Lost in the Turkeyfoot Valley

For someone who teaches Computer Science, I'm surprised about how little I think about the impact of technology on our lives. Take Monday afternoon, for instance, when Kathy and I left Beth, Joshua, and Tom (still working with his backhoe) in Accident and began driving through bucolic southern Pennsylvania, headed to New England. 

Tomorrow, Tuesday, we have plans to visit an old friend from our early days working at the Maranatha Evangelical Association and then at The Word For Today, Ted Ojarovski, who now lives near Woodstock, New York. The drive from Accident would take almost 7 hours, so, at the last minute we decided to leave early, and drive half-way. 

Google Maps wanted to route us via the freeway, but, when I saw the Great Allegheney Passage Rail Trail, I knew I wanted to go that way. Tom and Beth lent us their Subaru Forester for the trip, and when we plugged in our phone we got turn-by-turn voice directions. It was a sunny afternoon but the road was almost deserted; I imagine that everyone else was following Google's directions and clogging up the freeway. When the rare car or motorcycle came up behind us, we just pulled to the side and let them pass.

At White's Creek we pulled over to admire the view, and take a picture. In the meadow next to the creek, a family was having a Memorial Day picnic. But, when we got back in our car and back on the road, we realized that Google was no longer giving us directions. We pulled off the road into the parking lot of the Turkeyfoot Valley High School and found that we no longer had any cell service. 

No printed directions, no map, and no idea where we were, or how to get where we were going. Fortunately, after a few minutes, we were able to find the car's built-in GPS navigation system, which doesn't rely on the phone network. It turned us around and sent us back to an obscure left-turn on Hogback Road to the town of Ursina.  Next time, though, I'm definitely going to bring a map.

When we got to the cute town of Somerset Pennsylvania, which was at the center of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, we found a Giant Eagle supermarket and filled the Subaru with road-trip necessities such as Diet A&W Root Beer and kettle-cooked potato chips. 

We were hungry after shopping, so we stopped to eat at the King Family Restaurant, where the prices are still reasonable (at least compared to California) and the food was great. I had the Philly Cheese Steak grilled-cheese sandwich (delicious) with zucchinis fries, while Kathy had a Cobb salad.

All of this took a bit of time, so, since we had reservations for the night, we got on the freeway to make up the time. I checked out some books on tape from the library, and so we spent the trip listening to David McCullough's history of the revolution, 1776. Our drive took us by the Flight 93 National Memorial, but we didn't have time to stop.

We arrived at Bellefonte and our last-minute room in the Queen Victorian B&B at 5:30. No one was home, but we found instructions taped to the door. Our room (the Anne Room) is on the second floor in the turret on the left. If you want to see a video, just follow Kathy on Instagram (kathygilbert7).

Outside the air-conditioned car, the temperature was 91 degrees and pretty humid. Instead of walking around town, we unpacked, and then sat around in our (also air-conditioned) room and waited for the sun to go down, which it did around 8PM. 

Bellefonte is full of old Victorian houses. Walking around we saw three others that had been converted to B&Bs (but ours was the most cheerful looking). Just around the corner we found the Reynolds-Lane-Hastings Mansion, originally built in 1867 but modernized in 1890. It was the home of Daniel H. Hastings, the Governor of Pennsylvania from 1895-1899.

The plaque in the center of town boasts that Bellefonte was the home of five Pennsylvanian governors.

Bellefonte was never a large town. Its peak population in 1970 was 6,800. Now it's down to 6,100. Nevertheless, it was obviously a wealthy town. We walked past several magnificent churches. One had been converted to the administrative offices of the local school district.

The downtown High Street is still very well maintained, though obviously not thriving as in years past. I noticed that several of the handsome brick buildings now have lofts instead of businesses on their upper floors. 

At the foot of High Street we walked across the bridge to Talleyrand Park and watched the ducks on the river with a handful of other strollers. Kathy remarked that she was surprised there weren't more people out, since it was a holiday.

As dusk settled, the lights came on in the park's gazebo and we began walking back to our B&B. It was cooler than it had been earlier, but we Californians, unused to the humidity, were drenched.

I took one last picture of the churches red door in the gloaming before we climbed the stairs to our air-conditioned room with it's silver-clawed-foot bathtub.