Former Lackawanna Railroad Station in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Currently houses the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel Scranton
Back to our regularly scheduled programming. 😉
Former Lackawanna Railroad Station in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Currently houses the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel Scranton
After Staunton, VA we spent a night in Scranton, PA. We stayed at a Radisson hotel in the former Lackawanna railroad station in downtown, and the following morning visited Steamtown National Historical Site before heading off to Rhode Island.
Steamtown National Historic Site is a railroad museum and heritage railroad located in downtown Scranton, PA at the site of the former Scranton yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W). The museum is built around a working turntable and a roundhouse that are largely replications of the original DL&W facilities. The roundhouse, for example, was reconstructed from remnants of a 1932 structure. The site also features several original outbuildings dated between 1899 and 1902. All the buildings on the site are listed with the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Yard-Dickson Manufacturing Co. site.
The Electric City Sign in downtown Scranton, PennsylvaniaDowntown Scranton, PennsylvaniaDowntown Scranton, Pennsylvania
This is but a small sample of the photos I took there, and as usual mostly just scratch the surface of the place. A real railroad fan could spend days there!
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I’ve posted a New England Part I gallery on Adobe Portfolio for anyone wanting to see more of my snapshots. The photos in that gallery take us through Rhode Island, which I’ll cover in a future post.
Central Railroad Of New Jersey Freight Terminal in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Building appears to be abanonded and is for sale.
Fog and fall colors at the Wolf Mountain Overlook at MP 424.8 on the Blue Ridge Parkway
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Blue Ridge Parkway. I love to visit there, but hate dealing with the crowds that flock there, especially in fall when the colors are happening. Such was the case this week, when Kathy & I decided to head to the high country for a few days to check out the fall colors.
Like all the National Parks, the Blue Ridge Parkway, as the most-visited National Park in the country, has been overrun by tourists seeking an outdoor experience. I’ll be glad when many of them head back to the office, although there appears to be a large number of retired folks as well. Drivers on the Parkway range from the Floridian driving white-knucked around the winding corners at 30 MPH to the motorcycle riders trying to make the Parkway their personal Lime Rock Park. Add in those of us just trying to drive comfortably and enjoy the scenery and it can be a frustrating mix.
Steestachee Bald Overlook at MP 438.9 on the Blue Ridge Parkway
We left home on Wednesday morning with the goal of driving the Parkway from Blowing Rock to Mount Pisgah before heading to Waynesville for a couple of nights. We have friends who own a motel there, and I have a cousin who lives nearby who we don’t get to see often enough. Seeing both of them was long overdue.
Wednesday was a Chamber of Commerce Blue Sky Day on the Parkway. The leaves in the Grandfather Mountain area were just about at their peak. We stopped at an overlook and had lunch before continuing south toward our destination.
I didn’t take a single photograph all day.
Steestachee Bald Overlook at MP 438.9 on the Blue Ridge Parkway
Between having a case of “Get-There-Itis” * and all the people crowding into any overlook with a view, my heart just wasn’t in it. It was nice to see, but I rationalized that the mid-day light wasn’t ideal for good photographs and decided that any photograph I made would be no better than a cell phone photo, just taken with a nice camera.
Fog at the Richland Balsam Overlook at MP 431.4. At 6053 feet, the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway
On Thursday, we headed back to the Parkway with the express intention of making photographs. As we headed higher, it became clear that fog would be our companion for the day. That suited me just fine, because fog means interesting photography and…fewer people! The fog and the fall color varied greatly by elevation, and we drove in and out of the fog for several hours. Some places were pretty clear, while others – like Richland Balsam, the highest point on the Parkway at 6053 feet, were totally in the soup. But for the first time in a long time, I was able to get a photograph of the sign without someone’s car or motorcycle parked in front of it! 😉
Fog at the Richland Balsam Overlook at MP 431.4. At 6053 feet, the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway
On Friday, we headed toward home by a different route than we usually take. I got a few photographs from the drive home that I’ll share in another post. We may try to head back up to the Parkway early next week, weather permitting. If so, hopefully I can contain my “affliction” and make a few nice photos!
Fall colors in the Black Balsam area of the Blue Ridge Parkway near MP 420
*Get-There-Itis (my definition): (a) in photography, a condition where one is so focused on the final destination that it prevents stopping to take pictures; (b) in aviation, often referred to as exercising poor judgement, resulting in a decision to fly despite adverse conditions, often with sub-optimal results.
Joe Smith photographing on the Boothbay Harbor Footbridge in Boothbay Harbor, Maine
Over the years we have managed to create a nice group of “photo friends” here in the Land of Blog. As Kathy & I travel, we like to make a point of seeking out our photo friends whenever we are nearby. Interestingly, it seems that the friends we do meet are often the ones farther away. For example, Faye lives near Charlotte after a having lived in Atlanta, but we have never met. We saw Earl numerous times when he lived more than an hour away, but since he moved closer to us we haven’t seen him. We have visited Monte in Colorado a number of times. Although Jeff lives in Wisconsin and Michigan and we have visited him there, we met for the first time in Italy! 😉
When we planned our trip to New England, I knew that we would be “in the neighborhood” of several of our friends and worked to set up some meetings. Paul and Ken, both in the Rochester area of New York, and recent Maine transplant Joe were on the radar.
Kathy, Me, Michele Bello, Paul Maxim and Ken Bello at Jines Restaurant in Rochester, New York
Joe and his partner Katherine were up for meeting for lunch at a lobster shack on the Maine coast before spending time in Boothbay Harbor. He and I spent a little time photographing in Boothbay before we parted company. We managed to meet up with Ken, his wife Michele and Paul for lunch while we were in Rochester visiting the Eastman Museum.
Photographers being photographers, Joe and I never thought to get a photo of us together, although we each managed to get photos of each other so there is photographic evidence – albeit circumstantial – of us being in the same place! We asked our waitress in Rochester to take our picture, but when I looked at the camera she had never pushed the shutter button! Fortunately we corralled a waiter who was also a photographer, so he did manage to shoot a few photos, although the lighting could have been better. 😉
Paul Maxim, Me and Ken Bello at Jines Restaurant in Rochester, New York
It’s always nice to put faces and personalities with names and websites. We hope to do some more as we continue to travel! 🙂
Nobska Lighthouse and Keeper’s Cottage near Falmouth, Massachusetts
Photographers know this, of course. But for the few non-photographers who read my blog (and possibly even the photographers!) this might be interesting.
I took these two photos exactly 30 seconds apart. For the first one, above, there was just the right amount of light filtering through the clouds to provide some shape and contrast to the scene. In the second shot, below, the cloud has moved over the sun and the light has gone flat. Both of these photos are pretty nice, but to me the one with the shaping light and subtle shadows is the superior one.
Nobska Lighthouse and Keeper’s Cottage near Falmouth, Massachusetts
The Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, Virginia
If you have any interest in cameras and find yourself in central Virginia, the Camera Heritage Museum in Staunton (pronounced STAN-ton) is a must-see. Located in a former camera store, this place is crazy full of cameras of all kinds, and the stuff in the showroom is only part of the collection. According to the guy we talked to (mostly he talked to us!) they have store rooms throughout the city with more cameras. They just don’t have room to display them all. They claim to be the largest camera store open to the public in the US, and although I have nothing to compare it to and even after visiting the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, I believe it!
The Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, Virginia
Check out their website. It tells you more than I can ever tell in a blog post. But you definitely have to see it in person to really appreciate it!
The Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, VirginiaThe Camera Heritage Museum in downtown Staunton, Virginia
Souvenirs from our October 2021 New England Road Trip!
How could you pass up a distillery named ‘Wiggly Bridge?’ You have to stop, right? 😉
Kathy & I enjoy stopping at wineries and distilleries on our road trips. Partly because we like bringing home souvenirs, but mostly (really!) because we love hearing the stories. Each place we visit has a story or two about their history, their products, their facilities and more. Sometimes many stories!
While we were in Rockport, MA, we visited two distilleries. Wiggly Bridge was about an hour up the road and just across the Maine border in York. We combined that with a visit to Bob’s Clam Hut, a local and tourist-favorite clam shack in Kittery. Two for one! 🙂
The story behind Wiggly Bridge is that it started as a bit of a joke between father and son, and turned into a full-time business. They even taught themselves how to build their first still. The distillery is located in an old barn, and windows in the tasting room look down on the distillery. A tour there starts at the bar with a cocktail made with one of their products, moves “across the room” to look at the distilling room, then returns to the bar for a tasting. The distillery produces whisky, rum, vodka, gin and agave spirits. Since this was our first stop we limited ourselves to a whisky and a rum.
After that, we drove back to Gloucester, MA to Ryan & Wood Distillery. Owner and co-founder Bob Ryan did our tasting and told the stories. If it wasn’t for two guys who walked in just as we were finishing our tasting, we might still be there listening to Bob. 😉 But we were “saved” and managed to get away with just four bottles – a rye whisky, a wheat whisky and two gins, one of which is aged in former rye whisky barrels. Yum!
Souvenirs from our October 2021 New England Road Trip!
Later in our trip, as we traveled from New Hampshire to Vermont, we stopped at the Vermont Spirits Distillery in Quechee, VT. Their claim to fame is a vodka made from maple sugar. We tried it and it was interesting, but to me it wasn’t something I wanted to bring home. Their 15 Hands bourbon and their bourbon barrel aged gin were pretty tasty, so we did bring home some samples of those.
In New York, we stopped by Finger Lakes Distilling, where we tasted but didn’t buy. We were mostly killing time before a wine tasting. 😉 Their spirits were quite good, but since we were already getting overloaded (in the car, in the car!), we decided to pass until next time.
Also in the photo above is Gunpowder Rye from New England Distilling Co. We didn’t visit there, but Kathy had that at a bar in Maine and loved it so much we had to track some down in Bar Harbor. That also made the trip home!
Souvenirs from our October 2021 New England Road Trip!
We visited three wineries in the Finger Lakes Region of NY but bought from only two. We purchased wine from Heron Hill and from Atwater, but chose to pass on wine from Dr. Konstanin Frank. We liked all of the wine but we were kind of choosy about whether we were getting a deal or not. If I can get a good discount and/or free shipping, I’m interested. Otherwise I can always buy online from home. Plus, we already have a pretty good supply on hand at home! 😉
One of the fun things about the Finger Lakes wineries is that we were introduced to several new – to us – varietals. Blaufrankisch is a grape that is widely grown in Europe and was introduced in NY from Austria.  Baco Noir is a hybrid winemaking grape created in 1902 by French botanist François Baco. The unique climate in New York state is ideal for growing these types of grapes, and the results are really good. We were quite impressed and will continue to keep NY in mind as a source of good wine!
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot – there was also maple syrup from Vermont! 🙂
Souvenirs from our October 2021 New England Road Trip!
Village Marina on the south shore of Seneca Lake in Watkins Glen, New York
We capped off our adventure today with a cruise on Seneca Lake and a visit to both a distillery and a winery. More souvenirs!  This is a pretty typical and boring tourist shot but it is a landmark in the town of Watkins Glen.
Central staircase at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York
Kathy & I drove to Rochester today to visit the Eastman House and – more importantly – meet up with some of our photo friends (more on that later). This photo is not necessarily representative of the experience but is one of my favorites for the day.
We’ve got one more day in the Finger Lakes before we head south on Saturday. We should be sleeping in our own bed on Sunday and are looking forward to it!
Curtiss JN-4D “Jenny” at The Glenn H Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, New York
Other than the Wright Brothers, perhaps no other individual is as important to the history of aviation than Glenn Curtiss. Just a few years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903, Curtiss, almost single handedly, improved and advanced the newfangled airplane to see ever expanding commercial, military and personal application.
Curtiss’ various ventures centered in the area around Hammondsport, New York. The Glenn H. Curtiss Museum is a tribute to this aviation pioneer and is a fascinating place to learn about this area of aviation history.
Morning on Seneca Lake at Plum Point Lodge near Himrod, New York
I’m finding it quite easy to make these early morning excursions when I am in an interesting place to photograph. I went out this morning in front of the lodge where we are staying. It is still cloudy, although forecast to start clearing today. The soft cool morning light made long exposures easy. In this case 7.5 seconds on a tripod gave the water a nice blur while preserving some of the detail.
I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that we are now officially at 49 states! The last one, of course, is Hawaii. We have plans to go there in February.
