The TREE HOUSE

Since so many of you have asked about the house in the Poconos, I decided to repost this from 2006.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

THE TREE HOUSE

The Tree House
Do the words Tree House conjure up some image from your childhood, a place where you could go and hide out, hang out, do pretty much what you wanted with no thoughts about the rest of the world? Most people associate tree houses with carefree little boys, messy places, usually, I mean, who “cleans” up a tree house? Most tree houses are in trees but I remember a friend who built one high on the rocks back behind his “real” house in the mountains overlooking the trees below, accessible by a torturous little path up the cliff face. It looked out into and over the tree tops.
Well, some years ago, Anna named the apartment we have in White Haven the Tree House, partially because it is on tree level in the front but mostly because when we went up there, we would have to spend several days cleaning up after my father and brother who had spent time up there the previous fall. Well, my brother used to come up more often when his aunt lived next door. With the aunt gone, he no longer seems to have any interest in going there. And, my father just turned 89 in May, so his visits are fewer and fewer. Pennsylvania is a long way from Florida, especially when you are 89 years old and driving all alone. I live 300 miles away and dread the drive up!
Four generations of our family have lived in this house and my great-grandparents were not the first owners of the house. I remember coming here to visit my father’s parents as a very little child. My grandfather and I used to sit in a big old swing on the front porch during thunderstorms. It was on this porch that he taught me how to tell how far away the lightning was by counting the seconds from the light to the thunder. He taught me distances and directions this way, also. “Now that one hit over near Freeland. That is 8 miles away,” he’d say. And he’d point and tell me the compass directions for Freeland.
The house is divided in to the Big House and a small 2 room apartment. Well, it isn’t all that small, really, but it is 2 rooms and a bath, an entry way and the “cave,” a small storage room in the hillside where we keep the garden tools, snow shovels, coolers, camping equipment, etc. The temperature in the cave stays in the 50-60º range year round. The living room doubles as a bedroom. The kitchen has a modern electric stove and an old wood or coal cooking stove that used to bake the best cookies! Years ago, Gram used to rent out the little apartment, then she moved into it in her old age when my step mother and brother were evacuated from Vietnam and they lived in the big house. That side has a lot of rooms. When my dad was young, it had 6 bedrooms. Now most of the bedrooms are storage rooms or empty. Dad took two of the rooms and made them into one very large master bedroom. We rent out the big side of the house – well, sorta. E is a tenant but also the caretaker. She keeps the grass cut in the summer and the snow shoveled or plowed in the winter and lets my brother know when something isn’t working right.
You can enter the house from different levels as it is built into the mountainside. From the road, there are 6 steps up to the front yard where there is a porch with a door leading into the cellar. Personally, I would love to turn that into a little apartment – stone walls, etc. The cellar is divided into four rooms, one completely underground, one partly in the side of the hill. There is a set of steps up the side to the first floor level, the front porch, a flower garden, the patio, a sun porch and around back to the entrance to the apartment.
We have a driveway at what amounts to a block away (as measured by the block across the street, but we don’t have any streets crossing on our side) and it goes up to a parking area level with the second floor. Therefore one has to go up or down a flight of steps to get in or out of the house no matter where you park. In my old age, this sucks! The old stone steps are narrow and steep. The property then continues on up the mountain where Bill cuts little paths up to the old stone walls and some great old boulders where I used to climb up and have my morning coffee and watch the sun come up over the mountain and the morning fog burn off the river which is probably about 500 feet away if measured in a straight line. However, in the mountains, there is no such thing as a straight line. There is a very steep bank leading down to the river owned by the state now and is part of the Lehigh Gorge State Park. I used to climb up and down that bank like a little mountain goat when I was a kid. It has its own tiny waterfalls, two of them, actually, from the creek that runs thru my lot across the street. The Lehigh River, even on the hottest day of the year is cold. Seriously cold. But, we used to swim in it as kids.
There used to be a house down there, a great little place, and the people had kids my age and they used to let us run all over their place. Their yard was our “beach!” Then the state wanted it for their Park. The people would not sell. This went on for a couple of years. The state tried to take the place by condemning it. The owners fought back. Then one night, it mysteriously burned to the ground. The fire Marshall could not determine the cause of the fire. Right. But I digress, again. So, of course, the people sold it – the land, that is, since the house was gone – even the garage somehow burned down, too. Amazing, huh? And now it is all weeds and rock as part of the naturalized park.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the house, the mountain side (if you live in the Rockies, please don’t laugh at my use of the word mountain here – that is what it is called) the steps, the view from up back. The plants that line the road for a few hundred feet are peonies my grandfather planted eons ago. Grandpop died in 1954. The trees around the house make it impossible to get a picture of the house in a way to show its size, etc. I will do my best to put the pictures on so you can tell what is what, but I haven’t figured out quite how to arrange things on blogger yet. 

the SHORE

OR, HOME, as I call it. Hopefully this little video will work and you will see a bit more of My Little Corner of the World... The wild ponies are on Assateague. They are called Chincoteague ponies and are now a recognized breed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9mPoCftd6E.
Sorry, I am not tech-savvy enough to do better than this. I do hope you enjoy it.

THIS YEAR'S WATERFALLS

The waterfalls up near my house in PA were rather dried up, trickles, really, compared to last year and other years before. But, nevertheless, we slowly hobbled to as many of them as possible. I always feel like I am on a pilgrimage when I am up there... there are several places I simply have to visit and that includes every waterfall within a 10 mile radius of the house. Well, that is a lie... that includes as many of the waterfalls as I can manage to get to by walking less than a mile from my car and not climbing too many rocks. This year I had to use the cane, but I made it to Luke's and the northern one at Rockport, I can't remember its name. Anyway, here are a few of them. Look hard and you will actually see some water!

Remember the pic from Hickory Run where the water was so high it hit the door on the van as we drove thru it? Or this shot from several years ago when I actually got up there in the fall. Well, as you can see, this year we barely got our tires wet.

THE TREE HOUSE

The Tree House

Do the words Tree House conjure up some image from your childhood, a place where you could go and hide out, hang out, do pretty much what you wanted with no thoughts about the rest of the world? Most people associate tree houses with carefree little boys, messy places, usually, I mean, who “cleans” up a tree house? Most tree houses are in trees but I remember a friend who built one high on the rocks back behind his “real” house in the mountains overlooking the trees below, accessible by a torturous little path up the cliff face. It looked out into and over the tree tops.
Well, some years ago, Anna named the apartment we have in White Haven the Tree House, partially because it is on tree level in the front but mostly because when we went up there, we would have to spend several days cleaning up after my father and brother who had spent time up there the previous fall. Well, my brother used to come up more often when his aunt lived next door. With the aunt gone, he no longer seems to have any interest in going there. And, my father just turned 89 in May, so his visits are fewer and fewer. Pennsylvania is a long way from Florida, especially when you are 89 years old and driving all alone. I live 300 miles away and dread the drive up!
Four generations of our family have lived in this house and my great-grandparents were not the first owners of the house. I remember coming here to visit my father’s parents as a very little child. My grandfather and I used to sit in a big old swing on the front porch during thunderstorms. It was on this porch that he taught me how to tell how far away the lightning was by counting the seconds from the light to the thunder. He taught me distances and directions this way, also. “Now that one hit over near Freeland. That is 8 miles away,” he’d say. And he’d point and tell me the compass directions for Freeland.
The house is divided in to the Big House and a small 2 room apartment. Well, it isn’t all that small, really, but it is 2 rooms and a bath, an entry way and the “cave,” a small storage room in the hillside where we keep the garden tools, snow shovels, coolers, camping equipment, etc. The temperature in the cave stays in the 50-60º range year round. The living room doubles as a bedroom. The kitchen has a modern electric stove and an old wood or coal cooking stove that used to bake the best cookies! Years ago, Gram used to rent out the little apartment, then she moved into it in her old age when my step mother and brother were evacuated from Vietnam and they lived in the big house. That side has a lot of rooms. When my dad was young, it had 6 bedrooms. Now most of the bedrooms are storage rooms or empty. Dad took two of the rooms and made them into one very large master bedroom. We rent out the big side of the house – well, sorta. E is a tenant but also the caretaker. She keeps the grass cut in the summer and the snow shoveled or plowed in the winter and lets my brother know when something isn’t working right.
You can enter the house from different levels as it is built into the mountainside. From the road, there are 6 steps up to the front yard where there is a porch with a door leading into the cellar. Personally, I would love to turn that into a little apartment – stone walls, etc. The cellar is divided into four rooms, one completely underground, one partly in the side of the hill. There is a set of steps up the side to the first floor level, the front porch, a flower garden, the patio, a sun porch and around back to the entrance to the apartment.
We have a driveway at what amounts to a block away (as measured by the block across the street, but we don’t have any streets crossing on our side) and it goes up to a parking area level with the second floor. Therefore one has to go up or down a flight of steps to get in or out of the house no matter where you park. In my old age, this sucks! The old stone steps are narrow and steep. The property then continues on up the mountain where Bill cuts little paths up to the old stone walls and some great old boulders where I used to climb up and have my morning coffee and watch the sun come up over the mountain and the morning fog burn off the river which is probably about 500 feet away if measured in a straight line. However, in the mountains, there is no such thing as a straight line. There is a very steep bank leading down to the river owned by the state now and is part of the Lehigh Gorge State Park. I used to climb up and down that bank like a little mountain goat when I was a kid. It has its own tiny waterfalls, two of them, actually, from the creek that runs thru my lot across the street. The Lehigh River, even on the hottest day of the year is cold. Seriously cold. But, we used to swim in it as kids.
There used to be a house down there, a great little place, and the people had kids my age and they used to let us run all over their place. Their yard was our “beach!” Then the state wanted it for their Park. The people would not sell. This went on for a couple of years. The state tried to take the place by condemning it. The owners fought back. Then one night, it mysteriously burned to the ground. The fire Marshall could not determine the cause of the fire. Right. But I digress, again. So, of course, the people sold it – the land, that is, since the house was gone – even the garage somehow burned down, too. Amazing, huh? And now it is all weeds and rock as part of the naturalized park.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the house, the mountain side (if you live in the Rockies, please don’t laugh at my use of the word mountain here – that is what it is called) the steps, the view from up back. The plants that line the road for a few hundred feet are peonies my grandfather planted eons ago. Grandpop dies in 1954. The trees around the house make it impossible to get a picture of the house in a way to show its size, etc. I will do my best to put the pictures on so you can tell what is what, but I haven’t figured out quite how to arrange things so I can put captions with them. This blog is pretty used friendly, but I am still learning.

A FEW REASONS WHY I GO TO THE POCONOS

A FEW REASONS WHY I GO TO THE POCONOS

Actually, I have lots of reasons for going to the Poconos, my Aunt Kathryn being the first and greatest reason. I would walk the 300+ miles to see Aunt Kathryn. Of course, it would probably take me a year to walk that far, but I would give it my best shot if there were no other way to get there. On my list of top 10 women in my life, Aunt Kathryn would be 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. Grandma has to be first, of course. But, this is not going to be about Aunt Kathryn, as much fun as that would be – she’d shoot me or go out shopping for a new ping pong paddle to greet me with the next time I get up there. If you are family, you KNOW what that ping pong paddle means (the clue is in its name and it has nothing to do with ping pong) but if you are an “outsider,” well, I am sure you can guess. (Though I have never felt its actual presence on my behind, the LOOK was always enough for me, my cousins can attest to its power – or the threat of its power. I learned that LOOK and used it well in my classroom for 38 years. But, as usual, I digress. I probably do that better than anything else in my old age.)
Anyway, the Poconos… My paternal grandparents (and theirs) came from the Poconos, maybe back as many generations as you can count – or so I have been told. When I was young and of dating age, every guy that asked me out Dad said was a cousin. 4th or 5th is still a cousin as far as I am concerned and I have never figured out that twice removed stuff. Now that I live in the South… but I digress again. (Do you think that’s why I married a man from Michigan?)
“Will she ever get to the point?” you say? Well, maybe if you wait long enough. But dating does have something to do with it – back in my youth, one went parking after a movie, dinner, BBQ or whatever, though parking didn’t mean quite the same thing as it does today. Often we would just go for a drive, and the Poconos is the place to be if you want to go for a drive. It seems that no matter what road I was on, sooner or later we would get to a waterfall. Or many waterfalls. Hickory Run was often the destination of choice, or down along the old Pennsylvania Railroad bed that ran along the Lehigh River and is now the Lehigh Gorge State Park. See http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/Parks/lehighgorge.aspx for more info, maps and pics! Or, try http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/hickoryrun.aspx for info about Hickory Run. Another site http://www.audubonslehigh.org/route.htm tells a bit about the area and is a drive we often follow today. Years ago we used to drive the Honey Hole Road, not just because we loved its name, but because it was a beautiful ride. They are in the process of turning it into a State Park, also. Catch a glimpse at - http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/nescopeck.aspx. I practically grew up in these parks and in http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/francesslocum.aspx which is near Trucksville where I lived with my maternal grandparents until I was 9. We drive thru a part of http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/bigpocono.aspx most summers. We also drive thru Tobyhanna http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/tobyhanna.aspx each year, and are just a stone’s throw from bunches of other parks.
As a little kid, I used to go to Ricket’s Glen a lot. It is on my list of places I want to go back to again while I still can walk a little bit. Maybe next year????? http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/rickettsglen.aspx.
My brother keeps talking about selling the Tree House (our house in White Haven) and I am kind of OK with that… well it has been in the family for 4 generations… but those stone steps just about do me in… but I kind of panic when I think I might not be able to see my favorite waterfalls again. Then I found out there are cabins available in some of the Pennsylvania parks. I just discovered that when looking at http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/worldsend.aspx#cabins. Now I am kind of excited! But the waiting list is probably years long, like when we went to St John’s in the Caribbean, I think we had to wait 2 years to get the accommodations we wanted. Anyway, it may be an option, after all, since we pack up and take all the same stuff when we go to the tree house. That part would not be much different – it’s just that there would be NO STEPS to take to get in or out of the house. I vote for that!
So here are a few pictures all within 10 miles of the Tree House, most from Hickory Run or the Lehigh Gorge. We live 7 miles from Hickory Run and 400 feet from Lehigh Gorge. These shots, however, are closer to Rockport than White Haven. I just remembered, I promised pictures of the Tree House, too – so maybe I will do that tomorrow.


I borrowed the shot of the road where you actually drive thru the creek. The water was low this year when we were up, and my old legs just did not want to climb down the bank to get a picture. I have some from previous years - I just haven't dug them out yet.
And last but not least, did I mention why we go when we do? I will add just one or 2 shots of the Mountain Laurel that is usually in full bloom when we are up there. As you can see, it goes as far as the eye can see. As the laurel fades, the Rhododendron starts to bloom. I will do more on the flora and fauna in another post. Blooms and BEARS!
Unfortunately the shots of the falls don't include all the beauty in bloom around them and to expand the view to include everything would make the images too small to be effective.
Anyway, for what its worth, here are a few reasons why I love to go to the Poconos!

Flood Waters in PA

Equal Time to our Friends and Family in Pennsylvania.

Aunt Kathryn was evacuated from her apt on Wednesday… of course, although that statement is true, it is not nearly as dramatic as when she “did her thing” during Hurricane Agnes. Hmmmm, maybe I should do a story on that when I have the time. Anyway, the reality is, they did ask the residents of her building to evacuate – Cousin Michael came to get her; she went to stay with him, taking her car from the underground parking lot under her building. She was packing her bags when I called to see how she was doing. Well, I sure would not want to be stuck on the 14th floor with no elevators working when the power went out, would you?
All in all, it has been a scary time for those in low areas or areas not as protected as some. Many roads were under water, some washed out. It is hard to believe that I just crossed the Market St Bridge just last week! (See the pictures above!) I remember looking down at the pokey old Susquehanna River and telling Anna about Hurricane Agnes and how high the water was as we were driving over the river. Weird, huh? I remember saying how hard it was to imagine that water being up over the entry to the bridge and of all those places along the street being under water. Of course, she has heard the Agnes stories before – on an annual basis probably, every time we go anyplace with Aunt Kathryn, or drive past the old house on Myers St. Whenever anyone asks me why I did not leave during which ever hurricane has gone thru here, I simply say, “It is a family tradition.”
But, as usual, I digress. That should be my middle name and would be if I could get rid of the name Worrywart. Another family tradition I got from my Grandmother. Anyway, if you were in a “bad spot” and have pictures to share, send them along to my email and I will put them on a future posting (or start your own blog – post them here!).

Here are some pics from the Susquehanna and Lehigh Rivers regions. Photos courtesy of the Wilkes Barre Times Leader.

LEVEES PASS TEST
· River hits 34.33 feet at first crest
· Unprotected areas take heavy damage
· Up to 175,000 residents are told to evacuateTIMES LEADER STAFFRiverside neighborhoods emptied Wednesday as a swollen Susquehanna River threatened to reach its highest level since Tropical Storm Agnes devastated the region in 1972.
AROUND THE REGION
06/29/2006 08:30 AM EDTWe're bracing for moreRain is forecast. And it could get worse as Delaware, Schuylkill continue to rise.By Anthony R. Wood, Inquirer Staff WriterThe remarkable siege of rain that has left a deadly legacy of angry, chocolate-brown waters, submerged highways, and forced evacuations threatens the region with yet more flooding today and tomorrow.













This is in Easten, PA, the Lehigh River The Comcast shot is from Reading.

For pictures and the story about our trip home from PA on Sunday thru Delaware and esprecially thru Seaford, go on down to yesterday's posting below.

A WET RIDE HOME!

I think this picture sums up our trip home!





Well, we had an interesting trip to the mountains (Poconos) but an even more interesting trip home! We came home the weekend of the RAIN! It had rained, so they tell me, right much on Friday, some more on Saturday, and was still raining Sunday morning when we tried to get down 13 to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Apparently some areas, Seaford, for example, had over 13 inches of rain within the previous 12 hours. As we drove slowly down 13, we could see homes sitting like islands, businesses with the water over the door sills and swamping out heat pumps, cooling systems, ground level AC units. Vehicles were submerged, nearly submerged, seriously flooded and even floating (Wal-Mart parking lot.) a tow truck was hauling vehicles out of the lot at Hampton Inn, the driver wading thru waist deep water to put a chain around whatever he could reach. A mobile home park was evacuated. Cars were abandoned here and there. There were numerous accidents where folks thought they could just plow on thru. The wake from pickup trucks pushed smaller vehicles off the road into ditches with more than 6 feet of water in them. Rescue crews were pushed to the max. Route 13 was finally closed for a period of time AFTER we managed to get through.
When we finally got home, it was sunny, hot and extremely humid. We had been living with no need for air-conditioning, but it was the first thing I turned on after we finally closed the door. It has been on since. We have had over 5 inches of rain here since we left and thru last night. The weeds have had a wonderful time. The yard looks like a jungle, but it is too wet to take the mower out.
Anyway, here are some pictures mostly of the Seaford, Delaware area. Evacuating a mobile park....




The last shot is of a car driven by someone determined to get to church Sunday morning. Guess she waded the rest of the way in. Wonder who else made it?

Some of these shots are courtesy of WBOC, some are from a news agency.