Pictures 28: Adventuring on the Delaware River

About a week before Patrick and I decided we really needed to get outta dodge, we took what was going to be a day trip to High Point State Park in New Jersey and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It turned into an overnight camping trip that also included the Upper Delaware National Scenic River in New York.

We got a late start because I was lazy and wouldn't get out of bed, so for a while Patrick was quite cantankerous. He had wanted to do some serious hiking that day, but since I decided not to get out of bed til about 10 am, his plans were foiled. We tried to make the best of the day anyway, but when signage at the Delaware Water Gap was pretty much the worst we've encountered at any NPS site, then Pat pulled a tendon in his calf that he'd pulled a few weeks ago and which was just starting to heal, it was shaping up to be a pretty lame day.

Since we'd gotten such a late start, however, by about 5:30 or 6 pm, we were still tooling around northeastern Pennsylvania and I said... "Do you want to just - not go home?"

We were in Pat's Jeep, which still had all his camping equipment in it. So he said, um, okay. So we drove up to New York and along the upper Delaware on the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway until we found the Ascalona Campground. What the campground is, basically, is the property of an older couple who had a bunch of prime land along the Delaware and decided to do something awesome with it.

By the time we got there, it was probably near 7 pm, and there was a sign on the main office (aka the proprietors' house) that if you wanted to camp, ring the doorbell if it was before 8 pm - or, if it was after 8 pm, just pitch your tent and register in the morning. We rang the bell, and a woman with a heavy European accent came out and greeted us. When we told her we were just driving around and unexpectedly decided to spend the night, she smiled and said that instead of $15 per person, she'd charge us $12. She told us to camp anywhere - the campground was completely empty, but there was a large party coming in the next day, so we had our pick that night.

We drove down to the campsite furthest away from the main building and pitched the tent. We didn't have service at the campground, so we drove a little ways back south on the byway til we got a bar. I called home and told my parents I wouldn't be home that evening and that I'd see them tomorrow. Done and done.

I'll talk a little bit more about camping when the pictures come up...


This is the monument at NJ's highest point, which also happens to be right near the northernmost point of the state too.


We really couldn't have asked for a better day, weather-wise.

34 more images below the jump - click any one to make it bigger in Photobucket.

Pictures 16: Greene County Miners' Memorial - Pennsylvania

This actually happened before Pittsburgh, but, as is my fashion, I have forgotten to post it earlier. Alas. It's okay, though, because this will probably only be interesting to other weirdos like me who find coal mining fascinating. This is the Greene County Coal Miners Memorial in Kirby, Pennsylvania.

Click any image to see it larger in Photobucket.



See 4 more images below the jump.

Pictures 15: Pittsburgh familiarity and fraternization

Seeing my brother Dan in Pittsburgh was a real treat. We are very, very different people, but when it comes down to it we find the same things funny and regularly text each other seeming non-sequiturs simply because we know the other would appreciate it.

So, hanging out with him, his roommate Matt and his girlfriend Mandy at his place in Lawrenceville was nice. We spent a lot of time just vegging out at his apartment, so that made for a lot of images of the four of us, as well as some cool shots from the roof outside his kitchen window.

If you don't know me, nor do you stalk me online (here or via Facebook), you may not find all of these images too fascinating, but here they are nonetheless.

I am, after all, still enamored of my new-to-me camera, so I really like the way a lot of these images came out.

Click any image to see a larger version in Photobucket.


This is Dan on the first morning I was in town. We were tired and I was showing him how my camera worked. He took a picture of me, too, but it is extremely unflattering and there is no way it is going online.


Looking out his living room window - all those trees got clobbered by the snow this winter.

23 more below the jump...

Pittsburgh, and Pictures 14

It's been nearly a week since I came home from Pittsburgh, and I've yet to write anything about it. I suppose I'll keep it short, then - besides, I didn't do much besides hang out with my brother and sleep on his couch and do nothing - so there aren't a ton of stories to tell.

And, come to think of it, I don't feel like telling stories at all, so I will just show Pittsburgh to you.


A view of the city from Grandview Park in the Mount Washington neighborhood

I think a lot of people have a very mistaken and outdated idea of Pittsburgh. It was established as a steel city in the Allegheny Mountains, a particularly beautiful stretch of the Appalachian Mountains that runs through Pennsylvania and West Virginia. For a long time it existed in a decidedly stereotypical Appalachian realm of being relatively poor, dirty, and decidedly Slavic.

Over the years, what with the decline of the American steel industry, Pittsburgh has seen a waning population and waxing culture. While the town does have two notable colleges - Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh (the latter of which being my brother's alma mater) - students tend to come to Pittsburgh, learn valuable things, then leave Pittsburgh.

For those who stay in town, however, there is an entire city full of blossoming music, theater, art and social circles, all coupled with an incredibly low cost of living and what I think is one of the most picturesque cityscapes in the country.

More images and musings below the jump. Remember to click any image to see it larger on Photobucket.