the family loop

okay, if i finish this post tonight, i will be completely caught up! that's four in one day, thank you. my grandmother is already commenting how much time i've spent on this today. =P

Saturday evening i made sweet tea, potato salad and burger patties in a birthday celebration that the Mikes and Sarah could join me for. Tim had a week off and was in town with his college buddies, so i finished off the Arts Fest partying with them. Sunday we went for a bike ride and kicked it at Greenwood Furnace on the lake. that night was more of my cooking and a little LeBatt.

i need to head back to North Carolina soon, so i decided that Monday was a good day to make my way to Glen Hope to see my grandfather's grave. i have also been itching to drive up Wycoff Run to my dad's old farmhouse and take photos. insert long, useless discussions with photo profs.

[where my father grew up]

the farmhouse is in the tiny not-even-a-town Inez. imagine a Japanese family of seven farming in rural Pennsylvania. well, being post WWII, they couldn't own land without a sponsor of sorts. theirs died with only a year or two left on the mortgage and, since none of the heirs were willing to pick the family up, they lost everything and had to move into Coudersport.

it's easy to see from 872 and we always passed by it driving to Coudy when everyone still lived there. my dad has given me a detailed tour of the former farm many times as a young child, to the point me and my cousins would roll our eyes when him and his brothers started babbling about it. still, the significance runs deep. like i said, long discussions with photo profs. the place has a lot of baggage that i don't feel like sharing with pretentious fine art floosies just yet.

the house is pretty big and, though the roof fell in the front, the inside is still sound. there's a lot of someone's junk, hence the 'no trespassing' signs, but i still climb in the window, of course. i really wish i could have done this with my dad and hear all the stories again; maybe newly resurfaced ones. i have a notebook full of medium format negatives from that house, with tons of tales to be told.

there are some cheesy abandoned house photos in the album that have no importance to be shown on this page.

[my favourite road]

part two: Wycoff Run. this is the summertime route from my mom's family to my dad's. i've prattled about how much fun it is to Tim several times, though it wasn't a prominent memory in his bank of motorcycle rides. he left State College the same day and was headed in the direction of the farmhouse, so he asked for the coordinates to check it out. since i was so close to Coudersport, i had to stop by. my cousin Trevor is the only one still living there and his wife Jen was home, so we chatted for a bit. we really didn't think our timing would match up, but Tim texted me while i was still in town and we ate at a local place. i was very disappointed that Erway's was no longer open. everyone in the family always ate there. even so, the waitress at The Maple Leaf knew my dad. Kuratomis certainly leave a mark.

sorry, back to the road. i typed it in Google to plan my route, but a YouTube video popped up before i even clicked on GoogleMaps. you should check this out!! we only took Wycoff in the summer because the road was closed in the winter. you have to be careful in the mornings and evening due to fog.

[George B. Stevenson spillway]

going away from Inez, the spillway comes up before the Wycoff's real serious curves. Tim and i stopped here before he went off for some serious riding. not that my driving is not serious too. ;) i try not to go over 65mph, though. my theory is: i can handle 30mph over the recommended speed easily and the actual speed limit is 35, so i shouldn't get any bad surprises. fair enough, right?

[wrong-turn landscape outside Karthaus]

after a day of very fortunate events, i winged it on my way to Glen Hope without directions, a map or Garmin. i may get off track, but i know the area well enough that i don't go too far in the wrong direction. hey, i came across another beautiful area. no loss.

after this trip of so many new homes, Glen Hope is the one VERY familiar resting place. Google it. props to you if you've heard of it before. there are definitely people from the same county who don't even know of it's existence.