July 8 On to PA; water falls

July 8, 2016

Beautiful  Friday morning.   We enjoy Mom’s sourdough bread at breakfast, then clean out the fridge, strip beds and get ready to head out around 8:45.  Tom and Sue will be heading south, exploring more Civil War sites and heading, eventually, back to Arizona.  Greg and I head north, with today's final destination Ricketts Glen State Park in north central PA.

We drive up along the Susquehanna River and stop at McKee’s Half Falls Rest Area for some lunch and relaxation.  Interesting group of 3 Menonite Women kayakers on the river.  Farmland and woods, with occasional small towns.

 We call Ricketts Glen and luck out, as there is a cancellation and we get site #38 for tonight.   We arrive about 2:00 and it is cloudy with some drips of rain on and off.

 We decide to do the Falls Trail that Anita told us about now, because the forecast for tomorrow is rain.

The trail is steep and rocky, down into the Glen, with waterfalls every few minutes.  The larger ones are named, but there are many small 3-5’ size as well.  Some places have stone steps, some just rocky trail.  The rain holds off, thankfully, because I imagine it could get kind of slick.  We hear from another hiker that someone broke an ankle an hour or so ago and the trail was briefly closed.  Here is a taste of the Falls on the way down:

We stop often to take photos, so it takes us over 2 hours to get to the bottom.  And then we start the climb back up, equally steep and rocky. 

The Falls on this trail don’t seem as spectacular as the trip down, but that may be because of visual overload and tired legs! 

Back on level ground again, we still have a mile or so walk back to where we parked the Trek.  Then we head back to the campground and nice hot showers!  We have a big salad for dinner (thank you, Anita). A neighbor said he was leaving early because of the predicted storm and gave us his firewood, so Greg gets a nice fire going.  The temperature drops to 60-ish, so the fire feels good.  No sign of rain until we are tucked in and asleep.   Quiet night, good sleep.