Road Trip - Wellsboro & The PA Grand Canyon.

Sunday we took a day trip to Wellsboro.  I hesitate to travel on Labor Day week-end, because I do not love crowds, but this was a perfect day trip for us.  Everything was open, even though it was a Sunday, there were maple funnel cakes and maple lattes at the Pa Grand Canyon, and although there were people around, it was never crowded anywhere we went.

It's unusual to see this much color already this early in September...

Our first stop in Wellsboro was the Native Bagel, for breakfast.  This is one of my favorite places to eat.  The bagel chips are REALLY good.

Almost 26 years ago, we spent part of our honeymoon in Wellsboro.  Although we visit the area about once a year, that was the last time we had done the walking tour.  Now the walking tour is part of a geocache (you can still do it separately, without geocaching) so we decided it was a good time to do the tour again.

The Wynken Blynken & Nod fountain is one of my favorite things to see.  I read this poem to our children so often when they were young that I can still recite whole parts of it from memory.  We visit it every time we come to Wellsboro.  Usually we visit off season, it's not often that I have seen it with the water on.  The entire green here is beautiful, with several nice monuments.

This door was given by Abraham Lincoln to Dr. and Mrs. Shearer when they bought this house in 1858. They were close friends with Lincoln when they lived in Springfield, Illinios, and he gave them the door off of another building. This is a site on the self guided Walking Tour of Historic Wellsboro, and brochures are found at the Chamber of Commerce at 114 Main Street. The door is on private property but is easily seen from the sidewalk.

I don't remember the Lincoln door, from 26 years ago, although I'm sure it was here.  I love interesting little history tidbits like this.

There are great little stores all along main street downtown.  Locally owned, unique, stores.  Those were a bit crowded with the holiday crowds, but not impossible to visit.  Dan's favorite hat is from the mens store there, purchased during A Dickens Of A Christmas a few years back.  I love the five and dime store..  and the candy store is a great stop when it is not too crowded.

The Wellsboro diner is another great place to eat!

We never did find the geocache  - the wherigo has some issues, and the final coordinates are not even given at the end...  the original hide location has been removed...  I hate to see caches like this archived, but this one needs to be, unfortunately.  After doing the Intercache in NY, we definitely prefer Intercaches to Wherigos.  Same concept, the software for Intercaches is just  better.  We found a couple of small regular geocaches around town.

After the walking tour we headed over to Leonard Harrison State Park - The Pa Grand Canyon.   There was an Eagle flying around when we got there, although he was far enough away that I didn't get any great photos.  There was also a food truck!!!  Maple everything.  Maple cotton candy, maple funnel cakes, maple frappes...  

The Incinerator built by the CCC

We did the short hike (it's about a mile, I think?  To the Otter view overlook.  The trail is a Q -  you walk to the incinerator built by the CCC, then you can either go right or left - it does not matter, from here the trail is a loop.  It's a little steep on one side, but not too difficult of a hike.  (I'm still just a few weeks out from knee surgery, and I'm in terrible shape this year, but  I still did it pretty easily)

There's a really neat stone by the incinerator - 

 

The view from Otter overlook - 

Then we had a maple funnel cake, a maple frappe for me and hot apple cider for Dan, while sitting by the CCC statue.  

On the drive out, we stopped to pose for photos with the old phone booth along the road.

I wasn't up to hiking to the bottom of the canyon (the turkey path) today, so we drove over to the other side of the canyon and did the geocaches there.  This is Colton Point State Park.


When we got there, a man had come out of the woods before the parking area and flagged down the truck in front of us - his wife had broken her ankle on the trail and they couldn't get her out.  Cell service is VERY spotty here, but near the overlook they got enough of a connection to call the park office and get an ambulance and a ranger sent over.  As we were driving out, two fire police, a paramedic, and two ambulances passed us.  

1 TREATED AT HOSPITAL AFTER LAND RESCUE 

FNN Article © 2017

Around 5:25PM on Sunday, September 3, 2017, Wellsboro and Galeton fire crews were dispatched for a land rescue in Shippen Township at the Colton Point State Park.

Firefighters and an ambulance crew handled an incident where a woman fell along the Rim Trail and suffered an ankle injury.

It took rescuers a short time to locate the injured woman along the trail. Around 6:00PM the patient's ankle was stablized and she was then transported to the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hospital in Wellsboro for treatment of her injuries.

Another job well done by local fire and ambulance personnel.

We only walked on the trail a short distance, to the geocache, and when the park ranger arrived we left - there was nothing we could do to help and we wanted to be out of the way.

On the way out I stopped to take pics of the Smokey sign, and then stopped again to take pics of the heron in the creek.  And then again, to watch about 20 wild turkeys fly across the road.  I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of that, but we watched them in the field for a few minutes.  Molly was fascinated.

 

Originally we had planned to check out Bootleg BBQ in Williamsport for dinner, but during the walking tour we saw that our favorite steak house was open that evening.  The steaks here are SO good, we decided not to pass up this opportunity.  

All in all, just an absolutely gorgeous, relaxing, fun, day.  It was a whim of a trip, we didn't really have a plan, but we knew we loved this area, and it all worked out perfectly for us!

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