Pennsylvania – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

A Personable Tree

Gifts from the past

April 14, 2023April 12, 2023 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. Found here growing outside native range, being the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to southern Pennsylvania, the Table Mountain Pine is named after the landform, not a particular mountain.

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All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

Its pinecones drew me to this scraggly, ungainly, poorly formed tree. All general mankind finds useful in the, scientific name, Pinus pungens, otherwise known as Hickory Pine, Prickly Pine and Mountain Pine, is to grind it up for pulp or chop it for tinder.

Last of the Mohicans

That said, the final scene of the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans takes place in a nice Pinus pungens stand on a rocky mountaintop in North Carolina.

Personality

The tree has personality. Pinus pungens is the Lonesome Pine of the 1908 novel The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, and popularized in the Laurel and Hardy film Way out West: “On the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine” Several “Lonesome Pine” hiking trails have been waymarked in the Blue Ridge Mountains and elsewhere in the Appalachians.

Pinus pungens prefers dry conditions and is mostly found on rocky slopes, favoring higher elevations, from 300–1,760 meters (980–5,770 ft) altitude. It commonly grows as single scattered trees or small groves, not in large forests like most other pines, and needs periodic disturbances for seedling establishment. The three tallest known ones are in Paris Mountain State Park, South Carolina; they are 26.85 to 29.96 meters (88 ft 1 in to 98 ft 4 in) tall.

Reference: “Pinus pungens” Wikipedia.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Bluestone Monuments

Gifts from the past

April 13, 2023April 11, 2023 MichaelStephenWills

Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. A type of sandstone popular with Cornell monument builders, called “Lenroc” after a mansion build by Cornell’s founder, was used for these benches built into the hillside of the FR Newman Arboretum. The views are more interesting than the bench, the arch of stone in midground in one photo.

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All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

The stone is mined locally from surrounding hills. Calling it “Lenroc” (Cornell spelled backward) is a misnomer as the stone is mined widely throughout the region.

Feldspathic Greywacke

“Bluestone from Pennsylvania and New York is a sandstone defined as feldspathic greywacke. The sand-sized grains from which bluestone is constituted were deposited in the Catskill Delta during the Middle to Upper Devonian Period of the Paleozoic Era, approximately 370 to 345 million years ago…..

Glacial Landscape on an early spring day, Easter 2023

Textures

…The Catskill Delta was created from runoff from the Acadian Mountains (“Ancestral Appalachians”). This delta ran in a narrow band from southwest to northeast and today provides the bluestone quarried from the Catskill Mountains and Northeastern Pennsylvania. The term “bluestone” is derived from a deep-blue-colored sandstone first found in Ulster County, New York.”

You can feel the origin of this bluestone from these macros of two pavers from a monument bench.

Reference: “Bluestone” Wikipedia.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Gettysburg Battlefield on Lincoln’s Birthday 2018

February 13, 2022December 26, 2021 MichaelStephenWills25 Comments

Our practice while taking a long trip in the car is to travel during the day, when possible, and to stop for a rest and some exercise every two hours. We were returning to Ithaca from a long trip down south when, at about the time for a rest stop we crossed the Mason-Dixon line to approach the city of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on US Route 15.

The signed for the Gettysburg Battlefield pulled us in and we spent three hours looking around, longer than we planned for a rest stop.

The staff at the visitor center were very helpful with our off the cuff visit plan. With the auto tour in hand we made our way to the “High Water” of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, the Union battle line that marked the end of Lee’s second invasion of the north and the turning of the Civil War.

Pennsylvania Memorial Fact Display — The Pennsylvania Memorial near the Highwater Mark of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.

The expanse of the Gettysburg National Military Park warrants a stay of three days, at least.

These photographs from my cell phone, augmented with titles and description, will give you a taste of what this national historic site has to offer.

Fact board Soldiers' National Cemetery — Gettysburg National Military Park includes the graves of more than 6,000 United States Servicemen, including 3,580 Union soldiers killed in the Civil War.

Notably, the day of our visit, February 12, is Lincoln’s Birthday. February was a quiet time to visit and we were blessed with a sunny, mild day. In the warm weather the place is packed with visitors.

I have a feeling for the place because my 10th birthday in 1963 coincided with the hundredth anniversary of the Civil War. Also because a figure in the aftermath of the battle, David Wills, shares my surname. A lawyer who lived and practiced in Gettysburg, David Wills organized the burials and it was at his home that President stayed before the dedication of the cemetery and where the final touches of the Gettysburg Address were written. His home, a museum, is closed in the quiet season.

Most Americans alive today would not exist if this battle turned out differently.

One of the chilling realizations from the day is almost half the Union graves are for unknown soldiers.

Graves of Unknown Soldiers — Nearly half of the Union graves are unknown soldiers.

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Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Jim Thorpe Black Friday

Around and About the Town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

December 1, 2021November 28, 2021 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

Presenting impressions of Jim Thorpe town on Black Friday 2016: unedited shots taken in late afternoon.

The best place to park is behind the train station, along the river. $5 for the day.

Hike up the hill to the Asa Packer Museum. The attraction is closed for the winter, but well worth the climb past the Civil War monument, so steep there are switchbacks.

Even closed the site yields detail after detail, all interesting and worth learning more about. I was fascinated by the casted buck sculpture, can you tell? Placed to greet visitors, it demands your attention.

Climb some more to explore the porch…

The sun makes an appearance, drawing attention to the other mansion of the site. Two brothers, and families, lived up here.

Of course, my interest turned to that neighboring mansion. It is a B&B. “Mystery weekends” advertised. That is a two day event. Guests, presented with a scenario, draw on their resources to solve…..a crime. Today, the façade decorated for Christmas. The entire village decorated for Christmas!! Christmas!! Christmas!!! I just love CHRISTMAS

For me, the charm of these places are the details. These pull the attentive visitor into the character of the owner and/or designer. A simple storage room dug into the hillside, designed and crafted with love in the interest of the residents who experience it everyday. Built for a lifetime and longer. The door and fittings appear to be modern, “nice work.”

A substantial finial of a thick wrought iron fence rail.

More so, the choice of building materials for retaining walls. These were spotted in the countryside, quarry or wherever by someone with an eye for unusual beauty…or a rock hounds. The boulders are carefully dressed conglomerate specimens with interesting clasts and matrix.

The museum is a place to enjoy the gathering night. Take note of the thick groves of rhododendron, native to this area: a reason to return springtime.
The surrounding hills, locally called mountains, increase the charm of the setting.

We descended into town for shopping, dinner at Molly Maquire’s and a show in the Mauch Chunk Opera house. The village was named Mauch Chunk previously until the town fathers decided to rename it to Jim Thorpe, the notable native American sports star, in a then failed effort to encourage tourism. The last decade business has improved.

Molly Maguire’s Irish Pub is a fine place for a companionable meal. Pam and I enjoyed the New York Strip steak with, of course, potatoes. A baked potato for me. Pam had the red skinned garlic mashed potatoes.

The pub is located near the train station.

If you don’t know about the Molly Macguires…google ’em.