Huh?

I was reminded this afternoon that I hadn't posted anything new in several days--since January 2nd to be exact.

Can't think of a good reason for not doing so. Saturday and Sunday were spent watching football on the tube (I should have been outside--both days were lovely) and I had the computer in my lap the whole time reading everyone else' blogs and dropping comments left, right and sideways.

(Reminds me of an old football story wherein one of the Ivy League schools known for its engineering dept used the defensive battle cry of, "Not one soul shall pass! Neither vertically, horizontally, nor transversely!")

I did go for a nice long (200 mile) ride yesterday. I went west on Route 6 climbing out of the Susquehanna watershed and into that of the Allegheny River at Coudersport in Potter County. (The county welcome sign says "Welcome to God's Country." Neighboring counties joke that He's the only one who would have it!) I went as far a Smethport in McKean County before heading north toward Eldred and then the NY border at Ceres.

I discovered that Ethan Allen Furniture has a factory in Eldred where they turn out a little more than a thousand pieces of furniture a week. Everything is custom work for orders placed in the showrooms around the country. Hardwood for frames of sofas and chairs come from the local forests and from local loggers. (Some of the frames are made by an independent local company.) Business may be slowing down elsewhere, but on Monday the parking lot at the factory was full.

I circled back on Routes 44 and 49 past Cowanesque Lake. Three quarters of the lake is frozen (which is less than Hammond or Tioga Lakes(100%)) and where the water meets the ice, there are flocks of seagulls--probably ring billed gulls--and Canada Geese. I'm sure that if it were not for the recent thaw and the subsequent melting of the snow that reexposed a lot of grass, those geese would have headed south to the Delaware Bay or Chesapeake Bay. They may be dumb and obnoxious, but they ain't stupid.

This was a short voyage of discovery made on my own. I had been to the Coudersport area when we were looking at property three years ago but neither Terry nor I had been out that way or beyond since we started working on the construction of the Aerie. Galeton and Gaines are about as far west as we've been since then.

There's lots of good fishing waters out that way. (In fact, that's one of the reasons I drove out there. The Outdoor Channel had a program about flyfishing Pine Creek and some of the tributaries to both the Susquehanna and Allegheny Rivers.) And, if I go just a bit further west, there's the Allegheny National Forest. But that may be an overnighter. As it was, much of this excursion was done at 50-55 mph and that's just too damn fast to really see anything. Besides Coudersport, there were several other small villages and towns I would have like to stop and get out and look around. Perhaps when spring arrives and the weather is a bit warmer....

Later.

UPDATE: So I get the comment below about going to God's Country and check out Solomon's Words only to find an article posted about how Ethan Allen is closing their Eldred plant!

And if you want up-to-the-minute information of happenings in and around Potter County Solomon's Words would seem to be THE place to go.