Dateline July 12, 2019, Blackwater Falls and Hershey
We had read what a beauty Blackwater Falls State Park was, and we rolled in late in the afternoon to check in. The fellow at the desk told us there were two things not to miss, the falls themselves and Lindy Point, so we laid plans for both the next day. Our site looked out over a big open field dotted with other campers and rigs, and we fell in with the couple parked beside us, who had a brand-new American Coach Sprinter van, over a pleasant hour of cocktails.
The next morning we hiked down to the falls. Blackwater Falls is a sixty-two-foot cascade, the spot where the Blackwater River leaves its easy course through the Canaan Valley and tumbles into the rugged Blackwater Canyon.
The rock here is the Pottsville sandstone, a great ridge-forming layer that runs through the Appalachians and is so hard that it is the softer layers beneath it that give way, letting big slabs break off and crumble to the bottom. Because of it the falls are forever creeping upstream, as the boulders drop away below. We had set out early, and caught the falls in their sunny morning glory, well worth every step.
By the time we got back to the rig the sky opened up and it rained for a good few hours. When the sun finally poked out in the early afternoon, we drove over to the Lindy Point Observation Deck, another must-see. The hike in was about a mile, and good and muddy after all that rain.
It opened onto a fine view down the valley, and away at the far end you could just catch a glimpse of the falls, a very slight one. We drove into the cute little town, but the rain started up again, so we skipped the shops and headed back to camp for the night.
On to Hershey. We took the back roads up to Hershey, Pennsylvania, steering clear of the Interstates, with an early-afternoon tee time at Hershey Country Club and a reservation for the night at a Harvest Host nearby. We had played all three of the Hershey courses a few times, though that was better than ten years back, so we looked forward to the West Course, the one with views of the old Hershey Chocolate Factory and the Hershey Mansion.
The West is the club's signature course, built in 1930 by Milton Hershey himself, the man behind the chocolate. In 1940 Byron Nelson won the first of his PGA Championships here, edging Sam Snead one up in the thirty-six-hole final.
The course rolls along within sight of the Hershey Mansion, set up on its hill.
And for much of the round the old factory sits right at your shoulder. It is a grand thing to play with the chocolate works looking on.
A Harvest Host night. This was our first night with Harvest Hosts, and it is worth a word on why we signed up. The notion is a simple one: instead of pulling into some bright, anonymous parking lot for the night, you stay on a working farm, or at a winery or a brewery, and rather than pay a campground fee you buy something from your host, a bottle of wine, a growler of beer, a jar of honey, and help a small business along. The night becomes part of the trip instead of just a place to close your eyes. When we joined, the list of hosts was still fairly short, but it has grown dramatically since, into thousands of places all across the country, and if you travel by RV at all it is well worth a look.
Our host for the night was The Vineyard and Brewery at Hershey. We walked into the Farmhouse Winery to register, and since we were members they poured us a tasting on the house. There was some interesting wine among it, and we came away with a white we liked.
It was a Friday, and a band was due to play down on the Brewery Patio at seven. They do it every Friday, we learned, and draw a big crowd of locals who bring their own food, pay five dollars a head, and work through the brewery's different craft beers.
We wandered down as the band was setting up, ordered a couple of beers, and listened to an old-style folk singer and his wife, who were pretty good. We headed back up to the rig before the full band started, and on the way noticed a doggie day care and a few other ventures on the property.
We got to talking with Sara, the owner's daughter, who told us the story of the place. Her father, Doug Gellatly, and her mother, Stephanie, had the chance about nine years back to buy a forty-acre farm in Londonderry Township. They put ten of those acres into Greenlin Pet Resorts, and Doug, who had always wanted the rest to be a working farm, fell in with some fellows who wanted to grow grapes. The vines went in in 2009, the Farmhouse Winery opened in 2012, and when folks told them a brewery would turn the place into a weekly stop for the locals, Doug brought on a brewmaster and opened the Brewery Patio. What a fine first taste of Harvest Hosts. We expect to stay at a good many more down the road.
