Southwest Pa - a very nice visit

Part of the experience for sure is seeing the country.  Of course.  Its why we live full time now in a camper.  We hope to be in this lifestyle a year or more.  In the interim, house prices can fall from their historic highs of recent to something more reasonable.

In the meantime, lets travel to different parts of our beautiful country.  We have been staying the past week at a campground in the southwestern part of PA.  The campground is in Schellsburg, PA.  A small little town with a couple campgrounds nestled in the lovely Allegany mountains.  We have visited the following towns in proximity.

Bedford.  A town of about 2500, with a cute little main street that housed more businesses that we expected.  Visited a candy and coffee shop, Hebrews and a grocery story, the Giant Eagle.  Just east of Schellsburg via rte. 30.  About 5 miles from here.  Beyond Bedsford is a little town called Evert.  Population 1500.  Another very cute little town that sprawls a little up the mountain.  We had lunch in a little diner and walked around a bit enjoying the sunshine and general cuteness.  We meet a black lab that looked like our black lab.  She barked at us and came over to greet us.  Her mamma said "Oh she barks but that's it".  Sounds familiar.

We also went to a local state park, Shellsburg State Park, right on Rte 30.  Lovely with a capitol L.  The park was easy to find, park and find trails.  We choose a 3.1 mile trail that circled a cute little lake.  The park was beautiful with its fall colors in full transition (early November).  It was clean as could be and included nice facilities including numerous bathrooms.  There was a sandy beach, volleyball and a disk golf course for public use.  We had our dog on the lease at first, but took her off since there were not many people around.  

Route 30 is also known as the Lincoln Memorial Highway.  Named after our great president Abraham Lincoln.  This route was our primary access road for our trips east and west from our campground, also on route 30.  Bedford to the east, Shanksville and Somerset to the west.  Those towns may also sound familiar since they are the site of the infamous flight 93 terrorist high jacking.  We visited the memorial too.  Very somber location and very well done.  It was like reliving that day over again, only with an emphasis on flight 93 from takeoff to high jacking to the attempt from passengers to retake control of the plan to the terrorist pilot crashing the plane into the field.  The memorial honors the passengers who refused to be victims and probably saved many lives that day by not allowing the hijackers to take the plane into DC to crash the capitol building.  We learned how much evidence was eventually gathered at the crash site and how valuable it was in identifying the terrorist cells responsible.  There was even a letter recovered from the terrorists called the "final day" that detailed a lot of stuff.  Of course they also had recordings available from passengers that used the seat cell phones on the plane to call loved ones about what was happening.  Haunting and surreal to listen to.  There was also a memorial called the "Tower of Voices".  It is 93 feet tall in honor on the flight number and has 40 large wind chimes all set at different tones, representing the 40 passengers killed that day.

Finally, we went to a local bison farm, where about 200 bison roamed across 75 acres and said hello.  We also went to the local gift shop and purchased a little stuffed bison for our granddaughter and some bison burgers which we had for dinner that night.  Delicious BTW.  This is also located a stones throw from our campground on Rte. 30 (LMH).

We also visited a local cavern, which was pretty neat.  It took about 45 minutes and included interesting geological information.  Its pretty neat to descend into the earth, even if it was only about 60 feet.

James