Wilds, Roots, and Ruins

Sept. 7-8

I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I was in the Smoky Mountains or bought a switchblade. A couple of years, maybe. So it was time to go to Tennessee.

It had also been a while since I had an elk burger, so my first stop was going to be Clearfield, Pa.

I left Fairfield, N.J., sometime before 11 on Friday the seventh heading west on I-80.

I came to the first curiosity of the trip before I even got out of New Jersey. Somewhere in western Morris County or eastern Warren, a police car was stationed next to the central barrier of the highway.

Its lights were flashing as if there was an accident or other hazard for traffic to avoid. There definitely was. 

A civilian car was in front of the cop car. I was moving with traffic, so this all went by in a flash and I didn’t get a chance to ask any questions. 

The civilian car in the middle of Interstate 80 was facing the wrong way. How did it get there?

There is no island that can be crossed. The highway is divided by a concrete wall. The car appeared to be undamaged. 

There is no nearby crossover, no entrance or exit there. 

There were no skid marks, so it’s unlikely the driver hit the brake and went into a spin.

Maybe an attempted K-turn in heavy traffic?

I love a mystery.

Couldn’t recall when I last checked my phone messages, so I made a brief stop at the Delaware Water Gap. As usual, there was nothing too important. Everybody knows the way to reach me is by e-mail. 

There was one warning, though, that I had to call back right away or the Microsoft services on my PC would be terminated. Good thing I own a Mac.

It also seemed a good idea to confirm that I had the car papers with me. I did, so it was all systems go.

On the way out of the parking area, it struck me how wonderful these rock formations are. You can see that some geological force lifted the layers of rock to make the Kittatinny Ridge. Another force broke a hole in it to make the Water Gap.

Sometimes traffic bogs down between the river and the I-380 cut-off to Scranton. But the going wasn’t bad at all today. 

The horizon was fifty shades of grey clouds over the Poconos.

There was no heavy rain Friday, just occasional drizzle. It made a wonderful day for driving. No glare, no heat through the windshield.

You know you’re getting to somewhere else when the speed limit rises to 70 mph around mile 247.

I paused at a rest stop just before exit 192 to Jersey Shore. There was a carving outside, made from a single log, of a duck standing by a dead tree stump, complete with a woodpecker hole.

There also was information about the Pennsylvania Wilds, about 2 million acres of sparsely populated and reforested land in a dozen counties. A hundred years ago, the area had been logged out. Erosion was exhausting the soil. The loss of shade was heating streams, which were also polluted by mining waste. 

The state bought large areas in 1920s and 30s, which was the start of reclamation. The Civilian Conservation Corps reforested the region.

I reached the Comfort Inn in Clearfield around 3:30.

By five or so, I was at Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, my go-to joint in the Pennsylvania Wilds. I had some crispy deep-fried string beans and the elk burger that I’d been craving. 

The French fries were a little greasier than I like. Maybe the oil wasn’t hot enough. But I ate them too.

I had a few new ales. Two were from Neshaminy Creek in Croydon, Pa.: Keep It on the DL session IPA with 4.5% alcohol and Opposite Reaction IPA at 6%.

At the bottle shop, I picked up four-pack of Good Vibes IPA from Voodoo Brewing Co., Meadville, Pa., and polished it off later at the hotel.

All were good American IPAs, bitter and reasonably fragrant. The session had less alcohol than the others and so had less bite, but it was comforting to start with because it was being poured into an empty stomach.

 At Denny’s I had looked at the dessert menu. Cheese cake. Oreos in ice cream. I don’t remember what all.

After a while, the waitress asked me, “Anything look good?”

It all looks good, but I’ve had enough heart-stopping food for one night. (Including Dixie fried string beans.) I’ll save the calories for beer.

Saturday morning I was looking through the guest guidebook to make sure of checkout time when I came across a page of local attractions. There were the county historical museum and another local museum.

Those kinds of things can be fun, and sometimes they contain surprises. But the thing that caught my eye was Bilger’s Rocks Park. The description said it was moody.

I ran an Internet search, and Wikipedia told me the Bilger’s Rocks is a sandstone formation full of crevices, tunnels, and other hiding places. It had been used to hide escapees on the Underground Railway.

Besides, it was only about a dozen miles away. In the wrong direction, sure, but not far enough to matter. You take 879 West for about 10 miles. Just past Curwensville you turn right at the Greenville Pike to Bilger’s Rocks Road.

Google isn’t always accurate when you’re in the sticks or outside the U.S., but these directions worked just fine.

It was about 60 degrees under a steady drizzle when I got there. Nothing’s better than rain in the woods when you’re on the track of something that’s supposed to be spooky.

I drove up the park road past the foundation of the old sawmill and past the ruined stone dam. When I got out of the car to photograph the dam, I saw somebody climbing in the rocks farther up the road.

There was no place to put the car there, so I kept on a little way more and came to a large open space, not only with parking but with a map. 

It showed an arena or pavilion of some kind for events, an area for concessions, and several trails. I took the option of going to the Top of the Rocks. 

That took me past a spot where they are rooting chestnut trees as part of a reintroduction program. The American chestnut has been almost wiped out by a blight that entered the country from Asia in the last century.

The array included saplings of a recently developed blight-resistant strain called 1.0. Others were specimens from China and Europe. They weren’t labeled, so I don’t know which was which.

The path took me under a hemlock into an area densely shrouded by trees. The shade is so dense that there is no undergrowth. There is moss among twisted tree roots.

The most surprising thing was a sense of deja vu. The rock formations are not only angular; they are almost rectilinear: Right-angle corners and almost sheer cliff faces, some 20 or 30 feet high. Much of it looks built rather than naturally formed.

With the trees stretching over the rocks it was roots and ruins all over again. So if you want to get a taste of Angkor Wat but don’t want to trek all the way to Cambodia, you can come to the park near Grampian, Pa.

They don’t have monkeys, though, so you have to bring your own.

I left the park shortly after 11. After a pleasant drive through central Pennsylvania and across the panhandles of Maryland and West Virginia, I made it to La Quinta in Winchester, Va., a little after three. After I settled in, I did a search for craft beer and food, which is how I wound up at Oak Stone Pizza.

It was easy to get to. I go out of the hotel and turn right to Jubal Early Drive, then turn right on Valley Avenue, which is also U.S. 11, the Lee-Jackson Highway. Do I have to remind anybody which state I’m in?

I started with an IPA called Pattern Recognition made by Reason Beer in Charlottesville. Maybe the brewery’s run by psych majors at the University of Virginia.

Anyhow, this one was a little thin. Not enough hops? Too much water? I can’t say, but not enough flavor to make me want another one.

Oak Stone says it makes craft pizza. I’m a bit skeptical about pizza made in the States too far from New York or Philadelphia. 

The only place I trust in all of western New York State is Frank’s place in New Berlin.

Oak Stone’s Margherita sounded right. It was made with Roma tomatoes, not tomato sauce. The other ingredients were mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. 

I probably would have gone with that, except for the Bee’s Knees. How could anyone pass up brie, goat cheese, caramelized onion, and tupelo honey? Anything that sounds that wrong has to be spot-on good.

And it was. Strange, true enough, but also good fun.

I finished the IPA and moved on to Rogue Hazelnut Brown. It was a little too sweet for me, like many brown ales. The hazelnut twist? I’m not so sure. Been there, done that.

Finally, I had an old standby, Founders All Day IPA. It has a little less than 5 percent alcohol, so it’s a session ale. It has a very mild fragrance and good, bitter hops.

I’m off to visit my cousin John in southwest Virginia tomorrow. The day after, I’ll be in Sevierville, one of the strangest, funniest places I know.

Love to all. Be well, everybody. 

And if you go to Bilger’s Rocks, don’t forget to take your monkey.

Harry