Still in Pennsylvania

   We’re usually not in Pennsylvania this time of year so we’re enjoying the sunny weather and all of the greenness.  Pennsylvania is so full of history ,museums and funky little attractions that it’s going to take us awhile to get through the rest of the state!

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Johnstown, PA.

The story of the 1889 Johnstown flood holds a certain fascination for us , perhaps because the names are so familiar – names that we’ve heard all of our lives , the great industrialists and financiers who built Pittsburgh. Carnegie , Frick , Pitcairn, Knox , Phippps, Scaife and Mellon were among the 61 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club which owned the lake and 160 acres of adjacent land.

The lake was originally constructed as a reservoir to provide water for a section of the Pennsylvania canal.   However  before it could be used for this purpose the canal was rendered obsolete by the railroad system. Over the next 21 years the top of the dam crumbled and drainage pipes were removed from beneath the dam. When the club bought the land the dam was in need of costly repairs. They chose to patch instead of repair. The drainage pipes which could have been used to ease pressure on the dam walls were never replaced. The top of the dam was built up with loose fill and then the water was allowed to rise above a structurally safe point. The spillway which should have kept the lake at a safe level was blocked by a debris catching fish screen because the club didn’t want their game fish escaping down the river.

After the dam failed , flooding Johnstown with 20 million tons off water , killing over 2000 people and causing 17 million dollars in property damage , the club members abandoned the property. None of them ever returned to Johnstown and the property was sold at a sheriff’s sale. Individual members contributed small amounts to help the people of Johnstown but neither they or the club ever admitted to any responsibility for the disaster. No lawsuit against the club or any member was successful. 

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Leaving Pittsburgh

 
CCC cabins. Few people realize the scope of the CCC. The program put into place by President Roosevelt during the depression to employ young men. At it’s peak in1935 , 2,600 camps employed 500,000 young men.  We’re most familiar with the work that was done in state and national parks but it also included these projects:

more than 3,470 fire towers erected;

97,000 miles of fire roads built;

4,235,000 man-days devoted to fighting fires;

more than 3 billion trees planted;

7,153,000 man days expended on protecting the natural habitats of wildlife; 83 camps in 15 Western states assigned 45 projects of that nature;

46 camps assigned to work under the direction of the U.S. Bureau of Agriculture Engineering;

more than 84,400,000 acres of good agricultural land receive manmade drainage systems; Indian enrollees do much of that work;

1,240,000 man-days of emergency work completed during floods of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys;

disease and insect control;

forest improvement — timber stand inventories, surveying, and reforestation;

forest recreation development — campgrounds built, complete with picnic shelters, swimming pools, fireplaces, and restrooms

The cabins above , in Raccoon Creek State Park, were in  disrepair with leaking roofs and missing chinking in the logs. They were built from wormy chestnut trees that had died from blight. These trees are now almost extinct  but they once covered acres of the eastern US, an estimated 3 billion trees. We’re so happy that we , along with other volunteers and park employees, were able to save the cabins.

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Visiting Back East

  We’re almost legal! We have a new license plate and inspection sticker. Now we’re waiting for Penn DOT to give us the official thumbs up and send us the little sticker that goes on our license plate.  It also looks like we’ve solved all of the major motorhome problems. Everything is working properly , no new problems and just a week or so left of little stuff to fix. It will take us longer than that , though , because it’s much more fun to visit everyone!

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Meandering Our Way North

Hot Springs , Arkansas – This is the men’s dressing room in the spa that the National Park Service restored as a museum. The hot springs that feed the spas are unique because the water isn’t heated by volcanic action but by the water percolating down far enough to be heated by the rocks which are hot from gravitational compression. The water is very pure , odorless  and good tasting.
  The hot springs had been known and used first by Indians and early settlers but the area wasn’t developed as a commercial spa until the early 1800s. The federal government , fearing that many people would lose access to the springs , set up a reserve so that they would have some control over the development and use of the springs.  The spas were used as therapy for many different diseases and conditions.  During the 1920’s elaborate buildings with stain glass , marble and colored tiles were built. This was also the era of probation and Hot Springs became a  gambling mecca and  vacation spot for many of the bootleggers.
As medicine was developed for many  diseases , the spas lost their popularity and some were abandoned. The National Park Service stepped in to restore the Fordyce Bathhouse as a museum.  

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Visiting Everyone in Texas

We stopped for a couple weeks in San Antonio , Texas for a long over due visit with family.

Dinner out with the ladies , my Mom and her friends , Shirley and Minnie.

Many thanks to Chris and Dan , sister-in–law and brother, for the good company and good smoked barbecue and home cooking!

We made good use of Dan and Chris’s front yard to get some more sealing finished. Red Letter Day! – May 17 – huge rainfall and no leaks!

It was great visiting  but Texas is getting way too hot – back on the road and heading north!
Early spring was pretty wet this year so Texas hill country is bursting with wild flowers.

New Mexico

 
  Spanish missions dot the countryside in New Mexico just as they do in other southwestern states which were once part of Mexico. Some of them are still in use today. Others , like this one , are in various degrees of ruin. The Indians here left because of a drought and raids by hungry Apache Indians. Other missions were destroyed after the Indians grew tired of forced labor and suppression of their traditional religions and rebelled in 1680, killing some of the Franciscan friars and settlers and forcing all of the others to flee to El Paso , Texas.  The Spanish reconquered New Mexico in 1692.

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