July 25: Back to the country, and a “Henry Ford Museum lightbulb machine moment”

I took Loralee to the Baltimore airport this morning. I have to say that a) I’m going to miss her, but I’m seriously glad to be out of that motel, and b) it’s so good to be out of the city!

I drove around Baltimore on its beltway, then headed northeast on the same highway Katrina and Teri and I took to get to Longwood the other day. I turned off before I passed it, though, and headed up into Pennsylvania.

Is it just me or does this look like Kansas? Along the road in Pennsylvania.

I’m generally headed for New England now, but while I was looking at the map last night, I noticed a place on the map marked Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site. Curious about why a furnace would be historical [g], I headed in that direction. As it turned out, Hopewell Furnace was what I think of as a Henry Ford Museum lightbulb machine.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Sometimes you (or I, at any rate) take things for granted, without thinking about how they’ve come to be, until you see something that jolts you and makes you realize that, no, these things do not spring full blown from the head of Zeus. My primary example is the lightbulb machine in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, which I saw on my last Long Trip 17 years ago. Now tell me. Have you ever thought about how light bulbs are manufactured? I didn’t think so.

Well, yesterday I learned how cast iron was made back in the 18th and 19th centuries, which was something I’d never considered before. It was made by hand, by skilled craftsmen, each one supported by an infrastructure and a cadre of workers, then the results were hauled off by horse and wagon to the cities where they were sold. I had no idea that iron was originally smelted using charcoal, and that places like Hopewell Furnace went through hundreds of cords of wood every year.

Butterflies on purple coneflowers at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site.

Stoves cast at Hopewell Furnace in the 1800s.

Part of the CCC-restored (of course) Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site. The house is the home of the owner of the furnace.

A charcoal pit, where so much wood was burned so iron could be smelted.

Looking back towards the cooling sheds, where the charcoal was cooled before being used in the furnace.

Hopewell provided iron for cannons at Yorktown and in the Civil War, as well as cookstoves that were prized for decades, and many kinds of smaller pieces.

Anyway, the site was fascinating, although the heat and humidity made walking around the actual reconstructed town problematic, of course. The visitor center had a terrific little movie about the place, too.

A very strange sign along the roadside in Pennsylvania.

I absolutely love the old stone houses in this part of the world.

After I left Hopewell Furnace, I headed towards somewhere I’d stayed at on my last Long Trip, a hostel in a state park about an hour northwest of Philadelphia. It’s in an old stone house that was the landowner’s before he gave the land to the state, and it’s a peaceful, quiet spot, which I much appreciated.

With the proprietor’s help, I also found a laundromat, so I’m set for clean clothes again for a while. And I managed to keep from getting drowned when the skies opened again, too.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

July 26: Backroads. Lots and lots of backroads.

The first thing I did this morning was get my hair cut for the second time since I left home, at a Great Clips (where I’ve been getting my hair cut for years) in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. The second thing I did was drive to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where I went to JCPenneys in the Lehigh Valley Mall to replace the khakis that did not survive yesterday’s laundering (no, it wasn’t the washing machine – I knew they were on their last legs when I left home, and Quakertown is where they died [g]).

I also saw some interesting signs as I passed through town, too.

Now *that’s* a last name!

Look at the founding date on that hotel. Things are so old here!

Then I wound north and east on Route 57 to the New Jersey state line, where I was confounded by how pretty and bucolic the countryside was. The last time I was in New Jersey, I only drove the turnpike from Philadelphia to New York City and back, and it was ugly and urban. Apparently not all of New Jersey looks like that. Who’d a thunk it?

Beautiful, bucolic northwestern New Jersey.

Isn’t that a cool tunnel?

Around 1 pm I stopped just south of the town of Washington, New Jersey (and didn’t those road signs confuse me!), where I ate some of the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life for lunch. If you’re ever in that neighborhood, I highly recommend the pizza by the slice at Desiderio’s Brick Oven Pizza. My gosh, was it good.

I also stopped in Hackettstown,  when I saw a sign for the town’s historical society museum.  It was a classic small-town historical museum, full of all sorts of stuff, including something I’d always wondered about — a melodeon.  In one of my favorite children’s book series (the Melendy books by Elizabeth Enright), one of the characters plays a melodeon, and I’ve always wondered what one looked like (sorta like a small piano with about half as many keys).  Today I finally had my curiosity on that subject satisfied.

I drove on up through the northwest corner of New Jersey this afternoon, and now I’m just south of the New York state line, in a motel on a hilltop just a mile or two north of a ski area, believe it or not. It’s actually pretty darned hilly. And so pretty. It’s cooler and less humid here, too! Yay! I mean, 90dF is cooler, right? It sure feels like it is.

The view from my motel. Hopefully I’ll be able to do hostels and camp more after I spend a night or two with Irene in Connecticut because I’ll be farther north and closer to the ocean.

Tomorrow I think I’m going to visit Sleepy Hollow, and Washington Irving’s house. I haven’t been there since 1981, when I was visiting my parents while they were living in Connecticut.

Then it’s on to New England. At last.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.