Dingmen's Falls-Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

      About 15 miles from Outdoor World Timothy Lake RV Resort is Dingman's Falls in the Delaware National Recreation Area, part of Delaware National Park. One nice Fall day we decided to check out the falls. We had to wait till the Government shut down was over to visit the falls. It was a perfect Fall day.  We were in for a great site for our eyes.

Note the different size in the leafs

Silver Thread Falls

The main waterfalls

Part of the many many stairs to the top. After getting about half way up, I remember I just got out of the hospital and was suppose to take it easy. So I took my time back down. But I was feeling quite good.

This photo was taken from the stairway.

A quit pool

I wonder who lifes in here

Falling leaves and the great boardwalk That is along about 85% of the walk to the falls.

Thanks for following along

Grey Towers National Historic Site - Gifford Pinchot

While here in the Pocono’s we visited Grey Towers National Historic site.  It was the summer home of the Pinchot family. For two decades the family enjoyed many summers at Grey Towers entertaining family and friends. One of the sons of James and Cornelia was Gifford. Grifford was named head of the newly formed United States Forest Service, by his friend Teddy Roosevelt.

       Gifford was governor of Pennsylvania for two terms.  Gifford attributed much of his success to his wife Cornelia. During the 1920’s and 30’s she ran unsuccessfully for Congress three times.  This was very early for a woman in US politics. One interesting story about Gifford told by his son was about a family dog. The dog was a Labrador Retriever. He could not be broke of some of his bad habits, like tearing up furniture. Gifford had a friend that was a warden in a prison in western Pennsylvania. So one day he sent or took the dog to the prison. So his son told the story about the dog and would say his father “sent the dog to life in prison”.  

   Grey Towers is located in Milford Pennsylvania, along the Delaware River.  It is Located just a short distance from Port Jarvis New York and just across the river from New Jersey.  In 1963 Gifford Bryce Pinchot, the son of Gifford and Cornelia, donated Grey Towers and donated 102 acres to the USDA Forest Service.  On September 24, 1963 President John F. Kennedy dedicated the site to the American public. President Kennedy arrived on the lawn of Grey Towers by helicopter for the ceremony.

    The cost of a guided tour of the mansion is $8.00, $7.00 for seniors.  With a golden age passport it is $3.50. But only admits the holder of the pass with a discount.  We were told the golden age passport works a little different at forest service sites like this one, admitting only the pass holder. But both Linda and I have a golden age passport, so we both received the half price discount.

This room off the library was used by Gifford Pinchot when he was governor. This was his office when spending time away from Harrisburg.   

 

 Part of the Library

 One of the sitting rooms. Note the designs above the doors. They are painted, it is called trope l oeil that creates an optical illusion, or French "to fool the eye".

 More tromp l oeil painting

 

 This is one of the large legs on the table above. Note the faux finish marble on the walls and also the baseboard. Also note the massive table leg. It is one of four on the table above.  

 That is all painted around the mirror

 In the main emtry to the home. Note the owl has a squirrel  in his talons.

The story of the finger bowl.

This is a dinning table. Can seat about 30 around the table. The food is floated in wooden bowls.  The bowl of fruit being sent to Bob

 A beautiful arched ceiling with a very old wisteria vine planted by Cornelia in the 20's.

A stump carving on the way into GreyTowers

 The view from the Mansion.

You never know what treasures a small town may hold.
Thanks for following along.

 

  

Mammoth Cave National Park, Mammoth Cave KY. April 2013

     We left the Nashville area and drove 75 miles to Park City KY, about 20 miles north of Bowling Green and about 5 miles from Mammoth Cave National Park. This is a new area for us. We are staying at a Thousand Trails/Mid Atlantic Park Diamond Cavers. We wanted to visit the National Park and the Corvette Museum . We will do a review on the RV Park in the future.
On Tuesday we went to Bowling Green to the National Corvette Museum. (See previous post), We also toured the historic downtown of Bowling green.

Historic Fountain Square in Bowling Green KY
 

       We spend six nights in the area. We stayed an extra day because of heavy rain and more storms.  So far on our trip north we are behind 4 days. But that's ok, we do not have a firm schedule. We just have an idea where we want to go, and head in that directions. We do have a few appointments in Indiana for work on our RV so we allowed two weeks to get there. And we made it to our first appointment on time.
     We started a new Label in our blog archives. It is National Parks and Monuments. We have been to a number of each before we started our blog. So we will list all new ones we visit and label them as National parks or National Monuments. We do have some other parks in our blog and as I get time I'll update the label. 

Mammoth Cave encompasses 53,000 acres.

Red Buds in full bloom all over the area

The way visitors used to get to the cave.

Today depending on your tour you take a propane fueled bus

The wet cave system. We enjoyed this cave area with all the stalactites and stalagmites. This tour was called The Frozen Niagara Tour. The cave was a cool 54 degrees. At presant there are 12 different tours, but we were told they will only be givng 4 to 6 different tours this summer because of cost cutting.

 
That is water droplets in the upper right photo. Lower right, Linda taking a break.

Bob ducking, A little low and narrow

A cave cricket. There were bats, but we could not film them as the flash would disturb them.

The dry cave system. This is the Mammoth Passage Tour. This is the biggest entrance to the cave. It is also called the Historic entrance. It was the entrance that was first used to take tours into the cave. It also has some of the biggest rooms.

Those little spots are tiny dust particals floting in the air. The camera makes them look very large.

Salt Petre mining during the Civil War. Use to make gunpower.

The Green River ferry. Sure glad there is a sign

On the ferry, looking ahead and then out the side.

Looking back

Cedar Sink Hike, .8 mile one way. We got to the end and it started to rain, needless to say we got petty wet.  It is a wild flower trail, nice and wide with some steps. We encounterd a few wildflowers and a few turkeys ,  we were a little to early for all the flowers

Going down is not to bad, but.............

This is Joppa church.

Good Springs church and very large cemetery that goes back to the 1800's to the 1960's.

Saw this sign, stopped and backed up to make sure we read it correctly.  Just what is "home grown pizza". This sounds similar to  Nick's( my cousins husband) description about "home made shrimp". Maybe Nick is also a sign maker

There is a camp ground in the national park for RVs. We were told  there is no size limit, but many of the sites we saw were very short, and some very narrow. So use caustion if you have a big rib. There were some big rigs in the campground.

 

Nolin River Lake, a Corp of Engineers lake, located near Mammoth Cave. We took a loop road via the ferry to get to this lake.  Construction started in 1959. A $40 million yearly benefit to the economy of the area.  Winter pool 2890 acres, 30 miles long. Summer pool 5795 acres. Flood pool 14,530 acres, 58 miles pong.  See http://www.lrl.usace.army.mil/nrl