Wandering around Warren

Buckaloons Campground, Warren, PA   7-2 through 3-2015

Another trip to downtown Warren reveals that the locals are serious about their 4th of July parades. Days before the parade is scheduled to begin, chairs are set out and area are roped off saving prime observation for the local residents.

Further wandering reveals this excellent mural.

It’s been raining a lot, so the river is running high and at the hospital it is beginning to infringe on the helicopter landing site.

The wandering continues and we end up at the Kinzua Dam. We are surprised at the number of hydro-electric stations we are finding.

A little more wandering around and we find an old power house that drove several oil well pumps. The power to drive these pumps was provided by a 22 HP engine that ran off of natural gas provided by the wells they were pumping oil from. Pretty efficient, huh?

Power was transferred by belts to steel rods, some of which were over a half mile long, then converted to up-down motion to work the pumps. These are scattered all over Pennsylvania.

Back at the Allegheny Reservoir, rain had swollen the lake which now covered the walkways to the boat ramps. It was fun watching people wade to their boats.

 

While all this was going on, we busied ourselves at the lakeside restaurant.

Here a driver waits for traffic to clear so he can move his truck.

As the days go by more wandering happens and we find ourselves on the Rimrock Trail which ends/begins across the road from the Kinzua Dam. On of the things I obsessed on was the fact that they chained the benches on the trail. Are Pennsylvania hikes that heinous? Can they not be trusted to not haul off a 50 lb bench and carry it several miles to the nearest road?

We chose to begin our trek at the low end of the trail and hike to the high point instead of the other way around. Our theory was that if we gave up it would be all downhill to the car. However, we persevered and made it to the top where we had a picnic lunch before returning downhill to the car.

The trail started out a little muddy, but soon dried up as we hiked uphill.

The last leg of the first half of the hike was up these steps. You had to go sideways at one point to squeeze through.

 

Our national holiday is just around the corner. Next we are going to brave the crowds and attend the Warren 4th of July parade.