Hopewell Village National Historic Site NRHP Nomination Form

I am working on adding the contributing buildings for the Hopewell Village National Historic Site to Waymarking.  For a copy of the nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, visit Hopewell Village . As of this date, it has not yet been scanned and  uploaded to the NRHP website.

The Whispering Giants

I have spent the past nine days at our home in Florida, recovering from a very busy summer of helping my daughter and my two grandchildren and preparing for a very intense couple of month helping my husband recover from surgery.  These two weeks were the only times that I have had for a long time where no one needed me so we decided to make the most of it and I drove to Florida.  My main thoughts as I was driving the 1000 miles to get here dealt with what fun and exciting thing I would do first.  And now, this is my last day here and I have gone so many places and done so many neat things and I was prepared for this to be just the day that I would clean up the condo and prepare to leave in the morning.  But....I had a couple of things left on my to do list.  One of those was to visit the Peter Wolf Toth gallery in Edgewater.  I was familiar with Peter's Whispering Giants from letterboxing.  Years ago, I found a box based on his Williamsport, Pennsylvania Giant #65.  This is the photo I took of this masterpiece in 2006.

So, today, the last day of my "ME" vacation, I decided to go find Peter Toth's gallery.  And, boy, did I find it.  Not only did I find the gallery but I also met the wonderful sculptor, Peter Wolf Toth!  I was cruising by the gallery, trying to determine where would be the best spot to take a photo when I saw some movement between the pictures and sculptures and a man appeared with a watering can.  It was the artist himself.  He signaled me to stop and asked me if I knew his work.  I told him I did and that I loved his Whispering Giants.  In addition to my PA encounter, I have also seen the two that he has in Delaware and one in Virginia.  He then asked me if I wanted a copy of all of his Giants' locations and pointed to a stack of papers hanging near the entrance to his gallery.  

I got out of the car and retrieved one of the papers and then Peter and I had a very interesting conversation about his work and which I had seen and what his new work is...oh, it is a Giant for the Amazon!  The man was very easy to talk to but soon it was time to go.  I asked him if I could take some pictures and he told me "Take as many as you want but once you have enough, don't take any more."  I happily walked around and snapped a few pictures and marveled at what had just happened to me.

 

The Pagoda at Night

One of the Waymarking categories that I just recently noticed (there are a LOT of categories!) is called Scenic at Night with a one line teaser that states "Find and photograph the places that look their best when the sun goes down."  Without thinking, I KNEW the exact spot to go to take pictures for this category.  The Reading Pagoda sits 682 feet above the city of Reading.  The view there during the day is beautiful but the view at night is breathtaking.  So, I enlisted Bill to be my driver up the windy road.  We got to the top and were absolutely amazed that the parking area was filled, there was a parking space being vacated and we quickly grabbed that one and waited for it to get dark enough to make my photos qualify.

In case anyone is not familiar with our Pagoda, it has become a symbol of our city, a weird landmark which is actually listed on Roadside America.  In the early 1900s, a man named William Witman was quarrying Mount Penn and apparently knew he was ruining the area for the city residents.  So, he decided to add the unusual Pagoda and turn it into a luxurious resort to try to repair some of his damage.  However, some of the city fathers were a little concerned about Witman's true reason for wanting to create a resort.  Seems that Witman was a bit of a bad boy and the city feared that he was really intending to create a brothel.  The Pagoda got built, was denied a liquor license, was foreclosed on by the bank and then was sold to the city of Reading for $1.

The city has used it for various things over the years.  One of the neatest is that it notifies children on Christmas Eve that Santa is on his way.  The Pagoda lights blink when they have been notified that Santa's sled has been spotted and a city full of excited kids can relax and go to bed.

Today, you can go inside during very limited hours and get some really interesting souvenirs.  When postcards were my obsession, I would get really good ones there.  You can climb the 87 steps to the top of the building for another terrific view for the price of $1.  There is a penny smasher, one of my granddaughter, Puppy Kisses, obsessions and a snack bar.  The walk up the steps is another history lesson as there are posters and pictures galore.

We go to the Pagoda often.  It is a fun place to drive

 to, the views are good, the interior is interesting and the kids love it.  So this night visit was fun since we don't go there too often after dark.

The Brinton Lodge and the Ghosts

I have to start by telling about the best day I have had in waymarking so far.  I was headed to an old deserted church on Rt. 724 to poke around and see what I could find out about it but on my way, I saw a really old house that also had a sign on it for Hidden River Brewing Co.  So I decided to stop and take some pictures from the parking lot.  As I was taking pictures, I was approached by a man who asked if he could help me.  I asked if it was ok to take my pictures and he said it was, indeed.  And then he asked me if I would like to know the history of the building.  I was thrilled!  He walked around the outside of the house and explained to me that he was the owner and that he had bought the Brinton Lodge several years earlier.  Once he bought it, he realized that he would need a way to pay for the restoration and upkeep so he opened a brewery.  

In the process of tracing the history of the Lodge which was built in the 1700s, he found that it was originally built by a man named Millard who purchased the land directly from William Penn.  It went through a series of owners through the years and the house also grew and grew during that time.  What started out as a fairly simple building is now a multi layered home.  But the best thing that he had discovered was that the basic house built by the Millards had been encased by the additions.  Once he had made that discovery, the question now became, was this the oldest house in Berks county?  That honor has been claimed by the  Mouns Jones house in Morlattan Village but there is now a possibility of a new owner of that title.

 

So, towards the end of the conversation, Tim, the owner, casually mentioned that the house is haunted.  Wait...haunted, I said???  Yes, he verified.  He told me to go home and look it up and see the history of the ghosts there.  I asked if he had ever felt them and he said no, but he said that several of his employees have mentioned that they could feel them.  As we were talking, I saw a person peeking out of the attic window and when I pointed it out to Tim, he again, very casually said, Oh, that is one of our ghosts.  I was so startled that I didn't think to take a picture and the figure soon moved away from the window.  

So, of course, I came home and Googled the lodge and found that they offer ghost tours and that a ghost expert had found five souls who still resided there.  Three of the spirits are of people who died in the house.  One is called Dapper Dan and one is the troubled spirit of a little girl.  You gotta know that I had to call Laura, my daughter, right away.  Laura is blind and loves ghost tours.  She thinks that because she doesn't depend on her vision to "see" the spirits, she is more aware of feeling them.  We are going on a ghost tour as soon as we both have a free Friday night.

The website for the Brinton Lodge is at Brinton Lodge.  The lodge is located at 1808 W. Schuylkill Road (Route 724), Douglassville, PA.

Waymarking the Summer Away

It is summer.  It is hot.  I hate hot so I don't letterbox much in the heat.  After four or five weeks of not letterboxing and carving a ton of stamps that will need to be planted, I knew I needed to find something else to do or I would go crazy.  Then, I remembered that I had signed up for Waymarking many years ago.  Although it is part of the geocaching website, it is about as close to geocaching as letterboxing is.  The theory is the same but to be honest, I have found a lot of enjoyment in not having to sneak around to find waymarks.  If you aren't familiar with it, it is a scavenger hunt type game just like letterboxing and geocaching.  But instead of retrieving boxes and logging or stamping into them, you simply find a spot that corresponds to one of the 1114 Waymark categories.  You then take pictures of it and if someone else has already logged the site, you add your pictures to their waymark.  If no one else has already claimed it, you can fill out the form and have it listed as one of your waymarks.  See, a lot like boxing and caching, find a spot, log it or post it.  It is really easy to do this as some of the categories are as boring as McDonalds or other fast food restaurants.  But the ones that caught my eye are the historic categories.  I live in Berks County, PA, and the area is filled with history.  There are over 100 National Register of Historic Places in this county.  Lots of parks and interesting buildings, especially in the city of Reading.  So, I have found myself meandering through the county with my camera and looking into so many nooks and crannies that I didn't know existed.

But to me, the best part of this has been the participation by Bill.  He has always ridiculed letterboxing, not understanding the pure pleasure of getting out in the woods and just enjoying the peace and calm.  But now, since he was raised in the city of Reading (which I wasn't) and I have been asking him questions about some of the places that I have found, he has actually been accompanying me on some of my treasure hunts and doing a LOT of reminiscing about the way things used to be.

Most of the waymarks that I have found so far have been pretty much what would be considered a driveby in letterboxing.  No hiking, no equipment to carry around except my camera which I always have with me anyway.  The heat is a very minor factor in this hobby and I have been happily snapping away and spending my evenings posting or logging.  The downside to snapping pictures is that they are on my computer.  Not every picture I take qualifies to be a waymark but they could still be good pictures.  So, I have decided to start adding some of my waymarking adventures to my letterboxing blog.

State Park Quest - Tyler and Washington Crossing

I have a great friend, Peggy, who is not a letterboxer but who is willing to accompany me on some of my crazy letterboxing excursions.  This day, she came with me to fulfill my State Park Quest at Tyler State Park and Washington Crossing State Park.  It was a beautiful, clear, comfortable spring day as we started out at Tyler State Park.

 We decided to hike the Neshaminy Creek Trail and had to first cross the Schofield Ford Covered Bridge.  It took us a while to get through the bridge because we were both busy taking pictures.

Peggy snapping away!

 Restful view of Neshaminy Creek.

 I have no clue who these people are but I liked the silhouettes in the bridge.

 We had had a lot of rain in the past couple of weeks so the creek was full and beautiful.  The trails were also muddy for the same rain. 

 We ran into a little garter snake as we were jumping around the mud puddles.

 In spite of the mud, the walk was lovely and very green.

 Spring wildflowers were in abundance.  Peggy got hooked on taking pictures of ALL of them!

 Even the steps back up to the parking lot looked pretty on this spring day.

From Tyler, we moved on to the Washington Crossing State Park which is a very different type of park from Tyler.  Tyler is a typical park with lots of trails and picnic tables and places to relax.  Washington Crossing is full of history and so many things to see that one doesn't have much opportunity to relax.  We started out at the Vistor Center so I could collect my state park stamp and were invited to attend the showing of the video about the history of the park which was just ready to start.  We were really happy that we did as requested, the video was helpful although it did cause us to ask ourselves many questions, mainly, why did it take Washington 14 hours to get his troops across the river which looked as though it we could reach out and touch the other side (not literally!) from where we stood.

When I got home, I did look a little deeper into our question and found the answer on the park's website.

After the visitor center, we made a quick trip up to Bowman Hill Tower.  Although it we were tempted by the guide who was there, we didn't make the climb to the top, something that I regret today. 

 I love old doors and the tower door was an interesting one.

From the tower, we headed to the Wildflower Preserve where Peggy was in heaven - lots of wildflowers to photograph!

 Peggy's enthusiasm for taking pictures of wildflowers was contagious and I began snapping some of my own.  Too bad I don't know what they are! 

 All in all, a great day.  A good friend, beautiful places to visit and two new state parks under my belt.

Happy Birthday, True Indigo!

You know how some things just seem to come together without planning?  Well, True Indigo, part of the Crayola Posse team, and I were chatting on FB Messenger Saturday afternoon and I mentioned a new series just posted by Pandajoy in Tuscarora SP, one of our favorite Pennsylvania state parks.  I mentioned that I hoped to get the series on the following Monday if the weather gods gave us a break from all of the rain we had been having.  We continued to chat and True Indigo mentioned that she had to leave because RGBisMe was taking her to buy new hiking boots for her birthday gift.  That led to a quick conversation about breaking in her boots and the discovery that neither True Indigo nor RGBisMe were working on Monday because it was True Indigo's birthday.  I offered a hopeful invitation to her because I really, really wanted company on this particular walk and Crayola Posse are my favorite hiking companions after my precious short people, Cool Dude and Puppy Kisses.  When she said "yes"  I was so excited!

We got to the park early on True Indigo's birthday and discovered that it was a LOT colder there than when we had each left our homes.  So we salvaged any bits of extra winter wear from our cars and prepared to hike.  

I had to take a picture of the new boots.  I was certain that before the hike was over, they would be covered with mud.  We have had so much rain this past month or so and several small snowfalls so I anticipated the trails being very muddy.

 Fortunately, I was wrong about the mud, most of the trail was wet but because it was so grassy, it was not boot sucking messy.  The exception was the little offshoot trail in the picture below where the water was over the tops of my feet and we had to  hop from one high spot to another.

 A pleasant side effect of the rain were pretty little waterfalls.  Such a relaxing sound!

 Usually, RGBisMe plays the part of One of Us, the name we give to the person who actually retrieves the boxes.  Because this series begged for a variety of colors for each stamp, RGBisMe became the color master and True Indigo became One of Us.

 Some boxes required a team effort to figure out the exact hiding spot.

I saw this interesting looking little cone arrangement.  I had never noticed any of these before but True Indigo was able to identify them as falling from a larch trees, conifers which actually shed their needles in the fall like a deciduous tree.


One of the best parts about the Crow Trail is a large area of beautiful green rhododendrons.  It makes a walk feel more like spring than winter when you reach this lovely section.  It probably lasts for at least a tenth of a mile, this picture doesn't begin to do it justice.

 More interesting finds!  RGBisMe noticed this owl pellet hiding on the trail and we were able to identify several animal parts that must have been meals for some lucky owl.

 While we were walking, I received a text from my Florida hiking buddy, Three Flamigo's.  Crayola Posse greeted Three Flamigo's! 

 27 letterboxes later, we finished our walk and my expectations of seeing very muddy boots just didn't happen.  True Indigo scraped some wet leaves onto them to make them appear broken in but in reality, they looked just like new when she finished the hike.

 By this time, we were ready for lunch so we headed to the Beacon Diner in Tamaqua, had an excellent meal and ended up a really terrific boxing morning.

Happy Birthday, True Indigo!