Eagle Eyes

July 5

In West Virginia, The ridges are alive with the rotors of windmills.

I passed a gorgeous row of them and then a while later thought I had been going in circles. There were the windmills again coming up on my left. But then I looked right, and there they were again. And again.

Of course, I was in central Pennsylvania when I woke up on the fifth. Interstate 80 is a beeline home. I’ve done that beeline many times to and from Clearfield. This time, though, I decided to take a byway. U.S. 220 joins 80 and then veers north about an hour from Clearfield.

I wonder what’s up there.

I was barreling along, listening to some nice classical music from the Penn State radio station. The ride was so free and easy that I had to keep an eye on the speedometer. Time and again, it would get away from me and the car would be doing 80. That risks a ticket. Unless there’s somebody else passing you. Then you’re likely to be OK.

The exit to 220 was easy to find. So was the sign for Bald Eagle State Park. Wow, what if they have real bald eagles there?

But when I got to the first intersection, I had to guess which way to turn to find the eagles. That’s how I wound up in Lock Haven, a couple of miles up the road.

It’s one of those beautiful little towns you find everywhere I’ve been on the Eastern Seaboard. Steeples, small stores, a town square with a soldiers and sailors monument for the Civil War. They even have a time capsule to be opened in 2032.

This monument didn’t have anything as colorful as a quote from Mussolini on it. It did have Lincoln’s “with malice toward none,” but I don’t put Lincoln into the same class with Mussolini, who is a bit more on the exotic side for me.

But there seems to be a distinction about this monument. I got as close to the base as I could manage without trampling the town’s flowers. Unless it is the strangest carved 9 I ever saw, the dedication read 1808, which is more than 50 years before the Civil War started. Is it possible that the people of Lock Haven were that prescient? Or had I found a monument with a typo? Either way is pretty cool, gang.

Once I had the name of the town (very easy to get since I parked in front of the town hall) I could get my bearings.

As I expected I had taken the wrong direction and just had to take the same road back the other way a few miles. So far, so good. I stopped at a couple of gas stations but they had no public rest rooms, so I decided to fuel the car elsewhere.

The park is right off Pennsylvania highway 150. And yes, one of the rangers at the office said, they have bald eagles. They have to have bald eagles there, another said, because of the name of the park. If these leave, they have to bring others in.

A lady said the park isn’t named for the birds, but for Chief Bald Eagle. Lies, more lies, and who knows what. My kind of place.

I didn’t see any eagles. It was very hot and they were either already at the beach or were hiding out in air-conditioned aeries. Nothing was flying that afternoon, not even clouds. The sky was a perfect blue.

This was apparently Iroquois country. There was a rest stop with a marker about the Warriors’ Path. Sounded a lot like the Interstate Highway system. Only they did it on foot.

After leaving the park, I had a couple of chocolate chip cookies for lunch and headed home.

The traffic grew heavier, as it always does, as I moved east. But there was no punishing delay. It did keep my speed in the no-ticket range. So maybe that’s an upside.

Anyhow, as you can tell, I got home just fine.

Be well, all.