Thursday, February 25, 2016

Locust Ridge Wind Farm


Locust Ridge Wind Farms has 51 256 ft tall turbines (windmills)

We spotted these windmills while on the Southern part of the Columbia County Covered Bridge Tour.  I would love to find a vantage point to get a photo better showing the amount of windmills here. I'd really love to tour this facility! http://iberdrolarenewables.us/cs_locustridge.html

A group did take a tour- there's a Flicker Album here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aweaintern/sets/72157625318638180?view=lg


Completed in 2009 and built by Iberdrola Renewables, the Locus Ridge Wind Farm is located near Mahanoy City, Schuylkill County, PA. The farm has 64 wind turbines and was constructed in two phases. It was partially funded with $59 million in federal stimulus money.
In total, the windmills produce 128 megawatts of electricity. This is enough to power 64,000 homes in nearby areas of northeastern Pennsylvania.



Locust Ridge II, which started generating wind power in 2009, is located right next to Locust Ridge I in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The site straddles Schuylkill and Columbia counties and spans across 5,700 acres of Pennsylvania soil. Locust Ridge II is capable of generating 102 MW of wind energy with its 51 turbines at 256 feet high. Both Locust Ridge projects generate enough wind energy to power about 38,000 homes.

There's another article about the wind farm here:
http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Locust_Ridge_Wind_Farm_in_Pennsylvania


One of the turbines caught on fire in 2014
http://www.pahomepage.com/news/wind-turbine-catches-fire-in-mahanoy-city

Columbia County Covered Bridge Tour #3 - Northeast

The only twin covered bridges in the United States are found here in Columbia County PA.

Part 3 of a 4 part Covered Bridges Of Columbia County Tour
This was my favorite section of tour so far.

The blue diamond on the far right is the parking area for the geocache, once you collect all the answers from the 5 bridges shown here.  

The geocache for this series:
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCP493_covered-bridges-of-columbia-county-northeast?



Kramer Covered Bridge 
N41 07.268 W76 25.918

I wish I had been able to get a better angle as the horses came across the bridge, but we didn't arrive quite soon enough.  Still, I loved seeing them.  Even though most of our neighbors have horses and buggies, there's something about seeing them cross a covered bridge.


 Patterson Covered Bridge 

N41 06.572 W76 25.038 
spans 82 feet across the Green Creek. Located near Orangeville, it was built in 1845.


Stillwater is another bridge lined with picnic tables. There are LOTS of places for picnics on this section of the tour!

Stillwater Covered Bridge

 N41 09.120 W76 22.036
 is single span Burr Arch with a total length of 168 feet. It is on Fishing Creek Road over Fishing Creek Branch in Stillwater. This historic bridge was built in 1849 and is currently closed to motor traffic.





East and West Paden  - Twin Covered Bridges

 N41 06.436 W76 21.418 
 The only twin covered bridges in the United States, are located on Huntington Creek in Fishing Creek Township. Note that the West Paden was washed away on June 28, 2006 due to the heavy rainfall and flooding. 



Josiah Hess Covered Bridge

 N41 06.855 W76 20.343
 is a single span Burr Arch with a total length of 110 feet. It carries Fishing Creek Road over Huntington Creek in the east of Forks PA. This historic bridge was built in 1875. There are picnic tables inside – obviously it’s closed to vehicular traffic.

=================================
Our Log, once we found the final for this cache series - 
Last one for today - we'll have to finish the last one another time. Three of the bridges here are lined with picnic tables - we should have packed a picnic! Loved the twin bridges.

Long drive to the final - I think we should have followed the order given here. We somehow missed the stillwater & had to back track, making it a 20 minutes drive up and down the mountains.

Then when we got to the final we followed the compass & took the wrong trail... finally found the right trail, but that was a steep climb- nothing like the easy walks of the south & central.

Still loving this series, and look forward to doing the last one another day.


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Columbia County Covered Bridge Tour #1 - Central


Read more about the bridges, or download a brochure with all the driving directions, here:

The Columbia County Covered Bridge Association Facebook Page:

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Columbia County Covered Bridge Tour #2 - South


Part two of a four part tour of the Covered Bridges Of Columbia County

We did this tour almost immediately following the Central Tour.  Because we knew this was going to be an extremely rural stretch, and after we completed it we planned to do two small hikes in the game lands (for the final stage geocaches), we decided to drive straight into Elysburg first, to use the bathrooms and grab a snack at Sheetz.


Johnson Covered Bridge 
N40 52.690 W76 29.000 
spans Mugser Run, a tributary of the South Branch of Roaring Creek in Cleveland Township. It is on Township Route 320 east of Knoebel's Grove Amusement Park. This bridge was constructed in 1882 by Daniel Stine for $799.00. Adam M. Johnson was a farmer in the area and also conducted a boot and shoe store near the site. .

To see all of the covered bridges in Columbia County, you need to also visit Knoebels Grove - there is a bridge on the grounds of the park, beside the carousel.  Knoebels was not open today (Feburary 22) and we've seen the bridge there dozens of times over the years


Paars Mill Covered Bridge
 N40 54.385 W76 28.362
 connecting Franklin and Cleveland Townships, spans the North Branch of Roaring Creek. F. L. Shuman constructed this bridge in 1866 for $1,275.00. In 1875, Washington Parr purchased the Willow Grove Grist Mill nearby, and it became better known as Parr's Mill.

This is what you see on the other side of the Parrs Mill bridge.  It appears the bridge is closed not because there is anything wrong with the bridge,but because there is nothing on the other side.  This would be a great spot for another twin covered bridge. :-)


Esther Furnace Covered Bridge 
N40 54.399 W76 27.586
 There is a huge camping field adjacent to this bridge if you decide to camp out. Built in 1881 by C. W. Eves, this bridge cost $1,044.75. It is named after the Esther iron smelting furnace built in 1817. It spans the North Branch of Roaring Creek.

I love the window in the Esther Furnace Bridge:




Davis Covered Bridge
 N40 54.592 W76 26.390
 The bridge spans the North Branch of Roaring Creek. It was built in 1875 by Daniel Kostenbauder at a cost of $1,248.00. In the late 1800s a Davis who lived on a nearby farm began repairs on the bridge, giving it his name.


Snyder Covered Bridge
 N40 54.080 W76 23.652
 Spanning the North Branch of Roaring Creek, the construction date, builder, and cost of this bridge are unknown. It is listed in the County Bridge Book as being near John Snyder's grist mill.

===================================

If you are geocaching, I recommend the following caches on your way to the finals for the Covered Bridge Central & Covered Bridge South.


The Ringer - Bell alongside the Rd in the middle of the woods

Final Cache For CB South

A Million Times Give Or Take - awesome view

Holy Cache

Final Cache For CB  Central 


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Columbia County Covered Bridge Tour #1 - Central

Read more about the bridges, or download a brochure with all the driving directions, here:

The Columbia County Covered Bridge Association Facebook Page:

Monday, February 22, 2016

Columbia County Covered Brige Tour #1- Central

Rupert Covered Bridge

Pennsylvania's third largest concentration of covered bridges can be found in Columbia County. Nineteen bridges are within the county, and four span the border between Columbia and Northumberland Counties. 

We visited these bridges as part of the Multicache Geocache found here:



Wanich Covered Bridge 
N41 02.377 W76 28.970
This bridge is located on Covered Bridge Road, off of Millville Rd, 
 George Russell built the 108 foot Wanich bridge in 1844 at a cost of $500.00. John Wanich was a farmer who resided nearby. The bridge crosses Little Fishing Creek.

If you are geocaching, this is one of the best covered bridge hides ever.  They put some work into this container,and it's really nice!


 Wagner Covered Bridge 
N40 59.908 W76 28.990
 no longer crossing water, this 62 foot bridge was relocated 10 miles to its present location. It was built in 1874 and originally crossed the North Branch of Roaring Creek.



Rupert Covered Bridge
 N40 58.859 W76 28.358 
costing $1,637.00, the Rupert bridge was built in 1847 by Jesse W. Beard. It was named after the nearby village, which was settled by Leonard Rupert in 1788. Rupert established a ferry across the river and his home became a popular stopping off place for travelers. It’s 185 feet span crosses Fishing Creek.


There's a really nice parking area for this bridge at the corner of Covered Bridge & Train Streets, as there is a rail to trail path here.  I don't know much about the path, we're looking forward to exploring that another day.  This bridge had the most traffic, even on a Monday morning, of any we visited this day. There was foot traffic, and a stead flow of vehicles, crossing this bridge the entire time we were there!


Hollingshead Covered Bridge 
N40 57.113 W76 26.864 
was built in 1851 by Peter Ent for a cost of $1,180.00. Henry Hollingshead owned a nearby mill. It spans Catawissa Creek and is 128 feet.


Many of the bridges are on the National Register of Historic Place

===================================================
For the final stage of this geocache, after collecting all of the answers, we went straight to the South tour next, saw all of those bridges, THEN we went to the final stages of both of these caches.  They are both in the game lands to the west, and this seemed like the wisest route for us.

Part Two of Our Trip - South - is here:
http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2016/02/columbia-county-covered-bridge-tour-2.html
Read more about the bridges, or download a brochure with all the driving directions, here:

The Columbia County Covered Bridge Association Facebook Page:

Touring The Covered Bridges In Columbia County Pa


There are a series of geocaches here - old caches - based on the Covered Bridges Of Columbia County.  They are labeled as multicaches, but they aren't really - they are something closer to a puzzle cache, or a wherigo. There is only one physical cache. You visit 4-5 covered bridges, often a good distance apart, where you find the answer to a question for each bridge, on a sign near or on the bridge. Then you drive another good distance to hike (some are nice little walks, at least one is a good hike) in the game lands to find an ammo box in the woods.  It really is a nice series of caches, and I love covered bridges, so this made a fun trip for us.

The caches we found hadn't been visited in close to a year.  They are a little more effort than most of the caches in this area, but I like that about them.  They appear to only have about 70 finds, in 11 years. (They were created in May of 2005)

Because we attempted it in February, we ran out of daylight before we got to the fourth section.  In the summer or fall it would be very possible to do these all in one day - just make sure you have a full gas tank.  And pack a picnic lunch, some of the bridges have picnic tables inside, and there were lots of other picnic areas we drove by as well.

Personally, if we were to start again, I would have split this into two days from the start, doing the south and central one day, and the northeast and northwest another day.  That would enable you to add a lot of other sites and geocaches without feeling rushed.



Before we headed out, I created a "my map" in google maps, of all the bridges.  
You can use this map, I've made it public - just go to the link here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zim-4slQ6mIM.kvOd5ejLoE_A&usp=sharing

You can add that map to google maps on your phone, to navigate.  These are the instructions from the google help site:
If you’ve saved a map in My Maps, you can see it in the Google Maps app on your phone or tablet.
  1. Sign in and open the Google Maps app maps.
  2. Touch the Menu  > Your places.
  3. Scroll down to see your maps.
  4. Touch one to show it on the map.
I found that if I opened the My Maps app (not google maps) clicked on the location I wanted, the location would appear at the bottom of my phone screen.  If I tapped on that location, a navigation button would appear near the top of the screen.  Tapping the navigation button would begin the navigation.
If you are doing the geocaches, remember to take a notebook along  - you'll need to answer a question at each covered bridge. You might want to print the cache descriptions (which have all the questions) and write the answers in as you go. 


We started with the Central Tour, and planned to work our way counter clockwise, ending with the North Tour.

Link To the Central Tour Geocache - https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCP53H_covered-bridges-of-columbia-county-central

My Photos and locations of all the bridges on the Central Tour - 
http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2016/02/columbia-county-covered-brige-tour-1.html
I've also listed some of the other caches we did while on this part of the tour, on the page above.

There are a LOT of geocaches in nearby Bloomsburg, and it would be easy to spend a couple of days just geocaching in this area.  We live close enough that we just find a few caches every time we are over that way, and this trip was no exception.  We DNF'd the cache located here at the Rupert Bridge, mainly because there was so much traffic, it was hard to look.  This is both open to traffic, and part of a rail trail - so the bridge has constant car and vehicular traffic, and was busy even on the Monday morning we were there.  We plan to go back and check out the rail trail sometime this spring.

It didn't make sense for us to drive to the final cache after finishing this tour, it was less backtracking to start the second tour, then find both those finals in a row.  (see the map above - the blue diamonds on the map are the parking areas for the final stages)

================================================================

Part Two - Columbia County Covered Bridge Tour, South
http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2016/02/columbia-county-covered-bridge-tour-2.html

I would recommend that at this point you might want to drive on into Elysburg and use the bathrooms at the Sheetz, Burger King, or McDonalds.  You won't pass anything at all for quite awhile, this is the last good time to stop anywhere.

It's also worth noting that on this tour, you are only about 20 minutes away from Centralia.  If you are breaking this tour up into a couple of days and have time, it's worth the trip - Centralia is an interesting place. An underground mine fire has made this a ghost town - but graffiti highway is there, as well as a few caches where houses and buildings once stood.    The fire still burns underground.

The cache for the South Bridges: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=d9a16dc5-d89a-4d32-ace6-f94f0cee99e6

After completing this tour, there's an interesting cache along the way to the finals in the gamelands - The Ringer - Bell alongside the Rd in the middle of the woods    https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC1D0WF_the-ringer


We also passed the windmills - Locust Ridge Wind Farms.  All those windmills were pretty neat to see...  I never got a great vantage point to show how many windmills there really are, it's much more impressive than my photos show.  http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2016/02/locust-ridge-wind-farm.html

=============================================================

Columbia County Covered Bridges Part 3 - Northeast
http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2016/02/columbia-county-covered-bridge-tour-3.html

This section of the tour includes the Twin Covered Bridges, the only twin covered bridges in the United States.  The Josiah Hess bridge is just one mile down the road from the twin bridges.  If we were only to do ONE of these tours, I'd chose this one.  But fair warning - the hike to get the final for this one is a lot more difficult than the South and Central caches.  Well, the hike to the cache is easy - it's getting back out when it's all uphill...

The geocache for this tour: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=7efd1c27-be20-4d3f-be20-a10674e83578

===============================================================
Columbia County Covered Bridges Part 4 - Northwest

We haven't done this part yet - we ran out of daylight - but we do plan to do this soon!

The geocache for the Northwest Covered Bridges  http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=c8d3d326-edc3-455d-bc0a-96d8caeff48d

=================================================================
The same geocacher that created these tours has also created covered bridge tours in other counties:

All of the pictures from our trip can be seen in a facebook photo album here
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.470623196473433.1073742062.175207949348294&type=1&l=84da098e61


Read more about the bridges, or download a brochure with all the driving directions, here:

The Columbia County Covered Bridge Association Facebook Page is here:

This is an excellent website with all of the Covered Bridges In PA

Friday, February 19, 2016

2016 Columbia County Wine Tour

"What’s more romantic than discovering a new favorite red or white paired with rich chocolates? Each of our wineries will offer special pairings during Wine and Chocolate Week, February 7 – 14. Visit all seven wineries with your sweetheart and get entered to win a wine basket. Just pick up a punch card at the first location and sip away. Please visit each winery website for their hours of operation. www.itourwinetrail.com"
Because we enjoy geocaching, and because our schedule is always pretty full, we split this into two trips.  Friday night we headed to Benton, Saturday we traveled to Berwick and Danville.  While this probably all could have been done in one day, I would have ideally split this into three days, rather than two.  Benton/Berwick/Danville.  By the time we go to Danville on Saturday evening, we were both just a little tired, and tired of wines.  I think we would have enjoyed the Danville wineries so much more if we had done them on a separate day.
Friday:

Colonel Ricketts Hard Cider Winery

126 South Third Street Benton, PA 17814
When we first pulled up, we thought we were in the wrong place.  Do NOT let the outside of this building deter you.  This was my husbands favorite stop.  It's unique, and wonderful.  The owner gave us a tour, and seeing all of those jack daniels barrels stacked up is pretty cool. And the taste from the barrels? Also unique.  AND he makes a birch  that I cannot wait to try - it wasn't ready yet.  The smell was amazing.  This is the father of the owner of the new Cider House in Lewisburg, which we loved when we did the Lewisburg Chocolate tour.  
 


Elk Mountain Winery at Stoney Acres
4378 Red Rock Road
Benton, PA 17814

This was the big disappointment of our trip. Not because they don't have good wine - we have visited their St Mary's location when going to see the Elk.  But on this trip, we traveled all the way there only to find that the hours posted on their website are not correct.  They had new hours posted on  poster board on the door.  When you are traveling close to an hour for something, it's really pretty frustrating to find their website is not up to date.
But to make up for our disappointment, we found the BEST restaurant, in Benton!  If you love good Texas Barbecue, you cannot beat Smokehouse Barbeque.  The brisket was the most tender I have ever had.  The potatoes are put in the smoker with the meat.  It is worth the drive to Benton just to eat here.
While in Benton, we found a few caches, enjoying the view from the Overlook, the dam, and some of the art on the corner:
 

Saturday:
Freas Farm Winery
130 Twin Church Road
Berwick, PA 18603
This winery is an old farmhouse, which can be a bit confusing when you pull in.  But inside, they by far put the most effort into this event.  Live music, the BEST chocolates, the best wine and chocolate pairings..  and all of their wines have a story, they were all named for something.  We loved this place.
They suggest you make brownies with their port - substitute it for the water.  

O'Donnell Winery, LLC
25 Hayes Road
Berwick, PA 18603


The winery is behind the house. This location has wine and paint events, the canvases from past events are on the wall.

Pickering Winery 
1549 State Route 487
Orangeville, PA 17859

Our favorite wines were here.  Pickering also put some extra effort into this event, with wine pairings, special commemorative glasses you could buy, and a few light snacks. Of all the wineries, this was also the easiest to get information on.  One of their customers volunteered to keep up with all inquiries on the facebook event, and this was the only winery that answered questions about when they were open.

Red Shale Ridge Vineyards
234 Mill Street
Danville, PA 17821

This was our last stop, and by then we were a bit cold, a lot tired, and just ready to be done. Which was a shame, the owners were really nice. They offered two kinds of cookies.

Shade Mountain Winery & Vineyard
1 North D&H Ave
Danville, PA 17821
Shade Mountain is a favorite for us, and the winery we are the most familiar with.  They had some great brownies here, including brownies made with their mint wine.  I love the Danville location - love that they are making use of this wonderful historic building!

While in Berwick, we had lunch at the Berwick Brewery.  I know, I know, a beer stop on a wine tour?  But I had read they had the best pizza, and we were not disappointed.  The pizza here is amazing!  And they had Big Bens sodas - including birch.  It's a pretty unique place, a huge warehouse. There was bar seating, but also huge long tables with benches.  It's all pretty industrial rustic, and I loved it.
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Overall, we really enjoyed this tour.  I do think it would have helped to have had all the wineries post their hours, and tasting charges, in the facebook event. It was time consuming,and frustrating, to try to find that information each website -  and then to find that the websites were not always even accurate.  And perhaps if it is to be called Wine And Chocolate Week, there are local bakeries or places in Columbia County that could supply nice chocolates to all of the wineries?  And it would have also have been nice to have a few more details on where to enter some of the wineries. Overall, it made a really nice Valentines Week-end for us.


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