing a fire for us to enjoy. Todays started with this tiny twig firestarter.
Here he is enjoying the fruits of his labor while we all enjoyed chatting after dinner. Several of us ladies gathered around the picnic table and played a dice game that Lorraine taught us till it got too dark to see.
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