ROUTE 6 TOUR: John C. McCoy of Arlington, Va., dropped us an email earlier this week with a link to a travel story in Sunday’s Washington Post. John grew up in Bradford and thought we might be interested in what a big-city newspaper had to say about our area.
The story, headlined “Smorgasbord of sights along Pennsylvania’s Route 6,” was written by Anna Bahney and chronicles a three-day car trip by the writer, her husband and their two small children along Route 6 from Scranton to Erie.
“The route offered a pleasant aura of Pennsylvania-ness,” the story reads. “Unlike a drive through New England … or a journey across the leisurely rural lushness of the South, this route takes you through towns historically fueled by industry — lumber and coal, oil and railroads — and the regions still churn with that come-as-you-are resourcefulness.”
Featured prominently at the beginning of the story was the family’s stop at the Kinzua Bridge Skywalk. The writer colorfully described her 2-year-old’s fascination with the glass panels in the floor of the Skywalk, more than 200 feet above the bottom of the Kinzua Gorge, and the vertigo-inducing effect that view had on the writer.
Also noted in our region were Cherry Springs State Park and its world-class stargazing, the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum in Galeton, the Kane Manor bed and breakfast in Kane, and the Smethport Drive-in and its made-to-order burgers.
“This isn’t the Hamptons or Disney World. There’s no jet-set destination hub or shiny packaging,” the writer concludes in the story.
We couldn’t agree more, and we wouldn’t like it if it was.
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VOLUNTEER: Kitty Gainer of Constitution Avenue emailed us a photo of a pretty impressive sunflower growing in her backyard flower bed. She says it’s more than nine feet tall.
More impressive, though, is that it grew up on its own. Kitty theorized that a chipmunk or bird carried the seed to her flower bed from a nearby bird feeder.
The sunflower started growing up between some catnip, dill and cosmos, so Kitty left it there to keep growing.
Now, she said, “It’s like Jack and the Beanstalk.”
