Bickle Knob

Oh, wait! Before I got to Bickle Knob, I stopped at the Coberly Sods grazing area for the next geocache in the series: PFC2 (Coberly Sods). The coordinates seemed to be good because I was right at the gate, but the only thing I found was a film container lid held down with a rock on top of the sign. Nothing else.

Alright, on to Bickle Knob....

(Bear Heaven :). Gotta love it. I'm going there.....)

More beautiful stonework, presumably a spring, but no water was flowing:

You can't quite see the tower when you start up the hill from the parking area:

 
There. Now you can see it through the trees: 

(wait for the next post....remember the 5 pic limit....?)



It's a Sign

This sign was good enough to find a spot to turn around and go back to snap a picture:

You can see M's smiling face in the side mirror. We were cracking up. I didn't want to take the chance of it not being here next time I drove by; I had to get a picture. Actually, I got several.

There were other -worse- words painted onto the board and scribbled out with spray paint, but apparently the most important word was unmistakable.

I wonder who lives down that way?

Daytripping - Raccoon Creek State Park, Pennsylvania

Before I tell you about my trip, I want to insert some gratitude for my wee little gas sipper:


I get about 34mpg just zipping back and forth to town, but on the highway it easily gets 40mpg. I've always thought tiny 4-cylinder engines were smart, but now that gas prices are so high more people understand why I like it so much.
Alright, I'm done talking about gas prices. For now. But, yes, I plan to revisit the subject...


Raccoon Creek State Park is located in Pennsylvania just to the east of the northernmost tip of the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. And, being as close as it is to West Virginia, it is beautiful.



So what did it take to get me to go? To get me to leave West Virginia, even for such a short time? To take me away from my writing, my coffee house construction, my kids, my daily chaos routine?



Part of it was the lure of a walk in the woods, but there's no need to go anywhere for that. I am very blessed with plenty of woods and plenty of walking space right here at home. Plenty of that West Virginia beauty, too.



Really, the reason I went? Friends. Good old friends.
They drove down from Ohio and Raccoon Creek State Park is just about exactly the halfway point (now that we know this, we should get together more often).
And it was worth the trip.

Walking up a hill, Nancy spotted this:


And from the back side of the tree it looked like this:

I wonder how many years it's been there?








It was just enough further north that jack-in-the-pulpit still sat in his pulpit:




All those beautiful pictures of green and now I have to throw this one in:


I've never seen a giant M&M vending machine.
Maybe I'm just not paying attention.

Thanks, Lisa and Nancy, for being my friends and loving a walk in the woods as much as I do.

'Shoot to Win'

I followed this down Route 50, coming back from Preston County:



I've always said that I am going to get a bumper sticker made especially for PC that says "Weird Load," but this guy wins for the day because, for once, our load wasn't all that weird.
What were we hauling? You'll have to wait until I get time to post about it over at The Grafton 123 House of Coffee blog site.....