Continuing our practice of exploring northeastern PA on the weekends, at Carol Stull's suggestions (Markus' girlfriend), we headed off to Grey Towers in Milford, PA. This is the home of Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the US Forest Service. His parents were quite wealthy (from clear-cutting timber) and suggested that their son study forestry. They endowed the forestry school at Yale and built Grey Towers, based upon a Norman/Brittany model of a castle/chateau in France. It was built by local farmers (friends of the Pinchots). The walls are double thickness in the towers and roughly made. The third story of the tower has 30" thick walls and sticks out over the lower two stories to repel attacks (historically). Gifford Pinchot became a forester, married a woman who was very involved in workers' rights, child labor and suffrage. His brother was one of the founders of the ACLU. The family gave back extensively to the community of Milford (they had huge gardens and orchards and invited people in the village to take what they needed; they had a huge ice cream social to which all the townspeople were invited). Gifford reforested the estate and it was donated to the National Parks in 1963, along with all the furnishings and papers.
Gifford Pinchot's bedroom (he often had the bed taken out onto a sleeping porch through a window). We ate lunch at a wonderful old hotel in Milford that was made famous when the chef from Delmonico's in NYC came out and took over the kitchen.
This photo shows the insulation I installed in the kitchen roof (the bare spots are for three skylights which are desperately needed because the room is lit only by one window over the sink facing south). I am also putting in one layer of insulation in the walls so that the living room, kitchen and bedroom can be isolated from the rest of this house this winter and kept relatively warm.
Markus also put me on insulating the top of the walls in the stairway parlor where they meet the cathedral ceiling. I put in 5 1/2" of insulation (each piece cut to fit). This was particularly difficult in the corners where the angles were very acute. This photo shows the antique Chinese sea monsters which will be holding up the truss.
Yesterday we went to Rickett's Glen State Park (a place I have wanted to visit forever). It was proposed for national park status, but this didn't occur due to the intervention of WWII. It consists of three glens (valleys) that were owned by Rickett. He was a Union commander in the Civil War and won an important victory at Gettysburg. There is a plateau which feeds the streams. Six men spent five years in the 1890's building the trail along Falls Creek. It is absolutely gorgeous. We walked in from the top and ate lunch next to a fall. Then Bob and I walked down while Markus, Carol and Mom drove around to meet us. There were many people hiking due to the Labor Day weekend and quite a few people swimming in the pools at the base of the falls.
Picnic lunch at Gonaga Falls (96'), the highest in the park.
Some of the wonderful stone steps on the trail.
Today Bob is playing disc golf with a neighbor who built a forested disc golf course on the property adjoining the Cottage. He and Bob played the Cottage Course on Friday and today they are playing the woods course. This afternoon we go to the Everhard Museum in Scranton. We work on Monday (our last day) and then head to Cape Cod to visit my aunt (my mother's sister) in Wellfleet before we start heading west. We are due home in early October.
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