I do really enjoy our new home in York. There is so much history here. Going downtown is always fun to look at the old buildings and see what is new.
I bet most people don’t realize that York was the first capitol of the United States. If you would like to learn more about York check this out.
History – City of York, Pennsylvania (yorkcity.org)
Anyway, back to my story. We went to look around with our son, Cade, and granddaughter, Brodie. We checked out some to the old buildings.
Early summer David and I bought tickets to the Bluefield Blues Festival to see Samatha Fish. It was over a 7 hour drive but David and I love to go on road trips.
On the way we stopped to gas up and grab some lunch. Then we continued on laughing, talking and singing all the way to our hotel in Bluefield, WV.
Bluefield is a small town in the Appalachian Mountains. It is a coal mining town. You still see the coal cars loaded with coal at the railyard. They helped support the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The development of the coal industry in this area created a boom in the local and national economy, and attracted immigrant European workers and enslaved/ migrant African Americans from the Deep South to the mountains in search of industrial work. During the Great War and World War II, coal from this area supplied the navies of the United States and United Kingdom.
Continue reading “Samantha Fish at Bluefield Blues Festival”
I am so sorry about taking so long to since I have blogged but summer has been a whirl wind. Here it is August and there are so many things we haven’t got done. Anyway back to my new story.
I received a email about things to do in our area. One of the things listed was the River Discovery Boat Tour which was free. Well David and I are really into free and boats so I grabbed us some tickets.
The middle child, Sarah, and her family decided to drive across country to visit from Gig Harbor, Washington. I call her the middle child because all her life we heard about her being the middle child of 5 children. We do give her a hard time about it. but she tried using it on her Dad and me. Got to love the middle child!
They were going to come in the spring but Steve, son in law, wasn’t working right now. He was waiting for his job to start up, so they came in February. They were all here for my birthday which was great.
Little Bear, their dog, snuggled up with Meadow.
Willow is a normal child who thinks she is already a teenager. Who in the old days we would have said can’t get her nose out of the book and now we say get them off their tablet. I think I like the idea of their nose being in a book better.
I just love showing off the downtown area of my new home, so before Jared left for home we had to take him there. There is so much history there.
I love all the old buildings. They remind me of the time I lived in England.
David and I always have enjoyed going to the movies. Now with Covid-19 the movie theaters are closed we have started streaming. Amazon Prime Video is letting you rent or buy theater movies. We were excited about this.
After I rented several movies which you have a month before you start to watch them. Once you have started watching them you have 48 hours to watch all of it.
Every night David and I take turns picking a movie. I picked Downton Abbey. I was not sure if David would like it but he was very impressed. I have enjoyed the TV series.
Downton Abbey is the story of the Crawleys and their staff as they prepared for the royal visit from the King and Queen.
It was superb in every respect. Writing was excellent with great lines from different characters. The costuming and sets were great. You should check out all the hats. The cinematography was excellent. We enjoyed the story and highly recommend this movie.
We decided to go to McCarthy for 4th of July. I took tons of photos and somehow managed to loose most of them. So there won’t be many on this blog.
We headed to McCarthy in our camper. I had not been there since 1980. David had never been there. Our kids and granddaughters were meeting us there.
Boy was I surprised when we got there. Where we had camped back in May of 1980 was now a campground. It was still just a big gravel area along the Kennicott River. We found a camping spot, you just park where you want. You can’t get the big RV’s down the road to McCarthy. The hand trolley that used to take you across the river has been replaced by a footbridge. The people of McCarthy no longer had to wait until spring to drive across the Kennicott River because they have a private bridge now.
We arrived a day early from the rest of our party, so we could find us a good campsite. We found one right on the river and parked so we could save a space for the rest of us. There is only one other camper on the other end of the area we were camping in. As we got out of our truck and were walking to the back I notice that the person at the other campsite is walking over. All of a sudden she says, “I knew it was you. I saw those legs getting out of the truck and I thought those look like Cindy’s legs. Then I saw that long grey hair and I knew it was you.” It was only David’s niece, Laura and her two kids, Mattie and Hannah. We had no idea that she was there. Now our family camping trip got even bigger.
We spent 4th of July in McCarthy. We went to the pancake breakfast and then to the parade. Our twin granddaughter’s were in the parade because Daddy made a cool stroller that goes easily across rough terrain. He put bushwheels, airplane tires, on the stroller. Everyone was taking photos of it.
Checkout more about McCarthy here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthy,_Alaska
It was a booming place when the Kennicott mine was going strong because alcoholic beverages and prostitution were forbidden in Kennecott.
It is also known for the murders of 1983 when a man shot 6 of the 22 residents while they waited for the mail plane to land. There is more about this on Discovery Channel’s Alaska’s Ice Cold Killer episode “Frozen Terror”.
There was also a TV series on Discovery Channel called “Edge of Alaska”
https://eztvseries.net/tv/63462/edge-of-alaska
Then there was the story about the Pilgrims. Who were thought to be this big family who moved out to some land outside of McCarthy who were quaint and charming until the truth came out.
https://www.outsideonline.com/1928141/papa-pilgrims-progress-dark-tale-alaskan-frontiersman
This poor little town has a lot of bad things happen to it but it just keeps on going.
The next day we went up to Kennicott mine. It was a ghost mine when I was here in 1980. When they closed the mine they just left everything there. The whole mine was deteriorating. In June of 1998, the National Park Service acquired many of the significant buildings and lands of the historic mining town of Kennicott. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and designated as a National Historic Landmark since 1986, Kennicott is considered the best remaining example of early 20th Century copper mining.
https://www.nps.gov/wrst/learn/historyculture/kennecott-mines-national-historic-landmark.htm
I wish I wouldn’t have lost my photos but life goes on. I guess this means I need to go back.
Hope you enjoyed the history lesson.
Thanks for stopping by!
We had decided to start packing the car at around 8. We were planning on visiting Hell’s Gate which was not very far down the road. We thought it would open by 9.
As I was loading some stuff in the car a woman in the apartment next to our room asked me ………..
Continue reading “Meeting New Friends & Seeing New Places”After leaving Mt Kitt we headed to Ajo, Arizona. I had never been there but our friend, Kat and her son Silas, live there and I always wanted to visit. We had already decided to stop to visit them on our way home.
Continue reading “Visiting a Good Friend”Growing up in South Texas and Catholic I have always loved the old missions. As I said we were looking for places to stop on our Road Atlas. I had noticed that San Xavier del Bac was just outside of Tucson.
Continue reading “Love Missions”
